Syracuse Basketball: Jalen Carey commits to the Orange

The lack of quality recruits coming to Syracuse basketball has caused the program to falter a bit. The pickup of Jalen Carey was a welcomed new addition.

After missing the NCAA tournament last season, the team also lost several key pieces to graduation and the NBA. With that, this season could be a rough one. The program has been missing on recent recruiting ventures and Coach Boeheim has been forced to take the transfer route for some of his players.

Now, while players like Andrew White, John Gillion and now Geno Thorpe are fine, the system that the Orange runs works best with players coming in as freshmen and learning from the beginning. Player development is key with Syracuse and they have been unable to focus on that recently.

This development process will be put back in play with the class of 2018 recruit Jalen Carey, a 6’3″, 170-pound point guard who will make an immediate impact for the team next year. Carey chose Syracuse over Connecticut while also receiving offers from Villanova, Miami, and Kansas.

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Ranked No. 54 by 247Sports, Carey is a traditional point guard that can play as a combo guard as well due to his outstanding shooting ability. He can make plays for both himself and others, something the program has been lacking since Michael Gbinije a few years ago.

He’s the third player to commit for the Orange, joining four-star shooting guard and son of the head coach Buddy Boeheim as well as five-star forward and heralded recruit Darius Bazley.

Next: Syracuse preview for 2017-18

Combined with the loss of scholarships due to program violations and the lack of talent coming in, Syracuse will once again have next to no bench in 2017-18. Even if these guys coming in next year aren’t bonafide starters, they will at least give Boeheim options off the bench during 2018-19. That’s better than what they could say for the past few years.