Syracuse commits Moustapha Diagne and Matthew Moyer will play in the fifth annual Mary Kline Classic at West Orange (New Jersey) High School on May 30.

Diagne, a four-star power forward out of Pope John XIII (New Jersey) High School, will play in the senior game for his third Mary Kline Classic appearance. He played in the underclassmen game in the last two years, and verbally committed to SU after the game last May.

Moyer — a four-star small forward out of Lincoln (Ohio) High School and the only player verbally committed to the Orange for 2016 — will play in the underclassmen game for sophomores and juniors.

This year’s Mary Kline Classic will continue the trend of Syracuse commits playing in the showcase. The event was started and is run by Alex Kline, a junior broadcast and digital journalism major at Syracuse. Kline started the event when he was 16 years old to raise money for cancer research in honor of his mother, Mary Kline, who died from brain cancer when he was 10.

The event has raised $104,000 for brain cancer research and SU commits Tyler Ennis, Tyler Roberson, Chris McCullough, Ron Patterson, Franklin Howard, Malachi Richardson and Diagne have played in it in the last three years.

Kline said that Syracuse’s frequent participation in the Mary Kline Classic has to do with the program’s recruiting tendencies and his goal of bringing future teammates together.

“I love putting together the senior game when it comes to guys having their schools, and it’s always cool for me to connect one guy with another,” Kline said.

“… With Syracuse, with (Connecticut), or any other school. But it makes more sense with Syracuse with the recruiting focus being in the Northeast.”

Published on April 19, 2015 at 11:18 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse