Syracuse Basketball: 5-star target from D.C. area wants to win national title

Heading into his sophomore season at one of the best high-school programs across the entire country, Syracuse basketball recruiting target Jordan Smith Jr. from the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region has some big-time, lofty goals in mind as the 2023-24 season gets underway.

Smith’s goals might be big and lofty, however, they’re also realistic and attainable. The 6-foot-3 Smith, a 2026 five-star shooting guard, attends the powerhouse St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly, Va., and competes for the Washington, D.C.-based Team Takeover in Nike’s EYBL league.

St. Paul VI has a loaded 2023-24 roster and was a top-10 national team a stanza ago, when Smith was a freshman. In 2022-23, St. Paul VI won more than 30 games, reached the 2023 GEICO Nationals and captured the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (“WCAC”) regular-season crown. The Panthers also reached the finals of the WCAC tournament.

Looking ahead to 2023-24, high-school hoops experts view St. Paul VI as a preseason top-10 national group, one of the favorites to win the juggernaut WCAC, and a significant contender to return to the GEICO Nationals next spring.

Syracuse basketball recruit Jordan Smith Jr. plays on an elite high-school team.

In a recent Q&A that he conducted via YouTube that was posted on the Baseline2Baseline page, Smith was asked what his expectations are for his sophomore year in 2023-24 at St. Paul VI.

He mentioned winning a WCAC title as well as cutting down the nets at the 2024 GEICO Nationals, which would result in the Panthers being named the national champions of the upcoming season.

As a freshman in 2022-23 for St. Paul VI, Smith says that his role entailed doing all the little things, with the bulk of the scoring left up to older players on the team’s stacked roster. He says that competing alongside great players is a lot of fun, because there is a “trust factor” present.

In 2023-24, when he’s a sophomore, Smith expects to produce more for the Panthers, in terms of scoring and just having a larger role and set of responsibilities for St. Paul VI, a group whose line-up features numerous highly rated prospects across several classes.

Smith received a scholarship offer from the Syracuse basketball coaching staff in early May. His early offer sheet also includes suitors such as Villanova, George Mason, Providence, Mount St. Mary’s, Virginia Tech, Kansas State, Maryland and Georgetown.

In recent weeks, Smith has taken unofficial visits to both Georgetown and Maryland. In the YouTube chat, he dished on several other schools he’d like to visit and/or has a high interest in, including the ‘Cuse, Villanova, Kansas State and Maryland.

Several recruiting services, at present, rate him as a top-20 national prospect, a top-five shooting guard and the No. 1 player in Virginia within the 2026 class.

In addition to the most recent AAU season where he competed for Team Takeover, Smith in June played in the 2023 Nike Elite 100 Camp along with the 11th-annual CP3 Rising Stars National Camp in Winston-Salem, N.C., in August, where he earned MVP honors from On3 national analyst Jamie Shaw.

From October 6 to October 8 in Colorado Springs, Colo., Smith was among 85 high-school prospects in the 2025 and 2026 classes who were suiting up at a USA Basketball junior national team minicamp.