Orangeyes Daily Articles for Friday for Basketball

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Welcome to The Summer Solstice!

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year. Solstices are opposite on either side of the equator, so the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa.

Some believe that Stonehenge (2500 BCE) in England was built to help establish when the summer solstice occurred.

June Solstice in Syracuse, New York, USA is on
Friday, June 21, 2019 at 11:54 am EDT

SU News

Syracuse basketball has no players taken in NBA Draft for second straight year (PS; Carlson)

Syracuse’s Tyus Battle and Oshae Brissett went undrafted on Thursday night despite leaving with eligibility remaining, the second consecutive year the Orange has failed to have a player selected in the NBA Draft.

It’s the first time Syracuse has gone back-to-back without having a player selected since the 1997-1998-1999 seasons, a gap between John Wallace and the duo of Etan Thomas and Jason Hart.

Ever since, Syracuse has been one of college basketball’s more reliable pipelines to professional basketball. Syracuse had a streak of six consecutive years with at least one player selected in the NBA Draft snapped last year. Before the past two years, the school had a player taken in 10 of the previous 11 seasons.

The Orange entered last night’s draft with 14 players selected in the previous 10 drafts, ranking sixth in the country over the previous decade. Syracuse will still rank among the country’s most productive in recent years, even though its last player to be selected was Tyler Lydon in 2017.

Still, this year’s draft night was disappointing. Both Battle and Brissett came into last season as projected draft picks in many places but they both failed to enhance their draft stock during the year.

Battle had another good season but his numbers didn’t improve as a junior. His scoring dropped slightly to 17.2 points per game and, although his shooting percentage ticked up, his 3-point shooting did not.

Brissett showed tremendous potential as a freshman, but his numbers dropped as a sophomore, when he averaged 12.4 points and 7.5 rebounds. He shot just 27 percent from 3-point range. Despite that, he elected to turn pro.
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NBA draft: After year off, Former Syracuse recruit Darius Bazley selected by Oklahoma City (PS; Waters)

After sitting out the 2018-19 season rather than play college basketball at Syracuse University, Darius Bazley was selected in the first round of the NBA draft on Thursday by the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Thunder took Bazley with the No. 23 overall pick, which it had acquired via a trade with the Utah Jazz.

Bazley, a 6-foot-9 forward out of Cincinnati, Ohio, had signed with Syracuse and was expected to be part of the Orange’s 2018 recruiting class. Instead, Bazley made the stunning decision to skip college altogether, announcing his intentions shortly after playing in the McDonald’s High School All-American game.

Former Syracuse commit Darius Bazley sat out the 2018-19 season rather than play for the Orange. Has his decision hurt him or will it pay off at the NBA draft on Thursday night?

When he initially spurned Syracuse, Bazley’s plan was to spend the 2018-19 season in the G-League. However, he struggled in some workouts. He signed on with NBA agent Rich Paul of Klutch Sports and wound up taking the year off.

He signed a $14 million contract with New Balance, which included a $1 million internship with the sneaker and apparel company this past year.

Led by Zion and Barrett, 10 ACC Players selected in the 1st Round of the 2019 NBA Draft - ACCSports.com (accsports.com; Geisinger)

It didn’t take long for Zion Williamson to get the night started off, quickly — going No. 1 overall to the New Orleans Pelicans. At the end of the first round, though, Williamson was far from alone in terms of ACC peers entering the NBA. Before the end of the top 10 picks, three more ACC players came off the board, including De’Andre Hunter from the national champs, Virginia.

The coda was Mfiondu Kabengele taken with the 27th overall pick by the Los Angeles Clippers.

This would be the 10th pick out of the #ACC tonight, tying the record the league set two years ago. If he sticks in LAC, kinda love Kabengele with the Clips — another bench big with pick-and-roll chops (Harrell) https://t.co/yjSnQqep7j

— Brian Geisinger (@bgeis_bird) June 21, 2019

Going back to the 2017 NBA Draft, 26 of the last 90 first round picks (29 percent) have hailed from the ACC.

ACC NBA Draft Picks
No. 1 Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans
Duke
No. 3 RJ Barrett, New York Knicks
Duke
No. 4 De’Andre Hunter, Atlanta Hawks
Virginia
No. 7 Coby White, Chicago Bulls
North Carolina
No. 10 Cam Reddish, Atlanta Hawks
Duke
No. 11 Cameron Johnson, Phoenix Suns
North Carolina
No. 17 Nickeil Alexander-Walker, New Orleans Pelicans
Virginia Tech
No. 24 Ty Jerome, Phoenix Suns
Virginia
No. 25 Nassir Little, Portland Trail Blazers
North Carolina
No. 27 Mfiondu Kabengele, Los Angeles Clippers
Florida State
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Watch: Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim raves about Mike Hopkins, Buddy at NABC award dinner (PS; Carlson)

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was honored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches on Tuesday night, when he was named to the organization’s Court of Honor.

Boeheim managed to deliver a mix of comedy and heart-warming thoughts in a concise seven-minute speech at the event.

You can watch the whole thing in the video above, but here are some of the highlights.

