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Until we hear otherwise from the NCAA, Syracuse Orange basketball is limited to just 10 scholarship players per year for four years (starting in 2016-17). So that means going for home run recruits over projects. Our own Michael Burke has already given us a great scholarship breakdown for the coming years, and according to that chart, we technically have just two available to give in 2017. One of those, as you'd assume is earmarked for five-star small forward Michael Porter Jr. Lucky for us, the Missouri (Columbia) product included the Orange in his top 10 late yesterday:
Excited to cut my list to 10! I Appreciate all of the other schools who have invested their time in recruiting me. pic.twitter.com/rfKXud4Ttp
— Michael Porter Jr. (@m1chael_porter) August 5, 2015
Now, that's still 10 schools. And there are plenty of heavyweights there. Kentucky, Kansas and UCLA are always going to be in on these top recruits (Porter's third in the class on Scout), plus there's Indiana and Virginia (neither of whom should be taken lightly) and his local college, Missouri. With that sort of competition for his talent, the work is far from over. But at least we know SU is "in it" as of right now. Porter is a 6-foot-8, 205-pound force, and obviously adding him would be a boon to any team.
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In addition to Porter, the Orange are also pursuing 2017 Connecticut shooting guard Hamidou Diallo (no relation to the 1999 NYPD shooting victim) pretty hard as well. Scout spoke to him at the adidas Nations event this past weekend, where he discussed his overall recruitment (which includes SU). The long (6-foot-5) guard is the 13th-ranked player in the country according to Scout, and could be another phenomenal addition to the Orange zone. Diallo's ability to put up some quality statistics will also be a welcome sight for Syracuse, given its general need for offensive production. He also has mutual interest with UConn, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, St. John's and others.
There's plenty of time for these decisions to come about still, obviously. But the sooner SU knows what future classes are starting to look like, the sooner fans can rest easy. More updates to come, obviously.