Basketball Guide 2014

t h e i n d e p e n d e n t s t u d e n t n e w s p a p e r o f s y r a c u s e , n e w y o r k

TURNING POINTS

basketball guide 2014

Syracuse heads into 2nd year of ACC with a host of offensive question marks and new faces looking to replace more scoring than ever under Boeheim

2 september 30, 2013 dailyorange.com [email protected]

Sports Editor Jesse DoughertyPresentation Director Lindsay DawsonPhoto Editor Margaret LinWeb Developer Chris VollCopy Chief Audrey HartAsst. Sports Editor Phil D’AbbraccioAsst. Sports Editor Jacob KlingerAsst. Photo Editor Renee ZhouDesign Editor Chloe MeisterAsst. Copy Editor Sam Blum Asst. Copy Editor Matt Schneidman

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Dear readers,

‘Tis the season, Syracuse basketball fans. With the Orange opening up against Kennesaw State on Friday, The Daily Orange brings you an all-encom-passing preseason basketball preview. How big will Rakeem Christmas’ role be this season? Trev-or Cooney’s? How do freshmen Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph fit into Jim Boeheim’s evolving offense? If Brittney Sykes is out for the foreseeable future, who is going to score for the Syracuse wom-en’s basketball team? Tired of asking questions? We got answers. Happy college basketball season.

Read on, Jesse Dougherty, Sports Editor

Net game All of The Daily Orange’s Basketball Guide content will be available online.See dailyorange.com

ID3Trevor Cooney’s shooting is central to his identity on the basketball court. It will also steer the reality and expectations of this Syracuse season.Pages 4-5

So fresh, so cleanSU has again lost some of its best and again starts a freshman at point guard. See how Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough are set to start in their first seasons.Pages 9

basketball guidethe daily orange 3

cover photo by margaret lin photo editor


STEADY AS HE GOESUnfairly or otherwise, Trevor Cooney is judged by the shots he takes and makes. As much as they define him, they’re set to define SU even more.

it’s not, ‘oh, i know this is wrong or this is right today’ type of a thing. it’s just kind of how sports are. and that’s just how it goes sometimes.

trevor cooney su guard

3-point percentage

When Syracuse lost games last season, Trevor Cooney didn’t help the cause.

Here’s how he did in wins and losses, and compared to the whole team in 2013–14.

shoot to win

41%

16%

in wins

in losses

field-goal percentage

43%

24%

in wins

in losses

points per game

13.45.8

in wins

in losses

37.5%

33.7%

syracuse

cooney

season 3-point percentage

Text by Jacob Klingerasst. sports editor

Photos by Margaret Linphoto editor

e heaves shots — hundreds of them — at a hoop, alone, in a gym. Any gym will do, and even just a hoop and a ball will work. Because before there was a gym, there was a driveway and before there was a driveway, there was a basement and before that, a kitchen.

And the whole time there was the shooter, relentlessly honing his craft, arcing a ball through a hoop.

There was Trevor Cooney.Cooney’s a Division I athlete and a serviceable defender in Syracuse’s 2-3

zone, but so much of his legacy as well as the fate of SU’s upcoming season simply rests on how often he can score.

Jim Boeheim needs him to. The Orange is returning just over 37 percent of its points from last year — the lowest in Boeheim’s 38 years with SU — and putting points on the board, often three at a time, is what Cooney needs to do to carry him and his teammates deeper into the season.

SU faded with his shooting stroke in 2013–14. And while Syracuse fans badly want him to be more, 53.9 percent of SU’s 3-pointers from last season return with his stocky 6-foot-4 body.

“I always want to be known as a shooter,” Cooney said. “I like to shoot.”He was a good basketball player who happened to score before he was

known as and became a shooter. But Cooney likes being labeled. He likes the effect the slightest flinch of his eyes or head has on opponents.

But when he was squeezing a foam ball in his kitchen and shooting it at a plastic rim — the kind you’d have in a dorm room — he was just a 4-year old. While his parents did dishes, he shot baskets, his father Brian Cooney said.

It helped him relax before bedtime.When he started to dribble, though, around age 6, his mother banished him

to a 4.5-foot basket in the basement. There, he played with an inflated rubber ball before graduating to the driveway around age 7.

The only expectation then was that he would eventually go to sleep. That was before he’d step on a court as a high school freshman, catch a ball and have “Shooter-shooter-shooter” screamed at him before he ever fired a shot in front of the people declaring his role.

“They said it enough to him, he actually became the shooter,” Brian Cooney said.

He gets to the Carrier Dome hours before it fills up with the fans who hear about his marathon shooting — and making, he said he only counts makes — sessions at the Carmelo K. Anthony Center and want to see that success rep-licated. To them, it only matters so much that he’s being charged at by people whose job it is to make him miss or that he’s surrounded by people screaming for him to shoot. It’s just supposed to work.

“I think people kind of add to Trevor and they hope to get G-Mac (assistant coach and former Syracuse star Gerry McNamara) once again,” said Stan Waterman, Cooney’s high school coach at the Sanford (Delaware) School. “But I think they’re a little bit different in terms of the fundamentals of the way they shoot the ball, but I think they’ve got the same mindset in that they think that shot’s going in.”

The comparisons to McNamara aren’t fair to Cooney, Waterman said. They wouldn’t be to anyone. McNamara won the school’s only NCAA title as a

freshman, shooting 35.7 percent from 3. And McNamara, unlike Cooney, was a point guard.

People close to Cooney said that he knows the comparisons are there. He doesn’t really talk about them. He just shoots.

“It’s what you are,” assistant head coach Mike Hopkins said.In his freshman year at the Sanford School, Cooney shot practically

one-handed, shot-putting balls toward the rim, Waterman said, but he made his shots. He was mostly just a spot shooter then.

The following season, opponents targeted Cooney with a box-and-one defense, designating one player to deny him the ball.

With a slightly lopsided rise and fall to his motion, Waterman said, Cooney became one of the best players in the state, but also one, Waterman said, he would catch being too unselfish.

“At times, yes, very,” Waterman said. “And I think that’s just a product of the person he is and the personality that he has, that he’s a competitive kid, but he is very unselfish and maybe needs to be a bit more selfish and a bit more aggressive in regards to his basketball game.”

