Syracuse women’s basketball: Former Ohio State G Kiara Lewis will transfer to Orange

On Tuesday afternoon, it was confirmed that Ohio State Buckeyes guard Kiara Lewis would transfer to the Syracuse Orange women’s basketball team. Twitter user Raoul_000 was the first to report the news.

In her one season at Ohio State, Lewis played in 35 games -- starting 15 — and scored 6.7 points per game. She added 1.8 assists and 1.5 rebounds per game, while shooting 38.9 percent from the floor.

Lewis visited Syracuse back on May 4. She’s also a former club teammate of current Orange women’s basketball player Gabby Cooper. Lewis was Gatorade’s Illinois High School Player of the Year after scoring 24.4 points per game (plus seven rebounds and 5.3 assists per) for Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago. She was a five-star recruit, and No. 22 overall in the class of 2016, according to ESPN.

Adding Lewis will be another big help for SU as they look to replace the best senior class in school history. Along with Lewis, the Orange bring in a top-10 recruiting class, and transfers from St. Bonaventure (Miranda Drummond) and Wagner (Jasmine Nwajei) will officially be able to suit up. Nwajei was the nation’s leading scorer in 2015-16, but had to sit out last year due to undergraduate transfer rules.

Cooper (9.3 points per game), Julia Chandler (2.7) and Desiree Elmore (2.3) are the only returning players to average more than two points per game last season.

Since Lewis was just a freshman last year, she’ll sit out 2017-18, then have three seasons of eligibility thereafter.

Welcome aboard, Kiara!