6 burning questions for the 2023-24 Syracuse basketball team
It finally appears all the dust kicked up by the offseason activity surrounding the Syracuse men’s basketball roster is settled, save for one last wisp that looks like the last trail of smoke following Judah Mintz to the NBA draft. After all the hubbub, the Orange roster vaguely resembles what it looked like in their season-ending loss against Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament.
Four players have transferred out of the program in addition to Mintz’s likely foray into the professional ranks with four transfers committing to SU along with one incoming freshman, making an even swap of five players out and five players in. Those five new faces join seven holdovers on the roster.
The announcement of each incoming transfer was met with excitement, as they all bring significant pedigrees. J.J. Starling was a five-star recruit and McDonald’s All-American, Kyle Cuffe, Jr. and Chance Westry both were four-star prospects in high school, and Naheem McLeod was a three-star player. Each of the four originally landed with Power 5 schools.
Starling and Westry each were in the Class of 2022 with Cuffe and McLeod entering college the year before that. Westry redshirted last season at Auburn due to injury and Cuffe redshirted as a freshman, then was an injury redshirt last season at Kansas, meaning they each have four years of eligibility left.
All in all, the collective infusion of talent rightfully gave the SU fanbase reason to be excited.
However, it is not all sunshine and rainbows on a now-crowded roster.
1. While this is a very talented group, that talent level may be exceeded by its youth and inexperience.
All those bodies have gone through a grand total of 15 collective seasons of college basketball. Those 15 seasons include three injury redshirts and one other redshirt, leaving 11 full seasons of active play and six of those belonging to Mounir Hima, Naheem McLeod, and Benny Williams. No one on the roster has cracked 1,000 collegiate minutes:
Guards – Quadir Copeland - 185, Cuffe - 6, Starling - 831, Westry - 105
Forwards – Chris Bell - 599, Maliq Brown - 585, Justin Taylor - 484, Williams - 982
Centers – Peter Carey - 0, Hima - 401, McLeod - 567, William Patterson - 0
In all, these dozen players have amassed 4,745 total minutes in their collegiate careers, which is 54 minutes fewer than Syracuse’s all-time minutes played leader, Gerry McNamara.
Starling will almost certainly be one of the starters at guard and the four returning forwards will likely handle the bulk of the action there again this season. The quartet combined to play 36.4 percent of all minutes on the Orange roster last season, handling almost all of the playing time at the two forward spots last season.
Beyond that, the experience gets thin very quickly. Barring Taylor shifting to the backcourt, the second guard spot in the starting lineup will go to someone with minimal experience on the floor, as will the center spot. The upside is players should enter summer workouts knowing that they can earn playing time and even starting roles. The downside is, to be blunt, there are a lot of question marks.
2. This group has zero proven consistent perimeter threats.
“Consistent” is the very key word here.
Yes, Williams shot 39.6 percent from three last year. And, if you knock off his last four games where he shot 9-of-13, that mark drops to 28.6 percent, in large part because he only made ten triples in his first 26 games.
Taylor shot 39.3 percent from three last year, but was either feast or famine. He had hot streaks of 8-of-17, 8-of-15, and 8-of-15 that covered 15 of his 29 games. In the other 14 games, he shot 0-for-14 from long range.
Bell leads all players on the roster with 39 threes in college, shooting 34.5 percent from long distance as a freshman. Bell was unconscious the first two weeks in January, including connecting on five treys against Notre Dame, and had three other games where he made three triples. In the other 23 games, he shot 19-of-83 (22.9 percent) from beyond the arc.
The rest of last year’s freshmen even worse. Starling shot 29.9 percent from long range, including ending the campaign on a 4-for-24 slump, Copeland hit 1-of-9 from deep, and Westry was 0-for-14 before his season ended via injury last year.
3. None of the centers are scorers.
Hima has one career game where he has amassed more than four points, coming when he had nine at Saint Bonaventure as a freshman playing for Duquesne. Bart Torvik’s T-Rank website lists him as shooting 7-of-19 (36.8 percent) last season on any shot that was not a dunk. As a freshman at Duquesne, Hima was 12-of-33 (36.4 percent) when not dunking.
McLeod does have six career double-digit scoring efforts, including a career-high 16 against SU last season when he spent much of the first half being ignored by the zone and dunking repeatedly as a result. McLeod’s shooting line on non-dunks last season? 22-of-57, which is good for 38.6 percent.
Neither one is going to open any space near the paint for anyone else on the roster.
4. Speaking of the roster, is there a point guard on it?
Over most of the last decade, Syracuse has lacked a true point guard. Michael Gbinije remade his game while redshirting to become close to one, John Gillon and Joe Girard III were undersized combo guards, and Frank Howard was more of a defensive player than a floor general.
This year’s roster is not much different, as there are a lot of combo guards there. Starling had an assist-to-turnover ratio below 1-to-1 last season, as did Copeland. Westry did have a strong assist rate during his limited play, but also had nine turnovers to go with 11 assists.
Somehow, if a player is going to grow into a consistent three-point threat and/or someone is going to score inside, a point guard is going to be needed to set them up.
5. Can any of these guys defend?
Unsurprisingly, the 7’4” McLeod showed the ability at Florida State to make life miserable for opponents as a shotblocker (he got both Mintz and Jesse Edwards when he played against the Orange last season) and Hima posted an even higher block rate last year at SU, although that came mostly at the expense of smaller school opponents. Brown was a pretty good defender as a freshman last season and Copeland showed a good combination of quick hands and awareness. A couple players have the athleticism to suggest they can be good or better defenders.
Beyond that, there is very little proven by this group on the defensive end, especially all the returning players who have only played zone at Syracuse. As I mentioned last month near the end of my expansive look at SU’s first decade in the ACC, I do not expect them to play zone any more. That means everyone other than McLeod is basically starting at zero on that end of the floor.
6. The same numbers game that Syracuse fans enjoyed the last couple months is likely going to annoy them ten months from now.
There was a report a couple weeks ago that Class of 2024 commit Donnie Freeman was trying to help the Orange coaching staff bring in other recruits in his class. Freeman was the second recruit to commit to the Orange in the class, joining Elijah Moore.
With a dozen scholarship players currently on the roster, all of whom have eligibility remaining after the 2023-2024 season, and two commits coming in, there seems to be a problem unless the order of numbers has changed since I last checked. That makes 14 Syracuse players for 13 available Syracuse scholarships.
While I cannot speak for you, I do not see any of the dozen players currently on the roster looking like an automatic candidate to turn pro early after this coming season. That means someone, or multiple someones, will head directly to the transfer portal after the season wraps.
Looking at the roster, it is easy to envision several scenarios where various players opt to pack their bags. So, Orange fans will likely be right back in the same place next year, grousing about some players departing, then having their hopes buoyed by other players coming to take their places.
Of course, with some of the issues on the current roster, it is very possible the grousing will start well before March.
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