USC Basketball finally picks up a 2023 recruit, makes it a great one

USC Basketball finally picked up their first recruit of the 2023 recruiting cycle, and it's a blue-chipper. That would be four-star Combo Guard Silas Demary Jr. (all recruiting ratings and rankings in article are as of 247Sports) out of Combine Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina. Demary is the No. 3 player in the entire state of North Carolina.

Even better, Demary is also the No. 16 Combo Guard in America. This is a big deal because it realistically could not take too much for SC to catch up in the recruiting rankings in the Pac-12. That's because surprisingly, SC is only two commitments behind the team that's in first place in the Pac-12 for 2023 recruiting (Oregon).

The Ducks are currently seventh in the nation in recruiting for the '23 class, so creeping up on them would be excellent. 247Sports Director of Scouting, Adam Finkelstein, says that Demary "is extremely shifty to the rim, able to maintain his balance while attacking low to the ground, and a crafty finisher with both hands."

It's not just who he is as a finisher, though, that impresses Finkelstein. It's his mid-range game too.

"Hill pull-up game is a definite weapon and he also uses his body well to draw contact and get to the free-throw line," said Finkelstein.

Sounds like DeMar DeRozan. A great finisher with a great mid-range game. Can he be as good as DeRozan? Well, that remains to be seen of course, and it's tough to go ahead and just make that comparison before he even plays for SC of course. The important thing is that SC now is clearly developing a sort of plan for when Drew Peterson and Boogie Ellis are gone.

Silas Demary Jr. is the best backcourt recruit USC Basketball has had in the last two classes.

Silas Demary Jr. is the only USC Basketball backcourt recruit within these last two cycles to be a four-star guy. That includes the 2022 class, which was the overall No. 7 class in all of America.

SC already got a four-star big (Kijani Wright) in the '22 class and a five-star big in the '22 class (Vince Iwuchukwu). They needed some ball-handlers to try to build this roster after Peterson and Ellis are done with college basketball.

They're off to a nice start with Demary, and will look to continue with the top three combo guards still available all being from California and all having received offers from USC.