Syracuse Basketball: With John Calipari leaving UK, former 5-star recruits to monitor

Long-time head coach and ace recruiter John Calipari, who has gone to multiple Final Fours and won a national championship at Kentucky, is reportedly moving on to take the same role at fellow Southeastern Conference school Arkansas, a move that caught many Syracuse basketball fans, myself included, by surprise.

Now, on the face of it, Calipari heading to Arkansas isn’t super impactful as it relates to the Orange, although as numerous experts noted in the wake of this development, his departure from the Wildcats is seismic news in the sport of college basketball.

For ‘Cuse fans, I’m writing this column because with Calipari bolting for another school, we’ll have to see what sort of domino effect that creates with the existing Kentucky roster, as well as its incoming freshmen.

As many Syracuse basketball recruiting enthusiasts know, the Wildcats line-up during the 2023-24 season featured multiple highly ranked prospects who held scholarship offers from the Orange, and one of Kentucky’s 2024 commits also was a former ‘Cuse recruiting target.

Might Syracuse basketball pursue Kentucky recruits in the wake of John Calipari reportedly leaving?

The Wildcats, in 2023-24, went 23-10 overall and were a No. 3 seed in this spring’s NCAA Tournament. Kentucky, though, got upset in the round of 64 by No. 14 seed Oakland.

That stunner left some Kentucky fans ready for the program to move on from Calipari, even though he’s guided the Wildcats to a string of Final Fours and Elite Eights during his tenure in Lexington, Ky.

In any event, three Kentucky players in 2023-24 had been offered by Syracuse basketball while in high school. They were freshman wing Justin Edwards, a five-star, top-10 national prospect in the 2023 class from Philadelphia; freshman point guard D.J. Wagner, a five-star, top-10 overall player in the 2023 cycle from Camden, N.J.; and sophomore power forward/center Ugonna Onyenso, who is from Nigeria, played prep ball in Connecticut and was a four-star, top-40 national prospect in the 2022 class.

Additionally, while in high school, freshman big man Aaron Bradshaw received interest from the ‘Cuse coaching staff. He was a five-star, top-10 national prospect in the 2023 class from Rahway, N.J.

We’ll have to see what the future holds for these and other existing Kentucky players.

By extension, a 2024 commit for the Wildcats has been five-star point guard Boogie Fland out of Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, N.Y.

Syracuse basketball offered him a scholarship in January of 2023, although I’m not sure how significant of a contender the ‘Cuse ever was for Fland, who recently suited up at the McDonald’s All-America game in Houston.

Last spring, Fland had said in an interview that he was keeping an eye on the new Syracuse basketball staff, led by head coach Adrian Autry, who guided the Orange in 2023-24 to 20 regular-season wins for the first time in a decade.

The transfer portal opened on Monday, March 18, and it will run for 45 days. At least five Syracuse basketball 2023-24 players have hit the portal, and they are sophomore big man Maliq Brown, sophomore center Peter Carey, sophomore guard/wing Quadir Copeland, sophomore guard/wing Justin Taylor, and junior forward Benny Williams, who was dismissed from the program in early February.

Sophomore point guard Judah Mintz isn’t likely to return either. The same goes for fourth-year junior center Mounir Hima.

The Orange brings in two 2024 commits in five-star power forward Donnie Freeman from Washington, D.C., and four-star shooting guard Elijah Moore from New York City.

What’s more, last week, Colorado senior center Eddie Lampkin Jr., a four-star transfer this off-season, said he would commit to the ‘Cuse.

At this juncture, in my humble opinion, the Orange’s biggest needs in the portal are to find an experienced point guard and an additional 3-point specialist out on the wing.