JJ Starling Commits to Notre Dame Over Syracuse, Others

The class of 2022 guard will play in the ACC but not for the hometown Orange.

Class of 2022 guard JJ Starling of La Lumiere and The City Rocks has committed to Notre Dame. Starling picked the Fighting Irish over other finalists Duke, Northwestern, Stanford and Syracuse. He also held offers from Alabama, UConn, Kansas, Maryland, Miami, Ohio State and Washington, among others. Starling took official visits to Alabama, Duke, Maryland, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford and Syracuse twice before announcing his decision.

Starling hoped that his official visits during the summer would lead to some clarity within his recruitment. That did not happen, however, leading to the four more visits last month.

“I'm not going to lie, it actually made things more difficult,” Starling said after the summer visits. “I had several conversations with my parents, my AAU coach, my high school coach, just about this whole process. They know it's hard. It really made it harder because colleges are putting forth their best foot. They're telling you how you would be used in the program, they're just telling you all these great things. When you have all these great programs telling you these things, it's hard to separate, you know? Obviously, colleges have different factors to help them separate from other programs. But like I said, it's just hard because they're all telling me similar things. They're all similar programs because they're all great programs.”

At that point, he had not visited Notre Dame yet. Ultimately, that visit and the pitch from the Irish coaching staff won out.

Without the addition of Starling, Syracuse’s 2022 recruiting class remains three deep with guards Quadir Copeland and Justin Taylor along with center Peter Carey.