On the last play of Cooney’s high school career, he ran off a screen, got the ball on the right wing from a baseline inbounds pass, then passed the ball. It was a state championship-winning assist.

The Syracuse coaching staff wants him to use his shot to set up and take

better drives. The Orange wants him to be more aggressive on offense, match-ing his defensive intensity.

Against Boston College on Feb. 19 last season, Cooney shot 1-of-6 from 3 and 2-of-8 from the field in 40 minutes. It was SU’s first loss of the season.

“It’s not, ‘Oh, I know this is wrong or this is right today’ type of a thing,” Cooney said of his performance in the game. “It’s just kind of how sports are. And that’s just how it goes sometimes.”

He didn’t shoot better than 30 percent from 3 for the rest of the season. Syracuse lost four of its next seven games, including the first round of the ACC tournament against N.C. State and the round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament. He shot a combined 1-of-10 from beyond the arc in the two tournament losses.

Waterman watches Cooney from afar and thinks that sometimes when he shoots, it’s hard for him to slow down from the shuffling he does atop SU’s zone and the diving after loose balls that sends the Orange breaking down the court.

The groove Cooney said he found against Notre Dame last season, going 9-for-12, goes away. The hoop that Cooney said seemed bigger is just normal and pretty hard to put a ball through.

For himself and for Syracuse, the boy who used to squeeze a foam ball and shoot to relax needs to relax to shoot and score.

Said Boeheim: “He’s a scorer. He scored last year. When he shot the ball well, we won.”

[email protected] | @Jacob_Klinger_

H


TALL ORDEROrange turns to senior Christmas to be primary post-scoring option for 1st time


Text by Phil D’Abbraccio asst. sports editor

Photo by Margaret Lin photo editor

he time has come for Rakeem Christmas to come out of his shell. Slowly, the transforma-tion is happening.

He’s graduated from the depths of Jim Boeheim’s doghouse, as well as Syracuse University itself. The graduate-stu-dent life for Christmas entails fewer than six hours of class per week and plenty more time to work on his game.

But whether he establishes himself as a con-sistent threat doesn’t only dictate how much of his transformation is complete; the Orange’s success hinges on it.

When SU’s outside shooting collapsed mid-way through last season, the team — short on scoring options from the inside — followed suit. The Orange is returning just over 37 percent of its points from last year — the lowest in Jim Boeheim’s 38 years with SU — and it will need Christmas, its lone senior, to be some-thing he’s never been before.

A go-to scorer in the post. “He was most of the inside scoring last year.

We didn’t score a lot inside other than layups,” SU assistant coach Mike Hopkins said. “But he gives you a presence.

“He’s about to have a big year. I really believe that.”

Syracuse knew what it was getting offen-sively when Christmas came in. Boeheim said SU loved him anyway.

His Scout.com profile summed it up well — listing explosiveness, rebounding and shot blocking as his strengths, and big-time scoring and post play as his weakness.

He wasn’t a basketball player until middle school. And even with his offensive game so

undeveloped, he was rated a five-star recruit by ESPN and Scout. Both those outlets and Rivals.com rated him the No. 2 center in the Class of 2011 and plenty of big-time programs came calling.

“I was really surprised about that,” Christ-mas said. “I wasn’t expecting any of that when I started playing basketball.”

After playing his freshman and sophomore years of high school at the now-defunct North Catholic (Pennsylvania) High School, Christ-mas transferred to the Academy of the New Church in the outskirts of Philadelphia.

There, he was in a system tailored for for-wards on a team that didn’t have as much talent in its backcourt.

Christmas signed his Syracuse letter of intent while his 6-foot-11 teammate Malcolm Gilbert, who’s now at Fairfield, was on his way to Pittsburgh. Savon Goodman, now at Arizona State after playing at UNLV, played the first three years of his high school career at ANC and was a 6-foot-6 small forward on that team.

Even in a stacked frontcourt, Christmas aver-aged fewer than 10 points per game as a senior.

“He was real athletic, he had moves, he could dunk the ball and things like that,” said Carl Arrigale, the head coach at Ss. Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School in Philadelphia, “but just his overall post game wasn’t really ready to be really effective.”

Using no players taller than 6 feet, 5 inch-es, nearby Abington Friends (Pennsylvania) School once shut down Christmas during his junior season and defeated ANC.

AFS assistant coach Jon Wessel scouted Christmas and ANC four or five times in addi-tion to playing them four times during the forward’s career.

Abington Friends pulled off the win, Wes-sel said, with lockdown defense by current Georgetown senior guard Jabril Trawick and a concerted team effort to keep Christmas’

touches away from the basket and doubling him when he got the ball in the paint.

The result was a mere six points on 2-of-5 shooting from Christmas and a 60-49 AFS victory. Florida’s Billy Donovan, Florida Inter-national’s Isaiah Thomas and Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel, among other high-profile coaches, were in the gym to see Christmas sputter out.

This upcoming season, Wessel said, will be challenging for Christmas to adjust from the role of a defensive stopper whose points largely came from scrappy rebounds to being a defen-sive stopper and a go-to scorer in the post.

“I always thought he didn’t have that great a touch offensively,” Wessel said. “He’s never been in a position where he has to be kind of the guy on offense. It seems like that isn’t his strong suit offensively, being one of the first or second options.

“... If that’s his role in Syracuse this year — I don’t know. We’ll see.”

While Kaleb Joseph and Trevor Cooney are far more talented than the guards Christmas played with in high school, Christmas finds himself on another frontcourt-heavy team.

Joseph may not be Tyler Ennis. Cooney’s demise at the midway point last season could very well continue. Only time will tell if Ron Patterson’s breakout in the exhibition win over Carleton on Nov. 2 continues.

If those scenarios play out, Christmas is the best post option for a team that will need points from that area on the floor.

“He’s been a contributor all the way, but now it’s more of an opportunity to contribute on offense,” Boeheim said, “and big guys gen-erally take a little longer anyway, so it’s not a shock that it’s taken him a little bit of time to get there.”

DaJuan Coleman’s season is in jeopardy for the third time in his career, clearing more space for Christmas. The Orange no longer has Baye Moussa Keita’s scrappiness.

Sophomore Chinonso Obokoh missed time in practice with a leg injury and has been thrown into the backup center role without ever appearing in a game for SU. Freshman Chris McCullough has also bounced from for-ward to center leading up to the season, but Christmas will be tasked with staying out of foul trouble and playing a bulk of the minutes in the center spot.

