5-star players Jordan Smith and Chris Cenac win gold medal at FIBA ​​World Championship

In recent days, the United States U17 national basketball team, whose roster includes two five-star recruits from the Syracuse basketball team, has dominated the competition at the 2024 FIBA ​​World Cup in Istanbul, Turkey.

On Sunday, in the final game of this international event, the U.S. team continued that trend, defeating Italy 129-88 to claim the gold medal. According to this article on the FIBA ​​U17 World Championship website, USA Basketball improved its record in this event to 51-0 since 2010.

The U.S. team has won the gold medal at the FIBA ​​U17 World Championship a spectacular seven times in a row. Check this out: In the 2024 edition of this event, the team’s average margin of victory was an astonishing 64.3 points, the highest the U.S. basketball team has ever achieved at the FIBA ​​U17 World Championship.

First of all, a big congratulations to the USA Basketball U17 national team. The roster included two promising talents who received scholarship offers from ‘Cuse: shooting guard Jordan Smith Jr. (2026) and big man Chris Cenac Jr. (2025).

The 6’3″ Smith, a standout junior player at the high-performing St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly, Virginia, received an offer from the Orange in early May 2023. He is one of the top ten young talents of his class.

In early June, the 6-foot-10 Cenac, an up-and-coming power forward/center, said he had received an offer from the ‘Cuse. He, too, is a top-10 player in his cycle. Not long ago, Cenac said he would spend his final season at the all-powerful Link Academy in Branson, Missouri.

Let’s get back to the FIBA ​​U17 World Championship. As I noted in other recent columns, the Syracuse basketball team was in attendance at that event, according to analysts, to watch Smith, Cenac and perhaps other players from the U.S. team.

To that end, Orange assistant coach Brenden Straughn posted a post from Istanbul on his X-page on July 6, so he was clearly on site at the FIBA ​​U17 World Championship.

According to a scoresheet from Sunday’s championship game, in that big win over Italy, Smith had five points, two rebounds and an assist. Cenac, on the other hand, had eight points, four rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block.

Throughout the 2024 FIBA ​​U17 World Cup, Smith averaged 14.9 minutes, 5.9 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. Cenac averaged 11.4 minutes, 8.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.0 steals per game throughout the event.