BIG EAST RECRUITING UPDATE: SYRACUSE

May 8, 2007


Commitment Alert: Kristof Ongenaet (PF), Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Projected 2007-2008 Roster:

Senior: Josh Wright (PG)
Juniors: Eric Devenderf (G), Andy Rautins (G), Kristof Ongenaet (PF)
Sophomores: Paul Harris (G), Arinze Onuaku (BF/C), Devin Brennan-McBride (BF/C)
Freshmen: Johnny Flynn (PG), Antonio Jardine (G), Donte Green (F), Richard Jackson (BF), Sean Williams (C)
2008 Commitment: Kris Joseph (WF), James Southerland (F)



Late in the recruiting period for 2007 the Syracuse Orange Add to Hoops Roster (Syracuse Post-Standard) with the addition of Kristof Ongenaet from Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, Calif., a native of Ghent, Belgium.


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After visiting Syracuse Thursday and Friday of last week, 6-foot-8 Kristof Ongenaet picked Syracuse University, spurning offers from Northwestern, Colorado, Kansas State and Cal-Irvine. Ongenaet is a physical power forward who averaged 12.0 points and 11.7 rebounds for Cuesta College (CA) last season and Syracuse will add him to the roster to compliment Rick Jackson (C/BF) and Donte Green (SF/BF) as a true power forward. Unlike most European players, Ongenaet has a reputation of liking the physical inside play, something the Orange need for the battles in the Big East. The junior college route is not one taken often by Jim Boeheim and the Syracuse staff. Ongenaet is Syracuse's first junior-college recruit since Michael Lloyd (San Jacinto) and Jason Cipolla (Tallahassee Community College) came in 1994.

Ongenaet joins an incoming class headlined by a pair of McDonald's All-Americans in Donte Green and Johnny Flynn. Green was the talk of the NIKE camp last summer in Indianapolis and starred with Team Melo (see a connection?) on the AAU circuit. The long, lean and athletic forward looks to be a high-end recruit that is beginning to generate top-10 status nationally. The Orange were in early and their past success with Carmelo Anthony, who attended the same high school in the DC-area, had the Orange in front from the beginning.

The player whose stock might have exploded the most among Big East recruits last summer was that of Johnny Flynn. The Niagara Falls HS PG was impressive on the AAU circuit from the beginning of the spring and continued his high-level of play at the ABCD camp in New Jersey. Flynn is pushing for top-25 status and has shown a myriad of skills as a lead guard and has always been a high-character kid. He is former HS and AAU teammate of SU frosh Paul Harris, again, a strong connection to the program.

The other pair of early commits that the Orange received came from a pair of Philadelphia HS teammates, Rick Jackson and Antonio Jardine. Playing for the high-profile Neumann-Goretti program and the Playaz AAU club, these two have been on the national radar for a long time. Jackson gives SU more of a low-block threat offensively and on the boards than what they are used to and Jardine is a combo guard that can score and is working on improving his court savvy, but with Flynn in the backcourt with him, he won't have to play the point guard too often and be free to do what he does best, create offense.

The fifth member of the SU class is the incredibly long Sean Williams out of California. Williams is an extremely raw prospect, but with a wingspan of greater than 7'8, this is a high-upside prospect that has all the potential to be a great one, but needs a lot of fine-tuning. Williams attended Notre Dame Prep last season.

Syracuse has also gotten out of the gates with the 2008 class rather quickly with the verbal commitments of Canadian Kris Joseph, currently playing basketball in DC (and another who has idolized Carmelo Anthony) and James Southerland of NYC. With those commitments and their current roster set-up, the Orange would appear to be out of scholarships for the 2008 class. However, there is strong belief that Southerland would eventually end up in the 2009 class. I am not too sure if recent NCAA changes to how prep school core credits are handled will influence his status. The Orange continue to be linked to a pair of New York forwards, Mookie Jones of Peekskill and Kevin Jones of Mount Vernon.

We will continue to follow the Orange on the recruiting trail this summer, but expect to see them actively pursuing some local 2009 products, one with a familiar name (Triche) and one from down the throuway (Dane Miller).