Gerry McNamara's Syracuse must re-offer All-American 5-star PG who visited last month

Head coach Gerry McNamara and his Syracuse basketball staff need to re-offer a scholarship to 2028 five-star point guard Tai Bell, who is the son of a former NBA defensive star.

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Bell was offered a scholarship by the former Orange staff in July of last year. Last month, he took an unofficial visit to the 'Cuse. Also last month, McNamara was hired as SU's new head coach, replacing Adrian Autry.

Bell, whose older brother, Dia Bell, is a five-star freshman quarterback at Texas, had a tremendous sophomore season at the Mater Lakes Academy in Hialeah, Fla., near Miami.

Tai Bell, this spring and summer, will be playing up a division for the 17U team of the Pembroke Pines, Fla.-based SOH Elite in the Under Armour Association ("UAA") league. Last weekend, the UAA held its first spring session in Kansas City, Kan., with Bell receiving praise from analysts and scouts for his performances.

Coming up, we should start to see McNamara and his assistants begin to offer scholarships to high school prospects across the 2027, 2028 and 2029 classes. Certainly, some of those offers could be re-offers to high school players who were previously pursued by Autry and his staff.

Furthermore, as it pertains to Bell and other 2028 prospects, on June 15, college coaches can start to initiate direct communication with these rising juniors. Once that contact period opens, we could also see the Orange staff dole out more offers within the 2028 cycle.

I'd love to see Syracuse basketball re-offer 2028 5-star PG Tai Bell.

Bell missed some games during the 2025-26 stanza due to an injury, but according to his X page, as a sophomore for Mater Lakes, he averaged 32 points, seven rebounds and five assists per contest. MaxPreps gave him an honorable mention nod for its 2025-26 sophomore All-America teams.

Earlier this week, Bell said on X that he was named the Class 4A player of the year in Florida for the 2025-26 season. A huge congrats to Tai, whose dad is former NBA shooting guard and defensive guru Raja Bell.

Tai Bell, a top-five point guard and a top-25 national prospect in the 2028 class, unofficially visited Syracuse basketball on March 6 and March 7, which was the same weekend as the Orange's 2025-26 regular-season finale at the JMA Wireless Dome against Pittsburgh.

Last weekend, at the UAA stop in Kansas City, Bell was great, helping lead SOH Elite to a 3-1 record. He says on X that he averaged 21.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.5 steals per contest over that quartet of games.

For the Kansas City session, the scouting experts at The Circuit named Bell their underclass MVP and also to the All-UAA first team.

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