4-star Elijah Moore signs, eyes taking Syracuse basketball to ‘another level’

Both members of the Syracuse basketball 2024 class are officially Orange, as four-star shooting guard Elijah Moore from New York City signed his national letter of intent (“NLI”) on Saturday to play for the Orange, according to a media report.

As first reported by college basketball insider Adam Zagoria, the 6-foot-4 Moore has signed his NLI to compete for Syracuse basketball, with that development coming a few days after 2024 four-star power forward Donnie Freeman from Washington, D.C., also inked his NLI with the ‘Cuse.

Moore, who verbally committed to the Orange in late January over other finalists Alabama, Arkansas, Miami and Oklahoma State, is a top-60 national prospect and a top-20 shooting guard in the senior cycle. He remains underrated in this class, in my humble opinion.

"After signing his NLI with Syracuse basketball, Elijah Moore said to Zagoria, “It feels great to know that hard work really does pay off. … For Syracuse, I just want to say I’m excited to play for the fans and help take Syracuse basketball to another level.”"

A huge congrats to both Moore and Freeman, who verbally pledged to the Orange in May over Alabama, Iowa, Texas and Georgia Tech, and he is spending his senior year at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., after winning a coveted 17U Peach Jam championship in early July with the D.C.-based Team Takeover in Nike’s EYBL league.

Elijah Moore, a 2024 four-star shooting guard, has officially signed with Syracuse basketball.

Moore, a long-time recruiting target of the ‘Cuse, verbally committed to the Orange with Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim still at the helm of the program.

This past March, Boeheim retired after 47 seasons leading Syracuse basketball, with long-time assistant and former player Adrian Autry taking the reins as the team’s head coach. Quickly thereafter, Elijah Moore reaffirmed his commitment to the ‘Cuse, according to reports, and now he’s officially a member of the squad’s 2024 class.

In the spring and summer months, Elijah Moore was fabulous for the 17U team of the Bronx, N.Y.-based Wiz Kids in the Adidas 3SSB league. He earned offensive MVP honors after averaging nearly 20 points per game and shooting roughly 46 percent from 3-point land.

National analysts and scouts have been saying for a while now that Moore is one of the top long-range shooters in the 2024 class. But in recent months, experts have also detailed how Elijah Moore is evolving his all-around game on both ends of the floor.

In the 2022-23 season, as a junior, Moore was a standout for Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx. However, as a senior in the recently commenced 2023-24 stanza, he is playing for the Our Saviour Lutheran School in the Bronx, which is part of the Atlanta-based professional league Overtime Elite.

The Circuit recently placed Our Saviour Lutheran, which is operating as JellyFam in the 2023-24 Overtime Elite term, at No. 16 around the country in a preseason top 30.

Last Thursday night in Queens, N.Y., Elijah Moore tallied an impressive 27 points in helping lead Our Saviour Lutheran to a 100-79 conquest of national No. 3 Prolific Prep in Napa Valley, Calif.

While the Syracuse basketball 2024 cycle is relatively small in size, with only two high-school commits, this Orange class is big-time in quality. To that end, when I wrote this article on Saturday afternoon, the ‘Cuse 2024 cycle checked in at No. 15 nationwide and No. 4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, according to the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking.