BLACKSBURG, Va. — For crucial stretches of the game, Syracuse couldn’t get in the paint and its point guard couldn’t get on the floor.

Freshman Kaleb Joseph picked up four fouls in 17 minutes as the Orange struggled to get into the lane and feed its big men. The Hokies cut the SU lead to as little as two points in the second half, and Joseph sat and watched while three others brought the ball up for Syracuse.

He only totaled two points and three assists while the Orange (10-4, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) barely held on to beat Virginia Tech (8-6, 0-1), 68-66, at Cassell Coliseum Saturday after holding a 19-point haltime lead. And with its point guard on the sideline for the final 5:30, the combination of Michael Gbinije, Trevor Cooney and Ron Patterson struggled to penetrate with the ball as SU saw its conference-opening win nearly crumble into a defeat.

“We wanted to, we tried to (penetrate), but we didn’t do as good a job,” Jim Boeheim said of SU’s second half. “I think Trevor took it, I’m thinking four or five times and didn’t get anything.”

The freshman point guard played eight minutes in the first half as he committed his first foul with 13:54 left in the half and another at 12:28 reaching in on a driving Devin Wilson. The trend continued in the next frame, as his nine minutes were the result of two more fouls.
SU got just 10 points in the paint after halftime — a drop off from 16 in the first, as the Orange struggled to feed the bigs and Joseph struggled to stay on the court.

His fouls with 6:35 and 5:30 left in the game were both on Wilson, someone who Boeheim singled out after the game as someone SU allowed to drive too much.

Still, Syracuse regularly broke Virginia Tech presses with and without Joseph.

“We got a good group guys and guards that can handle the ball and made up for it,” Cooney said of Joseph’s absence.

And after Joseph played the fewest minutes of his SU career, Boeheim said he wasn’t especially worried by Joseph’s play as it’s just another chapter in the evolution of the freshman point guard.

Published on January 3, 2015 at 8:18 pm

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_