“I think Rakeem deserves the ball every time down the floor,” Cooney said.

Boeheim’s doghouse now awaits another unsuspecting underclassman, while Christ-mas, the first player in Boeheim’s tenure to graduate in three years, walks free as a gradu-ate student.

Physically, Christmas is noticeably stron-ger. The 10 full-court sprints he ran in reps of four or five over the offseason to enhance his cardio will be tested. And so will the up-and-unders, step-backs and hook shots he practiced throughout the offseason.

In his first game action of the season, Christmas exploded for 13 points in the sec-ond-half to carry Syracuse past Carleton.

Though he said he’s not any more vocal than he was before, Christmas has grown into an effective leader — one who’s more likely to text or call his teammates after a rough practice than chew them out in front of everyone.

Syracuse’s last true post presence left in the form of Fab Melo two and a half years ago and one hasn’t returned since.

If Christmas can bring that back, his trans-formation will be complete.

“You see what he’s done in the offseason,” Hopkins said. “You see how he’s working.

“To me those are the signs that, you know what? He’s ready to do this.”

[email protected] | @PhilDAbb

i always thought he didn’t have that great a touch offensively. he’s never been in a position where he has to be kind of the guy on offense. it seems like that isn’t his strong suit offensively, being one of the first or second options.

jon wesselabington friends (pennsylvania)assistant coach

falling short

T

2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014

30%

15.2%

23.9%

24.7%23.2%

43.4%

24.7%

16.6%

47.8%

13.6%

Senior Rakeem Christmas will be asked to step up and supply scoring from the inside this season. From each of the last 10 seasons, here is Syracuse’s percentage of scoring from players who stood 6 feet, 9 inches and taller:



sam blum regular-season final record: 22-7 ncaa tournament: elite eight

The key to Syracuse’s success this season hinges on the health of its pre-season first-team All-ACC guard Brittney Sykes, who tore her ACL in the first round of the NCAA tournament last season. But with her, Brianna Butler and the emergence of sophomore point guard Alexis Peterson, the Orange

is poised to build off its first-ever tournament win last season. The rhetoric surrounding SU’s inability to beat the best teams in the ACC last year will change when the Orange posts a cou-ple big wins in-conference.

paul schwedelsonregular-season final record: 21-8ncaa tournament:

sweet 16

Without the injured Sykes, who led the team in scoring last year, Syracuse will need to fill the scoring void. Head coach Quentin Hillsman will be tasked with balancing the minutes of his deep squad coming off its first NCAA tour-nament victory last season. SU is continuing to progress after losing to Ken-

tucky in the second round of the tournament by five points. Forwards Briana Day and Taylor Ford will be counted on to contribute as Syracuse looks to take the next step by winning twice in the Big Dance this year.

josh hyber regular-season final record: 22-7ncaa tournament:

sweet 16

Much of Syracuse’s season rides on the recovery of Sykes’ torn right ACL. Hopefully for the Orange, she’ll be back by the time it plays against Baylor on Dec. 19 in Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Sykes and Butler form one of the ACC’s premier backcourts, and will once again be the team’s go-to players.

Look for breakout years from Peterson and Day, who will take the minutes of the graduated Rachel Coffey and Shakeya Leary, respectively.

women’s basketball beat writer predictions


FRESH AGAINNew point guard takes the ball, young rangy forward plays crucial role for 3rd straight year

see mccullough page 12see joseph page 12

third in line

Text by Jesse Doughertysports editor

Photos by Margaret Lin

photo editor

Kaleb Joseph took off his basketball sneakers and scrolled through his phone, crouching in front of the same locker point guard Tyler Ennis occupied a year ago. Then he was crowded by cameras and tape recorders, like Ennis always was, and smiled

while rattling off answers — accepting as many compliments as he dished out.

Chris McCullough weaved through a crowd of his teammates and reporters in nothing but a towel, retreating to the same corner that forward Jerami Grant used to sit in while he got dressed after games.

Joseph and McCullough stood in the place of the players they’re effectively replacing — if not by exact position and skill set, then in the two

starting spots that have both freshmen on an express track.

“We are going to need them to do a lot,” SU assistant coach Adrian Autry said of Joseph and McCullough. “They know that and the team knows that. When you lose a lot of production and bring in two high-profile guys, the expectation is that they are ready. And they are.”

As Syracuse heads into the 2014–15 season, one of its biggest questions is how it’s going to score. The Orange is returning just over 37 percent of its points from last year — the lowest in Jim Boeheim’s 38 years with SU — which places Joseph and McCullough in the middle of an offensive transition while they transition themselves.

It’s a process that will be different for both freshmen, with Joseph captaining a stalled ship and McCullough polishing and rounding his offensive game while learning different roles. But they both started in Syracuse’s opening scrimmage against Carleton on Nov. 2 and fig-ure to spend more time on the court than not as the No. 23 Orange looks to turn decreased expectations on their head this season.

“When I think of the freshmen, I just know they can score,” junior Michael Gbinije said. “For us, when we need to make up for what we lost, we’re going to do it by committee and all the rota-tional guys are going to chip in.

“But having those guys, fresh guys, will only make that easier.”

cCullough took a ball at Orange Madness on Oct. 17 and smirked at his teammates.

Then the 6-foot-10, 220-pound freshman ran at a girl holding a

Jim Boeheim big head, leapt, spread his legs and cleared it clean before throwing a dunk through the rim. The feat didn’t even win the event’s dunk

contest — sophomore guard B.J. Johnson did — but it was a flash of the McCullough’s athleticism.

“Chris is really a freak,” Cooney said. “I know he wears C.J. (Fair)’s number, but I see a lot of Jerami in him and ability to get to where he wants on the floor and finish strong.”

At the Salisbury (Connecticut) School,

yracuse assistant coach Gerry McNamara says it’s unfair to compare Joseph, ESPN’s 50th ranked recruit in the freshman class, to Ennis.

Ennis replaced NBA lottery pick Michael Carter-Williams last year and played 35.7 minutes per game, averaged 12.9 points, 5.5

assists and just 1.7 turnovers, and forewent his last three years of college eligibility to be selected by the Phoenix Suns with the 18th pick of the first round in June.

