If you’ve been following the Fizz over the last few months, you might think the Syracuse basketball team has already locked down 10 commits in the Class of 2018. A plethora of highly-touted prospects has expressed strong interest in wearing Orange as of late. Louis King, Jalen Carey, Jeenathan Williams, Dimon Carrigan, Eric Ayala; the list goes on.
But at this still-early juncture of the cycle, only two recruits have verbally pledged allegiance to SU: Darius Bazley, a blue-chip swingman who has scaled rankings boards since his commitment, and Buddy Boeheim, a solid prospect whose last name certainly helped him land at Syracuse.
When one high-profile recruit commits to a school, the news can have a snowball effect, with other blue-chippers joining forces to form a quasi-superteam (it happens every year at Duke and Kentucky). The Orange was stuck on the wrong side of that dynamic in 2017, when Quade Green’s heel turn may have impacted the decisions of Hamidou Diallo, who skipped college altogether and went straight to the draft, and Jordan Tucker, who took his talents to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
In 2018, though, SU may redeem itself. Bazley’s early commitment set the tone for a recruiting class that is shaping up as a program-altering group. Even if only one or two of the guys listed above chooses the Orange, the class will be loaded, and Jim Boeheim and company have bought themselves plenty of lottery tickets, hoping a few will hit — and it looks like Syracuse has a pretty good shot at cashing in on one.
Nate Roberts, a three-star forward in the Class of 2018, revealed his top-three schools with a Tweet Wednesday. The Cuse made the cut, along with Nebraska and Washington. Roberts had most recently trimmed the list to five in July; the two schools that got the axe in the latest edition were Wake Forest and UConn.
Roberts is taking his official visit to SU’s campus this weekend. It seems like the pieces are falling into place — it would make a lot of sense for Roberts to verbally commit if he likes what he sees.
Roberts plays his high school ball at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, a school that has emerged as an Orange pipeline over the past few years. CJ Fair and Taurean Thompson (it was nice knowing you!) both came to Syracuse from Brewster, and the aforementioned Buddy Boeheim is there right now.
Roberts isn’t a five-star stud like King, but his height (6-foot-11) and length would be a welcome addition to SU’s 2-3 zone. The Class of 2018’s outlook gets brighter by the day.
