Jalil Bethea, a five-star recruit from the class of 2024 announced the final five schools that he’s considering attending on Wednesday night, per Joe Tipton of On3 Sports. Syracuse was on that list and already has a leg up on the competition.
The other schools Bethea is considering are Alabama, Kansas, Miami, and Villanova. Despite those teams being more successful recently than SU, the Orange are actually the only team that’s hosted the shooting guard for an official visit. That happened last October.
Even though Syracuse has an early advantage there, it’s not like it’s the clear frontrunner. Alabama, Kansas, and Miami also have official visits scheduled with Bethea for this fall.
Bethea has spoken very positively about the Orange, especially since Adrian Autry took over as head coach.
“They welcomed me and treated me like I was already on the team, already a player. It felt a lot like another place I could call home,” Bethea told On3 Sports.”Since Coach Autry took over as the head coach, our relationship has actually grown”
SU already has two four-star recruits committed from the class of ‘24: Donnie Freeman and Elijah Moore. While Moore and Bethea are both shooting guards, that is a non-issue. They could easily play alongside each other. Recruiting too much talent isn’t an issue the Orange have had in a long time, so getting multiple top guards in a class would be a good problem to have.
Syracuse has flexed its recruiting muscle against one of the other schools on Bethea’s final five already. Both Freeman and Moore were recruited by Alabama, but both picked SU instead.
It will still be a while until Bethea makes a commitment, and the earliest he could sign a National Letter of Intent is November 8th. Backing out of verbal commitments isn’t uncommon in the current college basketball landscape, so until pen is on paper, recruits have flexibility.
