Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Powellfan, post: 5412896, member: 4819"] The recruiting has gotten better under Gait. Outside of Hiltz, and prior to the Spallina class, the last few years of Desko's tenure was pretty lackluster. 2019 - Three Top 100 players, non higher than 67 (Levandowski who didn't last past fall ball). Also famous flip-apocalypse with a number of highly ranked players decommitting. 2020 - Three Top 100 players again, but after Hiltz at two next highest is Birtwistle at 47, and Harrison Thompson at 100. 2021 - Just two players in the Top 100, Blake Borges the higher of the two at 89 (Rice was 99). Yikes. Then of course the famous class of 2022 - 10 players ranked in top 100 including three in the top 10. Gait's first recruiting class in 2023 didn't live up to that last Desko class, but far supersedes what Desko was putting together prior to that. Seven Top 100 recruits, with five star Deere the highest at 17. That's almost as many Top 100 recruits as Desko pulled together in the years between 2019 and 2021. Pretty good. 2024, not as good on paper as 2023, but a strong five players in the Top 100, including another five star in Anderson. The next two years incoming look strong, but it's easy to see a pattern developing. Five Top 100 recruits in both the 2025 and 2026 class, with three five stars (Hahn, Peck and James). Again, vast improvement compared to the Desko years (again outside of 2022). IL has the 2025 class ranked 6th, and 2026 ranked 5th. That's good! However, the entire ACC, minus UNC in 2026 (they rank one spot behind the Orange) are ahead of Syracuse in both years. Notre Dame, Duke and Virginia are basically doubling up the number of Five Stars Syracuse is getting each year, and supplementing with a bunch of four stars. I've made this point before, but they have to seek an edge outside of high school recruiting if they want to compete with the rest of the ACC. I still feel strongly they need to mine the transfer portal pretty aggressively to make up the ground they are losing with high schoolers, if they want to make the final four. High School recruiting needs to be the focus, but can't put all the eggs in that one basket. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?