Joseph isn’t Ennis and isn’t expecting himself to be. But with the Orange lacking a refined sixth man and the 6-foot-7 Gbinije

stretch

S M

11

North Carolina State (Away) 2 p.m. — 3/7

Kennesaw State (Home) - 7 p.m. — 11/14

Hampton (Home) - 4 p.m. — 11/16

California (MSG) - 9 p.m. — 11/20

Iowa/Texas (MSG) - 5/7 p.m. — 11/21

Loyola (Home) - 7 p.m. — 11/25

Holy Cross (Home) - 7 p.m. — 11/28

Michigan (Away) - 7:30 p.m. — 12/2

St. John’s (Home) - 5:15 p.m. — 12/6

Louisiana Tech (Home) - 4 p.m. — 12/14

Villanova (Away) - 1 p.m. — 12/20

Colgate (Home) - 7 p.m. — 12/22

Long Beach State (Home) - 2 p.m. — 12/28

Cornell (Home) - 6 p.m. — 12/31

Virginia Tech (Away) - 12 p.m. — 1/3

Georgia Tech (Away) - 7 p.m. — 1/7

Florida State (Home) - 8 p.m. — 1/11

Wake Forest (Home) - 8 p.m. — 1/13

Clemson (Away) - 4 p.m. — 1/17

Boston College (Home) - 7 p.m. — 1/20

Miami (Home) - 4 p.m. — 1/24

North Carolina (Away) - 7 p.m. — 1/26

Virginia Tech (Home) - 9 p.m. — 2/3

Pittsburgh(Away) - 4 p.m. — 2/7

Boston College (Away) - 7 p.m. — 2/11

Duke(Home) - 6 p.m. — 2/14

Louisville (Home) - 7 p.m. — 2/18

Pittsburgh (Home) - 12 p.m. — 2/21

Notre Dame(Away) - 8 p.m. — 2/24

Duke (Away) - TBA — 2/28

Virginia (Home) - 7 p.m. — 3/2

schedule

6-9, 255, junior, forward

His status for this season remains what it’s been for a few months – very uncertain. Boeheim said

at media day on Oct. 17 that SU is hopeful Coleman can “do something” in November, but added that there is no real timetable for the junior’s return to

the court from another knee injury.

UNSETTLED SCORE

Syracuse heads into its 2nd ACC season with an undefined offensive leader. Here’s the team.6-9, 250, senior, forward

The reserved big man will have to be a bit louder with his play this year. Keita is gone and so is

DaJuan Coleman for the foreseeable future, so it’s on Christmas’ shoulders to avoid foul trouble, man the middle of the zone and contribute as the

team’s primary scoring option in the low post.

6-7, 200, junior, forward

Syracuse’s utility man could be asked to play any of the guard positions and will sometimes

play the wing in the Orange’s 2-3 zone. Jim Boeheim’s already said Gbinije will play as much as any starter this season. When Kaleb Joseph needs a rest and Gbinije runs the point, he’ll be

as important as any.

6-7, 185, sophomore, forward

Johnson scored just 14 total points in 55 total minutes in 2013–14, and there’s no

indication that he’s going to get a significant increase in minutes this year. But the need

for guard depth could give him a chance to see some playing time.

6-3, 165, freshman, guard

Joseph will be forced to fill the shoes of point guard Tyler Ennis, who left after one prolific sea-son at Syracuse to enter the NBA Draft. Joseph

will be SU’s fourth starting point guard in the last four years, and he’s also the only true point

guard in the rotation.

6-8, 212, sophomore, forward

Roberson is set to build on the 8.1 minutes per game he played last season if he can stretch the floor as a power forward. He’ll be crucial pinning down a wing of the 2-3 zone and hitting the glass for the Orange. Roberson had .23 rebounds per

minute as a freshman last season.

6-2, 200, sophomore, guard

Patterson averaged just 2.8 points in 5.4 minutes per game as a freshman and he’ll be fighting for any playing time he can get in 2014–15. In SU’s

first exhibition though, he tallied 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including 4-of-5 from 3.

meet the team

6-4, 195, junior, guard

Cooney has been part-time Jekyll, part-time Hyde over his two-year stint in the Syracuse

rotation. He had a blistering nonconference sea-son last year before falling off in the latter half

of the year to finish with a 12.1 points-per-game average on 37.5 percent shooting from the field.

6-10, 220, freshman, forward

The Orange’s tallest player may also have to be its most multi-faceted. He’ll have to play center

when Christmas leaves the floor, feed the center when he doesn’t and even be asked to hit an occasional long-range jump shot as a stretch

power forward.

6-9, 215, sophomore, center

Assistant coach Mike Hopkins was very careful not to compare Obokoh to Baye Moussa Keita,

but the assistant coach said the sophomore could have a similar effect to Keita with his defen-sive energy. Obokoh missed some practice time

with a right thigh tear, but is an option off the bench if Rakeem Christmas is in foul trouble.

trevor cooney michael gbinije

tyler roberson

kaleb joseph

ron patterson

b.j. johnson

rakeem christmas

dajuan coleman

chinonso obokoh

chris mccullough

34 29

3753

With a backcourt featuring freshman point guard Kaleb Joseph and inconsistent shooter Trevor Cooney, Syracuse will look to its forwards for production this season. Here’s how the returning group fared last season.

looking forward

phil d’abbraccio

The Real Slim Shady

Regular-season record: 21-10ACC regular-season finish: 5th

ACC tournament finish: QuarterfinalNCAA Tournament seeding: 8

Finish: Round of 32 loss

After a near-clean nonconference slate, the Orange can breeze through the first half of its ACC schedule, but the back end of February

throws Duke, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Duke again and Virginia at Syracuse, all in suc-cession. That run of two and a half weeks and recurring offensive issues drop the Orange’s

stock for a high NCAA Tournament seed and an early exit in the ACC tournament doesn’t help.

