Syracuse Basketball: 'Cuse should pursue former 4-star, All-American center in portal

The transfer portal opened on Monday and runs for 45 days, and we'll have to see what transpires with the Syracuse basketball roster ahead of the 2024-25 season.

On Monday, the floodgates started to open in the portal, and one talented prospect whom I'd love to see the Orange coaching staff take a look at is former McDonald's All-American center Brandon Garrison.

The 6-foot-11, 245-pound native of Oklahoma City, in the 2023-24 campaign, was a freshman at Big 12 Conference member Oklahoma State. On Monday, multiple recruiting experts, including 247Sports national analyst Travis Branham and On3 national analyst Jamie Shaw, said that Garrison was hitting the portal.

Oklahoma State struggled in the most recent campaign. The Cowboys (12-20 overall) saw its 2023-24 stanza end when they fell to UCF in the first round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament a week ago.

On March 14, Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg announced that Mike Boynton would not return as the Cowboys' head coach in 2024-25 after leading the program for seven years.

Another Oklahoma State player who is planning to enter the transfer portal is redshirt freshman power forward/center Isaiah Miranda, a former four-star prospect in the 2022 cycle who held a scholarship offer from the 'Cuse while in high school.

Syracuse basketball does have several centers on its current roster.

As the portal is now open, I'll be monitoring which Orange players, if any, elect to transfer out. In 2023-24, the 'Cuse did have four centers on its roster, none of whom were seniors, as well as sophomore power forward Maliq Brown, who played a lot of center in the second half of this past term.

Looking ahead to 2024-25, one of the Orange's two incoming freshmen will be five-star power forward Donnie Freeman, who is from Washington, D.C., and has put forth a stellar senior season for the powerhouse IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.

Getting back to Garrison, in 2023-24, he appeared in all 32 games for Oklahoma State, averaging 22.6 minutes, 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks per contest, according to ESPN data. He connected on 57.2 percent from the field and 64.8 percent from the free-throw line.

As a member of the 2023 recruiting class, Garrison was a four-star, McDonald’s All-American who starred for Del City High School in Del City, Okla. The majority of recruiting services, within this cycle, rated him as a top-50 national prospect and a top-seven center.

Garrison committed to Oklahoma State over scholarship offers from schools such as Arkansas, Florida, Houston, Kansas, LSU, Oklahoma, SMU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Tulsa.