On coaching the Olympic team with Mike Krzyzewski: Mike was using all his X&O magic to make LeBron and Kobe and Kevin to be good players, I think on more than one occasion I said ‘Mike, it’s OK.' We were together for 267 days over those competitions and we never once had a word that was anything but positive in that 267 days. We played 67 games. The other 200 days we watched tape. Can you imagine playing Nigeria and winning 148-62, finishing the game at 1 in the morning and watching tape from 1:30 to 4:30 on that game? ... And then we watched the game tape for the next team we would play ... Egypt.

On Mike Hopkins: I want to thank my assistants for being here, Allen Griffin and Gerry (McNamara) and Adrian Autry. I have a great staff, that’s why I’m able to keep going. Thank Mike Hopkins. Mike Hopkins is an example of what I think college basketball is all about. He came into Syracuse and I wondered many, many times the first couple years why we recruited Michael. He had to play against Stevie Thompson and Derrick Coleman and Billy Owens in practice every day. He never did make a basket for the first two years. But he persevered and he worked and he scrambled and he hustled. He ended up being the captain of our team, a very successful player. He came back to Syracuse and helped us recruit great players, helped us get to tournaments and win national championships and now he’s going to win them at Washington. He’s an example of what I think it’s all about for me, to see that happen.

On Buddy Boeheim: I’ve been lucky to be at Syracuse for 57 years. I know when I went there, I was worried about getting through the first one. I know there’s a few people probably out there that think I stayed too long. I think there’s a lot of great things ahead for us at Syracuse. I’v never been more proud to watch my kids play and to have one of them play for me is the biggest thing that’s happened to me in my life.

On 57 years at Syracuse: Every day I’ve been at Syracuse for 57 years has been an incredible experience. It does rain there. It’s not always nice. But I was on a beach with Rick Pitino and Joanne Pitino and we picked out favorite city. Rick, of course, picked Rome. Joanne picked Paris. My wife at that time picked, I think it was San Diego. And I really thought about it. I thought about this. This isn’t some story in the paper. I said I’d like to live in Syracuse, New York. And you know what? It was the right choice."

This is the 10th year that the Court of Honor award has been given. Others who have received it include Bill Bradley, Phil Knight, Jim Nantz, Dick Vitale, John Thompson Jr., George Raveling, Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski.

Boeheim has won a national championship, led the Orange to five Final Fours and ranks second all-time in career wins by a Division I coach. He has been the head coach at Syracuse for 43 seasons, the second-longest tenure ever by a coach at one school. Boeheim passed Western Kentucky’s Ed Diddle, DePaul’s Rey Meyer and Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp this year. Only Mount St. Mary’s Jim Phelan coached longer at one school, going 49 years from 1954 to 2003.

The gala’s co-chairs featured a number of college basketball’s most prominent names, many of whom were personally impacted by Boeheim. They included Krzyzewski, former Syracuse assistant Mike Hopkins, Villanova coach Jay Wright, NCAA President Mark Emmert, Knight, Jerry Colangelo and former Syracuse players Carmelo Anthony and Dave Bing.

The Juice is Back: Why Syracuse Basketball Could Win the ACC in 2019 - The Juice Online (the juice;Robinson)

Syracuse basketball left the vaunted Big East Conference in 2013 to join the ACC. Waiting for them were perennial powerhouses Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, and Louisville. The Orange now play in what is widely considered to be the best college basketball conference in the country. Coach Jim Boeheim, who is seventh on the career wins list, is in the twilight of his career. In 43 years as head basketball coach, he has led Syracuse to 34 NCAA tournaments and won two national championships. He is putting off retirement to try and lead his team to another national title.

The last time the Orange cut down the nets was 23 years ago. What has hampered them in recent years has been their poor seeding in the NCAA tournament. To get a better seed in the Big Dance, the ‘Cuse first need to compete for an ACC conference championship. With a great incoming freshman class and the return of some key starters, this is the year that Syracuse can win the ACC.

The Orange will be welcoming Rhode Island High School Player of the Year Brycen Goodine. Out of St. Andrew’s High School, the guard averaged a gaudy 21.1 pts per game to go with 6.5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2.4 steals in his high school career. He shot an unprecedented 52.3 percent from 3-point range, and should be ready to start for the Orange as point guard in 2019. The head coach of Cushing Academy was quoted as saying, “Brycen is a high-level athlete that can do just about everything on the floor.” Goodine has the skill set to be a future potential NBA draft pick.
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Other

Downtown Syracuse Suds Factory closes temporarily for renovations (PS; Cazentre)

The pub that brought brewing back to the city of Syracuse after a three-decade absence is shutting down for a big chunk of the summer for what its owner says are much-needed renovations.

Syracuse Suds Factory, at 320 S. Clinton St., closed Sunday and is scheduled to reopen July 20, when it hosts a wedding, owner Al Smith said.

“It’s not going to be a radical change,” Smith said. “But we’re renovating, doing a little painting, refinishing the floors, making some tweaks to the menu, that kind of stuff."

“It’s time for a fresh look,” he said. The pub also posted a Facebook message about the closing:

The Suds Factory moved into the Neal & Hyde Building at the corner of Walton and South Clinton in 1999, six years after its first opened in the Amos Building on Clinton Square.

When Suds opened in 1993, its small attached brewhouse marked the first time anyone brewed beer in the city of Syracuse since the Haberle Congress Brewing Co. on the North Side closed in 1962. Suds was followed in the next few years by Empire Brewing Co. on Walton Street and Middle Ages Brewing Co. on the Near West Side in bringing what became known as “craft beer” to Syracuse.
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