Syracuse men’s basketball: Orange reportedly interested in Arizona transfer guard KJ Lewis

Another former Wildcat is on the Orange’s radar.

The Syracuse Orange are reportedly being connected to a second player from the Arizona Wildcats who opted to enter the transfer portal.

KJ Lewis, who played 73 games in two seasons with the Wildcats mainly in a high-minute bench role, is receiving interest from Syracuse and a handful of other Power Five schools. Basketball recruiting analyst Sam Kayser with League Ready was the first to report.

Lewis sits as one of the most sought after transfer portal targets this cycle. He currently ranks No. 37 overall among all players, per rankings from On3.

Lewis originally committed to the Wildcats as a four-star-prospect over offers from numerous programs, including Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, SMU, UCLA and Baylor.

He averaged career-highs in minutes (25.9), points (10.8), rebounds (4.6), assists (2.9) and steals (1.3) in his sophomore year with the Wildcats. He played just under 26 minutes a contest and came off the bench for Arizona in 31 of the team’s 37 games in 2024-25.

For Syracuse or whichever team lands him, Lewis is a jack of all trades on the court. He gets his offense by mainly scoring around the rim and in fastbreak situations, but he’s also shown a willingness to move the ball and get his teammates involved. Defensively, he came off of Arizona’s bench primarily to wreck havoc for opponents, whether by forcing turnovers or making things difficult with his contests.

The two challenges for Lewis: scoring outside of transition and foul trouble. Lewis nearly doubled the number of shots he took per game (4.5 to 8.4), but the field goal efficiency dropped from 46.6% to 42.9%. The outside shooting is also just borderline nonexistent, making just 18.8% from three on under two attempts per game this past season.

Lewis’ defensive energy is also hard to ignore, but that also oftentimes led to him picking up one too many fouls, limiting him at times.

All that being said, Lewis can fill a lot of holes and he was a go-to reserve for an Arizona team that just made the Sweet 16.

Including Syracuse, Lewis is also reportedly seeing interest from other ACC schools like Clemson, SMU and Virginia along with big-name programs like Texas, Kansas, UCLA, Ole Miss and Oklahoma.

Syracuse reportedly is also showing interest in one of Lewis’ former teammates from this past year: Arizona transfer center Emmanuel Stephen.