Syracuse Women’s Basketball: Coach Q offers Rochester 8th-grader

College recruiting is weird and we’re all a bunch of creeps for investing so much time and energy in the decisions made by children we don’t know.

That said, we’re not gonna stop caring, are we?

Certainly not when the Syracuse Orange women’s basketball team is sending out offers to recruits while they’re still 13-years-old.

Bishop Kearney High School’s Saniaa Wilson was recently extended a scholarship offer by SU head coach Quentin Hillsman. Kearney coach Kevan Sheppard confirmed to Syracuse.com that the offer came a couple months back.

How good is Wilson? Well last season, as a seventh-grader playing for the high school team, she averaged 14.3 points, 13.5 rebounds and 4.5 blocked shots. Oh and she’s already six-feet tall.

What were you doing in seventh grade?

Wilson has attended two Syracuse elite camps and was at Midnight Madness this year. Syracuse is her only offer but it’s only a matter of time before others start rolling in. Much like the last player whom Syracuse offered at this age: Breanna Stewart. As a reminder, she ended up going to UConn where she helped the Huskies beat SU for the title last season.

Coach Q talked about the recruitment (without directly mentioning Wilson, which he can’t) after the Coppin State win.

"Recruiting now starts so early. And you start to recognize with these young kids in AAU tournaments and things like that, once you recognize a prospect you have to really start to watch them, start to watch their game progress,'' he said. "I don't know what's early, to be honest. We've been watching the 2021s. We watch really young kids and try to evaluate someone. For me, if you can play, you can play.

"Recruiting is about relationships. It's a competition. It really is. You have a lot of teams competing for the best players, so unfortunately, and fortunately, sometimes you've got to roll with the action or bow out. We choose to roll with the action.''

If you want a chance to see Wilson roll with the action, Kearney is in Syracuse this weekend to play defending Class A state champion Jamesville-DeWitt. They’ll actually be playing two games as part of a mini-tournament.

And for the record, Q isn’t the only Syracuse coach offering eight-graders. SU Football has one of those as well.