After falling to Dayton in the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tourna-ment to finish last season, The Daily Orange men’s basketball beat writers Phil D’Abbraccio, Jesse Dougherty and Jacob Klinger predict how the Orange will finish this time around.

beat writer predictions

jesse dougherty The Doctor’s In


ACC tournament finish: SemifinalNCAA Tournament seeding: 5


Syracuse wills through its nonconference sched-ule mostly unscathed and then hits a few road

bumps — most notably a three-game home stand with Duke, Louisville and Pittsburgh — that keeps it an arm’s length away from the top of the

conference. In the end, similar shooting strug-gles to last year haunt Syracuse in March, and

it better hope that the NBA hopefuls don’t jump ship as a result.

jacob klinger Clear Eyes, One Heart


ACC tournament finish: SemifinalNCAA Tournament seeding: 7


Syracuse gets to New Year’s Eve with just one loss before the Orange gets banged up in the heart of

its ACC schedule. Unlike last season though, when SU started losing and practically couldn’t stop, this Syracuse team has enough time to recover and makes a run at the conference tournament

title. The Orange can’t turn it into an NCAA run as a lack of presence down low kills off an appropriate

amount of late-season optimism.

37

tyler roberson

michael gbinijedajuan coleman

rakeem christmas

5.8

5.1

1.9

2.2

1.9

0.2

3.4

1.8

0.2

4.3

4.2

0.5

points per game rebounds per game

blocks per game

After losing Tyler Ennis, C.J. Fair, Jerami Grant and Baye Moussa Keita, Syracuse isn’t returning much from last season. Here are the returning percentages for each statistic and where that ranks for SU teams since 2000.

44

points rebounds assists

steals

last last 13th

14th 11th last

difference a year makes 2013–14 total 2014–15 returning

fga

10

blocks


from page 9

josephfrom page 9

mcculloughBrewster (New Hampshire) Academy and then IMG (Florida) Academy, McCullough was a standout player that surfaced as ESPN’s 24th-best player and fifth-best power forward in the Class of 2014. But his high school dominance creates an obstacle of sorts at Syracuse, where he won’t be able to get to the rim with ease and rely on his willowy frame to dominate on both ends.

Instead, McCullough is being asked to play with his back to the basket in the paint in the high post and stretch the floor with deep mid-range jump shots, to serve as a liaison between the Orange’s guards and Christmas. Points will have to come from all of that.

“The thing I’ve been focusing on most is work-ing on the low post,” McCullough said. “Because I have worked in the high post in the past and know that role … If I can get my post moves down, I’ll be deadly.”

To do that, McCullough has been working with Autry and the SU big men so he can play the center position in the team’s base four-around-one set. That spot is usually occupied by Christmas, but the Orange can’t expect one player to play the mid-

dle of the zone and offense for full games at a time.That’s where McCullough comes in — with ver-

satility that is both apparent and ready to bloom. “He’s like a pterodactyl,” said Hopkins, stretch-

ing his arms out as far as he could. “He can just go up and grab both sides of the rim. It’s very impressive.”

McCullough is Syracuse’s tallest player and, in different lineups, he will be an undefined forward as the season starts. The high post gives him an opportunity to establish a jumper and ensuing driving lanes. The low post is a chance to use his length around the rim and draw fouls. A roaming spot on the wing is where he can experiment off the dribble and mix in 3s.

Against Carleton, McCullough elevated from the top of the arc and buried a triple. No one could contest it and it swished through the net without nicking the rim.

And the next step for McCullough — looking past offense, defense and what he’ll need to do to contribute right away — is for him to be a presence.

He’s quiet, almost shy, but demanding the ball will be a huge factor in how big of a factor he’ll be.

“I’m not too worried about getting the guys to look to me,” McCullough said. “I think the coaches are going to make it happen, and then I will have make it keep happening.”

expected to assume point guard duties when Joseph needs a rest, he is like Ennis.

“Tyler did some great things and yeah, it is a hard act to follow,” Joseph said. “But you just have to make it your team, that’s how you make fans and your teammates trust you. I like to run, we’re going to run with me at the point.”

Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hop-kins sees a combination of Syracuse point guards of the past Jonny Flynn, Michael Carter-Williams and Ennis in Joseph. He likes to push tempo like Flynn, can rebound and stretch the zone like Carter-Williams and has similar poise to Ennis.

Vincent Pastore, Joseph’s former coach with the Mass Rivals A AU team, also detailed a wide-ranging skill set.

“He wasn’t the kind of player to just do one thing over and over because it worked,” Pastore said. “A lot of guys do that, most guys do that. They find that they can get to the rim or hit a jump shot in a certain place and they go back to that over and over. But Kaleb always made sure he could do everything as

a guard.”What Joseph’s coaches and teammates

have noticed is his ability to succeed in a pick-and-roll offense. Redshirt junior guard Trevor Cooney’s eyes lit up when talking about how Joseph’s ability to penetrate and draw defenders will create shooting oppor-tunities for him. In SU’s exhibition win over Carleton, Joseph poured in 19 points and opened up the paint for Rakeem Christmas to explode for 13 second-half points.

And when Joseph is asked about a hole in his game, he smiles and tilts his head back. Then he squints his eyes and it’s hard to tell if he’s trying to find or pick one.

“I need to shoot the 3 better, I’m working on it,” Joseph said.

In high school, Joseph headed to the Cushing (Massachusetts) Academy gym before school every morning and made 500 3-pointers. He doesn’t have the time to do that in college, but knows that a polished long-range jump shot would add another dimension to his encompassing game.

“The janitors here know me well,” he says, laughing, of the Carmelo K. Anthony Basket-ball Center. “They really do.”

Twelve years ago, Syracuse headed into the 2002–03 season with 41 percent of its scoring from a season before — just 4 percent higher than the number the Orange has now.

That team was led by two freshmen —

one that plays for the New York Knicks and another that sits on the Syracuse bench — and finished the year clipping down a champion-ship net.

Joseph’s not McNamara. McCullough’s not

Carmelo Anthony. The prospect of Syracuse winning the second national championship in program history is a slim one and doesn’t rest on Joseph and McCullough’s shoulders.

But the freshmen have each been given a

set of keys. “I’ve seen a team be led by freshman,” said

McNamara, almost wistfully. “This team needs those guys to be locked in.”

[email protected] | @dougherty_jesse

fresh outlook


DECK THE HALL

wins final fours

ncaa tournament wins national titles

With Louisville joining the ACC, the league now has four Hall of Fame coaches. Here’s how the careers of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina’s Roy Williams, Louisville’s Rick Pitino and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim compare.

mike krzyzewski

jim boeheim

roy williams

rick pitino

983

948

724

693

82

63

53

50

11

7

7

4

4

2

2

1


DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH5th-year transfer Henderson looks to spark SU offense in Sykes’ absence

Text by Paul Schwedelsonstaff writer

Photo by Margaret Linphoto editor

iamond Henderson’s mother, Crystal, stayed in the family’s silver Ford Expedition reading books with a small flashlight as Diamond played with her

father, Chris, and many of her six siblings well past midnight.

