As we learned earlier this week, Duke offered big man Patrick Ngongba and of course, Duke is not the only school interested. UConn, Indiana, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Pitt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Iowa, Maryland have offered, and Syracuse too.
In this article from Inside The Loud House, we hear a lament that has become familiar recently: Syracuse does the legwork, identifies a talented young prospect early, only to see more prominent schools swoop in and negate that hard work.
It happened most recently with Kyle Filipowski. Syracuse ID’d him early and may have had a lead. It changed when other schools realized he was going to be good and of course he ended up at Duke, where he had a superb freshman season.
We’ve read various articles on different Syracuse sites over the last few years and you see this anxiety crop up over and over again: we found him, we built a connection, and now (insert tormenter school here) is going to swoop in and get him. It’s hard not to feel bad for them.
While Jim Boeheim was and remains a much-loved figure in Syracuse, there was no denying that his program had started to moulder in recent years. Now the question is: can new coach Adrian Autry change that?
He’s off to a reasonable start, with Donnie Freeman and Caleb Williams, both four-star players from DC and both members of Team Takeover, an AAU team that Ngongba also plays for.
Duke counters with Paul VI teammate Darren Harris, but Autry was an Eagles assistant earlier in his career and we’re sure he has major insights into Paul VI and the DC talent market.
Still, that just looks at Duke vs. Syracuse. A number of other schools have offered, as noted, and things are about to heat up because Ngongba, in the parlance of recruiting, is about to blow up.
We’re not saying it’s a make-or-break recruitment for Autry and Syracuse. It’s way too early for that and he’s already giving Syracuse something it’s been missing lately, namely energy.
There are still problems for him to deal with, not least of all getting NIL sorted out. As you may remember, when he transferred, Jesse Edwards pointed to NIL as something that Syracuse wasn’t doing very well and today, that’s a huge disadvantage.
Presumably Autry is working on that too. Watching how he moves to renovate Syracuse basketball is going to be one of the more interesting things in the ACC over the next couple of seasons.
And honestly, we hope he does well. Having a weak Syracuse hasn’t been good for the ACC. The Syracuse of the 1980’s?
That Syracuse would be great for the conference.
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