Another feather was planted in the cap of Rob Murphy and the rest of the Syracuse staff (plus a few players already tied to the program), as Rakeem Christmas announced his standing as a future Orange on Friday morning. Christmas is the top-ranked center in the class of 2011, according to Scout.com’s rankings, standing at 6’9, 230 lbs. The Philadelphia native didn’t even have SU on his short list back in June, but his play caught the program’s attention during what’s been a busy summer for both schools and recruits.

(Phillyhoops.net)

Also playing a role in his recruitment were Kris Joseph, Trevor Cooney, Michael Carter-Williams and Dion Waiters, the latter three of whom have yet to actually suit up for SU, which is an outstanding feat in and of itself.

Christmas is the latest in a line of top-rated big men to be swayed by SU in swift fashion, joining DaShonte Riley, who backed out of his commitment to Georgetown and Fab Melo, who was thought to be in Rick Pitino’s loving arms until Syracuse swooped in and Melo fell in love with the campus. Any time you can get someone like that in your arsenal and keep him away from a conference rival is frosting on the cake.

Cooney will play alongside Christmas during the Nike Global Challenge this weekend in Oregon. Carter-Williams will also be there, suiting up for the same team as Anthony Davis, who all of a sudden isn’t as appealing as he was a few weeks ago (or even Wednesday, for that matter).

Your move, Thompson. You might want to get going on that 2011 recruiting class of yours.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 2:09 pm by Brian G. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.