The Hendersons didn’t have gym access, so on cool summer nights, the full court in Dupree Park in Woodstock, Georgia was where they played. Crystal would bring snacks and sandwiches for the kids and shout out “Hustle harder” and “Run faster” from the car until she fell asleep in the van.

“By the time they got back in the car, the smell wasn’t too good,” Crystal Henderson said. “But it was just peaceful, it was serene. It was what we did as a family.”

The family’s passion for the game bred Hen-derson’s, who used the family’s move from Hemp-stead, New York to Marietta, Georgia to round out her game and develop into a scoring threat.

Henderson was heavily recruited out of high school and again when she graduated from Tennessee Tech in May with one year left of eligibility. She transferred to Syracuse to pursue a master’s degree in instructional design and now only has class one day a week, allowing for plenty of time to work on her game in the gym.

The 5-foot-6 guard averaged 19.7 points per game at Tennessee Tech last year and could potentially fill the scoring void left by Brittney Sykes, the Orange’s leading scorer last year, who is recovering from a torn ACL.

“She’s just a complete offensive player,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said of Hen-derson. “She’s going to have a role for us that’s going to be very, very important.”

Henderson’s basketball seeds were planted in Hempstead, New York, where she grew up prior to moving to Georgia before entering sixth grade.

Chris Henderson also grew up in Hemp-stead and the drive-to-the-basket, street-ball style is how he learned the game. That’s what he passed down to his daughter.

Henderson and her younger brother by 18 months, Jade, would take a five-minute walk to Lincoln Park in Hempstead. There, she played with the boys.

“Everybody always wanted Diamond on their team,” Jade Henderson said. “‘Oh, I want Diamond, Diamond, Diamond.’ Everyone knew

see diamond page 17

D



By Sam Blum asst. copy editor

ays before Quentin Hillsman’s team would play Chattanooga in the first round of the 2014 NCAA tournament, he watched Jim Boeheim run a practice.

Hillsman’s Syracuse team had never won a tournament game. The banners draped along the walls of the Carmelo K. Anthony Basket-ball Center mostly belong to the men’s pro-gram.

So snuck in between the hours of watching nearly every game Chattanooga played that season, coaching his own team and trying to get a few hours of sleep for sustenance, Hillsman stood on the ground floor of the Melo Center and watched a man whose success he’s trying to emulate.

“Sometimes the best learning tool is just watching,” Hillsman said. “And we do that all the time. I come and watch his practices to see what he does and that’s what we do.”

On the first day that Hillsman was hired to be the women’s head coach nine seasons ago, Boeheim came and told him that his door was always open. Since then, the two have become friends and Hillsman’s become a student to Boeheim’s coaching tactics.

Boeheim has 948 wins, including 53 in the NCAA tournament. Of Hillsman’s 167 career wins, his one tournament win came against Chattanooga before the Orange lost to Ken-tucky to end last year. And with the start of this season approaching — in which the wom-en’s team will look to build on its best season in program history — Hillsman continues to use Boeheim as a resource for developing the same level of success.

“He looks at our defense and he watches our offense and sees what we’re doing,” Boeheim said. “… I think he uses some of our zone.”

Boeheim is famous for running the 2-3 zone almost exclusively throughout his 38-year coaching tenure, but it’s also become a staple of Hillman’s defensive tactics. Hillsman said that it’s tough to replicate the size and length that the men’s team has, but still uses Boeheim’s defense as a model.

Watching Boeheim in practice, Hillsman said, is like a “zone clinic.” He takes in every-

thing but it’s not exactly the same across both teams. Hillsman likes to press and turn good defense into quick offense more than the men’s team typically does.

“I ask his opinion on how to guard some-thing,” Hillsman said, “or just ask about a game that he played or had a situation that might have been a little more difficult for us. I go and ask him what would he have done.”

And whenever he has a question for Boe-heim, he can walk the “75 steps” down the hall to the men’s basketball coaches’ offices and sit down with him.

Hillsman said he can bring up an in-game scenario to Boeheim and Boeheim wouldn’t have even needed to see the tape to answer it. In 38 years of coaching, it’s clear that Boeheim has seen everything, Hillsman said.

“You have a front row ticket to a living, walking legend, Jim Boeheim,” said SU guard Brittney Sykes, who was the team’s leading scorer last season. “You sit on the sidelines and you watch and you learn.”

Boeheim says that the respect goes both ways. He too will watch the women’s team practice and is excited by the progress the program has made. But it’s Boeheim’s advice that means the most to Hillsman.

“He’s a hall of famer, he’s got a champion-ship,” Hillsman said, pointing to his finger that has no championship ring. “He doesn’t got to ask me nothing.”

To get to that level, though, he mimics what he sees. He watches as Boeheim exhausts every possible scenario in practice and does the same. He’ll see Boeheim use different players for different purposes and adopt that into his own repertoire.

He watches every men’s game, either in person, on television or in the Syracuse video room, and he learns.

But most importantly, he has an open door to Boeheim’s office. And Hillsman has a Syra-cuse brand of basketball 38 years in the mak-ing to build his own program off of in hopes of winning that first championship.

“We have a good relationship and it’s impor-tant for the men’s and women’s basketball coaches, you know, we’re right here,” Boeheim said. “It’s important for us to work together and he’s great to work with.”

