Basketball Recruiting

Syracuse basketball recruiting: Turkish 7-foot star Omer Yurtseven picks North Carolina State over the Orange

Class of 2016 Turkish center Omer Yurtseven picked North Carolina State over Syracuse and Utah on Monday morning, according to multiple reports.

The 17-year-old star visited Syracuse on May 4 and turned down a lucrative contract from his club team, Fenerbahçe, in order to achieve his goal of playing college basketball, according to Scout.com. Yurtseven also told Scout that he’d spoken with 15 schools, including Atlantic Coast Conference rivals North Carolina and Miami.

The 6-foot-11, 230-pound big man recently scored 91 points and snagged 28 rebounds in a single U-18 game against Turkey. He went 34-for-49 from the field, attempting nearly 70 percent of his team’s shots and hitting five 3-pointers.

He is a consensus five-star recruit and graded as a 99 in 247Sports.com’s composite ratings. DraftExpress.com has Yurtseven projected to go as the No. 14 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft.

Yurtseven averaged 9.8 points and 8.7 rebounds per game in nine games during the FIBA U18 European Championships last summer. The Orange’s last signed foreign recruit was Belgium’s Kristof Ongenaet, who played a limited role in his two seasons from 2007-09.



Here’s a highlight video from Yurtseven in last year’s European Championships:





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