Syracuse Basketball: 4-star Elijah Moore to sign NLI on Saturday – yeah!!!
By Neil Adler
Four-star shooting guard Elijah Moore from New York City, a top-60 national prospect in the 2024 class, plans to sign his national letter of intent (“NLI”) on Saturday to play for Syracuse basketball next year, according to a post on X from college basketball insider Adam Zagoria.
This is awesome news. The early signing period for 2024 players to sign their NLIs, by the way, runs from November 8 to November 15 of this year, according to www.nationalletter.org.
The 6-foot-4 Moore verbally committed to the Orange in late January over other finalists Alabama, Arkansas, Miami and Oklahoma State.
Over the spring and summer, Elijah Moore was a standout performer on the AAU circuit as he suited up for the 17U team of the Bronx, N.Y.-based Wiz Kids in the Adidas 3SSB league. In the most recent grassroots basketball season, he was among the leading scorers in the 3SSB league, averaging nearly 20 points per game while shooting roughly 46 percent from beyond the arc.
Soon, Elijah Moore will sign his NLI to play for Syracuse basketball in the future.
As a junior, Moore earned various accolades while starring for Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx. He is spending his senior year in the upcoming 2023-24 season at the Our Saviour Lutheran School in the Bronx, which is part of the Atlanta-based professional league Overtime Elite.
On November 10 and November 11, as I noted in a recent column, Elijah Moore will compete in an all-star showcase called the Hustle & Heart Classic, which will take place at Baruch College in New York City.
In recent months, numerous national analysts and scouts have stated that Moore continues to evolve his all-around game beyond that of primarily being a 3-point specialist. He is scoring at all three levels, facilitating for others with proficiency, and getting after it on the defensive end as well as on the glass, experts say.
Both 247Sports and Rivals.com have Elijah Moore hovering just outside of the top 50 in their 2024 national rankings. Earlier this week, On3 updated its 2024 national ratings, placing him at No. 79 overall.
Additionally, within the senior cycle, Moore is deemed a top-20 shooting guard and a top-four prospect in New York state, per a bevy of recruiting Web sites. All of that being said, I continue to maintain that Elijah Moore is underrated in the 2024 class.
Our Saviour Lutheran, which will operate as JellyFam in the 2023-24 Overtime Elite campaign, has a stacked roster. Recently, JellyFam arrived at No. 16 across the country in a preseason top 30 from The Circuit.
Syracuse basketball has two verbal pledges in its senior cycle. The other is from four-star power forward Donnie Freeman from Washington, D.C., who verbally committed to the Orange in May over Alabama, Iowa, Texas and Georgia Tech.
The 6-foot-9 Freeman, who won a 17U Peach Jam championship in early July with the D.C.-based Team Takeover in Nike’s EYBL league, is spending his senior year at the powerhouse IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., which competes in the loaded 10-member National Interscholastic Basketball Conference (“NIBC”).
Freeman, who recently was rated No. 20 nationwide in the 2024 class by On3, told SyracuseOnSI publisher Mike McAllister last month that he, too, plans to sign his NLI with Syracuse basketball during the early signing period.
The ‘Cuse senior cycle is rated in the top 20 nationally by both the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking and Rivals.com.