[email protected] | @SamBlum3

TAKING NOTEHillsman studies, learns from Boeheim while building up Syracuse women’s team following best season in program history

D

Since Quentin Hillsman came to Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has served as a mentor to the women’s team’s head coach, who led SU to its first NCAA tournament win last year. Here is a year-by-year look at how the Orange’s women’s team has fared under Hillsman’s command:

finish in conference

2005–06: 16th

2006–07: 15th

2007–08: 6th

2008–09: 12th

2009–10: 8th

2010–11: 7th

2011–12: 10th

2012–13: 4th (Final Big East year)

2013–14: 6th (ACC)

the understudy scoring defense

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

‘05-’06‘06-’07

‘12-’13‘11-’12

‘10-’11‘09-’10

‘08-’09‘07-’08

‘13-’14

68.2

5760.2

68.4

61.767.2

57.460.2

63.5

wins over hillsman’s tenure

‘05-’06‘06-’07

‘12-’13‘11-’12

‘10-’11‘09-’10

‘08-’09‘07-’08

‘13-’140

5

10

15

20

25

9 9

22

17

25 25

2224

23

JIM BOEHEIM has 948 career wins, compared to 167 for Quentin Hillsman. Boeheim, a 38-year veteran, told Hillsman that his office door would always be open if he ever wanted to to talk basketball. Hillsman has taken him up on that offer. margaret lin photo editor

QUENTIN HILLSMAN has become a mentee of Jim Boeheim. Now starting his 10th sea-son, Hillsman is coming off his first-ever NCAA tournament win and he credits Boeheim for always being a resource for him. emma fierberg staff photographer

she was going to be a ball player. Everyone.”In the parks, it was much more common

to attack the hoop. Henderson saw that out-side jump shots were unusual and modeled her game with strong dribbling abilities and aggressiveness in the paint, as Crystal Hender-son said she would pass up open 3s.

Chris Henderson said that in New York, the objective on offense was to make your defender look “silly.” He only learned the game by play-ing in the parks and schoolyards.

When he taught his daughter how to play, he told her to try and humiliate her defender with her ball-handling skills. He taught her daughter how to play with street-ball competi-tiveness. She was determined to win and if she didn’t, she would cry.

Raising a family in Hempstead presented chal-lenges for the family, prompting Chris Henderson

to move the family from his home to Georgia.“It wasn’t like we were pressured into this

bad environment and she was scared of get-ting hurt or shot and killed,” Chris Henderson said, “but that area itself … I knew there was an easier way to get my kids to the right schools. They needed to be successful without any distractions.”

When the family moved, Henderson’s bas-ketball career was at a crossroads. Her coaches no longer taught the New York playground style. Instead, they preached fundamentals.

“She would come home and get frustrated saying ‘Daddy, they told me to do X, Y and Z. I should have been doing such and such and such,’” Chris Henderson said.

“I said, ‘Hey, forget them. Do what you have to do.’”

But ultimately, Henderson bought in. She began blending the two styles together as she grew even more dangerous with the ball.

She began developing a jump shot and could

beat a defender regardless of whether they were up close or sagging off.

“Diamond’s greatest quality is she can score,” said Jim Davis, Tennessee Tech’s head coach. “Bottom line. She is a scorer.”

She studied film of Kobe Bryant, particu-larly his footwork, fade-away jumper and abil-ity to kiss shots off the glass from the post.

During summer workouts entering her freshman year at North Cobb (Georgia) High School, she showed future varsity teammates how to be a leader. It wasn’t with words, but with swift actions, like powering her way to the hoop or dishing the ball to an open teammate.

“In high school she felt she could cross you over and get to the basket,” said John Speeney, then a North Cobb assistant. “It didn’t matter who she was playing.”

After playing three years at North Cobb, Hen-derson transferred to St. Francis (Georgia) High School for the final semester of her senior year. St. Francis’ head coach, Aisha Kennedy had been Henderson’s AAU coach since 10th grade.

In a playoff game, with a state tournament berth on the line, Henderson was cramping up, but didn’t sub out. During timeouts, Hender-son ate mustard and drank pickle juice.

She played the entire game in the dou-ble-overtime victory.

“You just got to push through adversity,” Henderson said. “Things are going to happen, you might cramp up, you might tweak an ankle, you might jam a finger but you just have to push through it if you really want to win.”

After falling in love with Tennessee Tech and spurning major-conference programs, Henderson often drew the opposing teams’ best defender and sometimes a double team.

“She averaged 20 points a game and peo-ple look at the level,” Hillsman said. “Twenty points in Division I is 20 points.”

When she lived in Hempstead as the oldest of seven siblings, she cooked dinner for her sib-lings when her parents weren’t home, helped them with homework and made them go to bed on time.

Back in the same state where her career began, Henderson, 23, is the oldest player on the Syracuse roster. Her teammates have already nicknamed her “Grandma.” When someone needs guidance, they often go to Henderson.

And with one year left in college basketball, Henderson is hardly forgetting what her father taught her.

“I love contact,” Henderson said. “I don’t mind getting into the paint, gritting it out and just being more aggressive than my defender.”

[email protected]

from page 15

diamond

After transferring from Tennessee Tech, Diamond Henderson will look to provide Syracuse with a spark at the guard position in her final college season. She improved her statistical output each year with the Golden Eagles and will look to continue that trend with the Orange.

freshman 1.4 pts, .73 reb, .64 astsophomore 15.8 pts, 2.6 reb, 2.4 astjunior 19.7 pts, 3.5 reb, 3.2 ast

point of attack


All serious applicants please email us your resume: [email protected]

NEW ARMORY SQUARE LOCATION!! TARGET OPENING SET FOR 11/24/14


By Matt Schneidmanasst. copy editor

hen Antoine Mason walked across the stage at Niagara’s graduation in 2014, he knew he had a choice to make.

The nation’s second-leading scorer could use his fifth year of eligibility to play for second-year head coach Chris Casey on a Purple Eagles team that just went 7-26. He could put up 25.6 points per game in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference again or he could have a more balanced role on a power-conference team that draws the eyes of more NBA scouts.

But that’s not exactly how the decision was laid out.

“He said he was going to play less minutes,” said Anthony Mason, referring to Casey’s plan for his son. “And he wanted him to score less, which made absolutely no sense to me or nobody else.”

After being faced with the prospect of play-ing a lesser role on a team in which he was the best player, Mason made a decision to maxi-mize his final year of eligibility.

Now an Auburn Tiger, Mason knows play-ing in the Southeastern Conference will get him more NBA exposure, despite the fact he won’t be scoring in the mid-20s every game. He wants to prove to people, most importantly professional scouts, that he’s not simply a scorer and can adjust his game to fit into a better team.

“He just saw me as a lesser minutes, lesser role, lesser points guy,” Mason said of Casey. “I thought me, being my last year, that’s not going to be my best decision.”

