NCAA Basketball Recruiting: LSU, Stanford among biggest January winners
By Matt Melton
Which NCAA Basketball programs were the biggest winners of the January recruiting cycle?
With the calendar having flipped to February, we can take a look back at what was an action-packed month of January for NCAA Basketball recruiting. When looking for the “winners” during the month of January as well, there was arguably no team a bigger winner than LSU.
Despite the Tigers’ current skid on the court, LSU has had success across the last month on the recruiting trail, picking up their first big addition to their 2023 class back on January 15 in Marvel Allen.
A five-star guard from Calvary Christian, one of the top teams in the state of Florida, the 6-foot-4 guard is a talented scorer who has averaged a combined 13.9 PPG so far across his sophomore and junior seasons and is rated as the No. 18 overall player in the Class of 2023 according to the 247Sports Composite.
With the addition of Allen, LSU’s 2023 class currently sits at No. 7 in the 247Sports Team Rankings with only one commit, and while it is still early, has real potential to finish within the Top 10 overall next year.
In addition to Allen, LSU also added a massive piece to their 2022 class back on January 30 in five-star Yohan Traore, a 6-foot-10 center from Dream City Christian (AZ). The No. 15 ranked player nationally, the addition of Traore brings the Tigers 2022 class up to No. 11 nationally, and is LSU’s second five-star commitment coming to Baton Rouge next year alongside Julian Phillips.
Alongside the Tigers, another big recruiting winner from the month of January was Stanford, with the Cardinal adding the first commit of their 2023 class in five-star guard Kanaan Carlyle from Milton (GA). An elite two-way player, Carlyle is rated by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 20 overall player in the 2023 class, and gives Stanford the current No. 8 overall class in the country.
In addition to LSU and Stanford, three other teams also landed notable NCAA Basketball commits during the month of January in Louisville, Xavier, and Michigan State.
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Louisville and Xavier both added to their 2022 classes with the Cardinal adding four-star Hillcrest Prep (AZ) forward Kamari Lands, and the Musketeers adding four-star forward Desmond Claude from Putnam Science Academy (CT) to their No. 15 ranked class. Michigan State also added the first commit of their 2023 class in four-star point guard and Top 30 national player Jeremy Fears from national powerhouse La Lumiere (IN).