We move onto the projected starters in our player preview series starting with Kaleb Joseph, who has a lot of room to improve in 2015-16.
On Sunday, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports tweeted that he's been hearing Syracuse might use Michael Gbinije more at point guard this season in order to open up more minutes for freshman guard Malachi Richardson. It's something we've speculated about here in the past. Gbinije, Richardson and Trevor Cooney -- all guards -- will likely be three of SU's five best players. It would seem to make sense to get them all on the court together at times.
But the idea will lose a lot of momentum if Kaleb Joseph has anything to say about it. Joseph was bad last season, offensively and defensively, but with a full offseason under his belt, there should be at least some optimism that he'll start to figure things out in 2015-16. It's not as if we didn't see any flashes from him last season; Joseph dished out 10 assists in a December loss to Villanova and scored 14 points without missing a shot at Boston College on Feb. 11.
If Joseph can do the things he did well in those games at a more consistent rate, it'll be difficult for the Orange to not use him at point guard. After all, he's one of only two true point guards on the roster -- and the only one if you don't include Frank Howard. Gbinije is more of a natural wing player; he's more effective there and Boeheim has said he prefers to use him at that spot. Syracuse would then be better off not using Gbinije frequently at point guard, which means Joseph's growth could be especially key in determining the success SU has this season.
Above all else, there are three main areas Joseph needs to improve upon: his shooting, his ball security and his defense.
With a number of other good shooters on the roster, Joseph won't be relied on to shoot -- especially after he made just 34.7 percent of his two-point jumpers and 19.4 percent of his 3s last season. But adding a jumper to his game would make Joseph and SU that much more versatile. And it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. At a press conference in March, Syracuse head coach Boeheim said that Joseph isn't necessarily a bad shooter. Rather, his shot-making ability just didn't translate to games and Boeheim seemed to think that could change in 2015-16.
The turnovers are also fixable. Joseph likes to push the tempo, but the pace he plays at isn't an incredibly fast one that should elicit a lot of turnovers. In fact, a number of Joseph's turnovers came when he wasn't under pressure at all, something Boeheim expressed frustration over after a narrow win over Louisiana Tech last December. And several of Joseph's other turnovers came due to a simple lack of awareness. Again, that's fixable -- at least in theory.
But even with those turnover and scoring issues, it was often Joseph's defense that got him benched on occasion last season. Boeheim criticized Joseph for not making the correct rotations in the zone, and the coach sometimes opted to use Ron Patterson in Joseph's place. Patterson struggled offensively even more than Joseph did, but Boeheim saw Patterson as a better option than Joseph at the top of the 2-3 zone alongside Cooney.
This season, with Patterson having transferred to IUPUI, it could be Joseph's turn to supplant a freshman in the lineup for defensive purposes. Success in Boeheim's zone is largely dependent on understanding its principles, and in his second season, Joseph should have the upper-hand in that department over a freshman -- like Richardson -- who's never played the zone.
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Obviously, there's a lot for Joseph to clean up. But, in fairness to him, this coming season was supposed to be the first season Syracuse really needed him to contribute. If Tyler Ennis had waited another year before leaving for the NBA, Joseph wouldn't have been thrust into a starting role last season that he clearly wasn't ready for.
For as long as Boeheim has been coaching at SU, players have made serious strides between their freshman and sophomore seasons. Just three years ago, Michael Carter-Williams went from averaging 2.7 points per game as a freshman to turning himself into a first-round NBA Draft prospect as a sophomore. Nearly 30 years ago, Sherman Douglas averaged 17.3 points and 7.6 assists per game as a sophomore after playing in a limited role as a freshman.
Whether or not Joseph can join the company of those players is something we'll begin to find out in just a couple months.