Mason’s 25.6 points per game was the second highest average in Division I, next to Creighton’s Doug McDermott’s 26.7 scoring average last year. But he didn’t really start playing serious competitive basketball until AAU in his junior year of high school, said Latifa Whitlock, Mason’s mother.

Growing up watching his dad play for the New York Knicks, Antoine always had a ball in his hand but played “everything.” Whit-lock didn’t want him to choose basketball just because of his father.

But time on the T-ball diamonds and soccer fields were replaced by time on the hardwood, and scoring 28 points in a high school basket-ball game his sophomore year proved to Mason that it was his sport.

“I felt like it came naturally,” Mason said of his scoring ability. “It was just easy for me.”

That innate ability to put the ball in the bas-ket was on display in his senior year at Niagara, which made it that much stranger when Casey told Mason he’d play less, need to score fewer points and have to take on a smaller role if he was to use his fifth year.

Mason said Casey didn’t have a reason for the proposed plan, but that it was probably because he was a new coach. Whitlock said

Casey wanting to give playing time to his first full crop of incoming recruits may have played into her son’s decision.

Knowing he had one last shot to impress NBA scouts, Mason chose to head to Auburn and play for first-year head coach Bruce Pearl.

Anthony Mason said if his son was transfer-ring to a school that was coached any way like he was last year at Niagara, he wouldn’t even be coming back to college. But Pearl’s system will be good for Mason and force him to fit into an offense that doesn’t revolve around him.

“I would expect him to be one of our leading scorers but I don’t anticipate that he will put up those types of numbers, not just because of the level, but the role he will play on our team,” Pearl said at Auburn’s media day. “We’re going to have more balance than they did at Niagara. He could score more for us but my teams have always been fairly balanced.”

Mason said he’s been hearing the same questions from a couple people, “Can you play

on this level?” “Are you going to be respected on this level?”

The common perception that he’s simply a scorer needs to be thrown out the window, Mason said. He wants to prove that setting up teammates to score like he has makes him equally as valuable of an asset as putting up 25.6 points per game does.

“I feel like I have better teammates (at Auburn), but I always feel like I’ve got to play my part as well,” Mason said. “If I can get my teammates involved and get them going, I don’t need a lot of shots.”

Pearl knows Mason can play a more bal-anced game. Anthony Mason said his son has always been a well-rounded player.

Now all that’s left is to prove to NBA scouts and everyone else is that he’s not just a scorer, but someone who can do it all on a bigger stage.

Said Mason: “It’s going to be, ‘Oh, he can play at any type of level.’”

[email protected] | @matt_schneidman

EYE OF THE TIGERMason brings offensive firepower to Auburn, prepares to work on balancing skills

W

ANTOINE MASON was second in the nation last year with 25.6 points per game. He was told he wouldn’t see as much time if he stayed a fifth year at Niagara, so Mason transferred to Auburn in order to get more exposure to NBA scouts. courtesy of wade rackley

Antoine Mason had to shoulder a heavy load at Niagara last year, leading the team in points and minutes by large mar-gins. Now at Auburn, he’ll look to prove to NBA scouts that he’s not just a scorer and can adapt his game to succeed in a better conference. Here are some statistical categories and how he compared to the runner up on the Purple Eagles.

flying higher

846

302

25.6 9.7

1242

920

612

271

40 34

SECOND PLACE

TOTAL POINTS POINTS PER GAME

MINUTES FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED

STEALS

ANTOINE MASON

By Josh Hyberstaff writer

Think Atlantic Coast Conference basketball. It’s Duke and Mike Krzyzewski. It’s North

Carolina and Tobacco Road. In the past two years, it’s added historical programs in Jim Boe-heim’s Syracuse, then Rick Pitino’s Louisville.

Quietly, there’s an under-the-radar power brewing in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Cav-aliers went 30-7 last season, winning the ACC tournament and reaching the Sweet 16.

Despite winning 16 of 18 games in one of the elite conferences, UVA enters this season No. 9 overall and No. 4 in the preseason ACC poll.

“We realize that Duke and Carolina and Syr-acuse and Louisville are always going to be talk-ed about at a different level,” Virginia associate head coach Ritchie McKay said. “But for us, we like the way our program’s growing. We feel like we can attract a terrific student-athlete.”

Virginia does have a fruitful history. Ralph Sampson was a three-time conference Player of the Year and led the Cavaliers to Final Fours in 1981 and 1984. They’ve reached five Elite Eights and have had an ACC Coach of the Year winner in the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘00s and 2010s.

“We don’t have all the McDonald’s All-Americans and don’t necessarily play flashy,” said Zack Bartee, the president of the Hoo Crew, the school’s student-body fan sec-tion. “But we play efficient, play good defense and slow the tempo down.”

Last season, UVA head coach Tony Bennett

divided the team’s season into thirds: the pre-season, nonconference play and ACC play. In nonconference play, the Cavaliers lost to Wis-consin-Green Bay and then to Tennessee by 35.

Guard Justin Anderson had a bitter taste in his mouth after a four-point loss at Duke on Jan. 13. But UVA won its next 13 games, including a 15-point victory at Notre Dame and a 19-point victory at home against Syracuse.

When Duke beat North Carolina State in the ACC tournament semifinals, Anderson turned to roommate and UVA guard Devon Hall and said, “It’s time for round two.”

The Cavaliers handed Duke its first loss in the ACC championship game since 2004 and earned the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tourna-ment East Region, falling to Michigan State in the Sweet 16 to end the season.

Confidence stirs on UVA’s campus, where the nearest pro team resides over two hours away.

Bartee said student involvement and ticket requests have gone “way up.” Last season, Hoo Crew rented a bus to drive to Madison Square Garden for the Sweet 16.

“People started showing up earlier,” Bartee said. “It was much louder than it was earlier in the season.”

Last year, Anderson said, the Cavaliers put targets on the backs of other teams. This year Anderson thinks it’ll be the other way around, even though expectations from the outside are still moderate for UVA.

“There was a time last year when Syracuse was 25-0,” McKay said. “When you go 25-0 and then

lose two out of three and people are wondering what happened, those are awfully big expectations.

“We don’t get that and I’m not sure we

would want it. Although, I know we’d welcome the challenge.”

[email protected]

Virginia prepares to defend ACC championship, earn respect



Documents

Basketball Guide 2014