Syracuse Basketball Player Profiles: The Starting Five

I know that the Syracuse basketball season hasn’t officially kicked off, so it’s impossible to say with absolute certainty who the starters will be. I can however make an educated guess based on what we know.

The way I see it, the starting five will be: Michael Gbinije at the point guard, Trevor Cooney at shooting guard, Malachi Richardson at small forward, Tyler Roberson at power forward, and Dajuan Coleman at center.

It’s possible that Boeheim goes with a smaller, three guard lineup and puts Joseph at the point (at least on defense) and Gbinije at the three. Joseph has made some progress in the off-season and looks to have a better year than last year. I’m not sure if that’s enough to vault him back into the starting lineup though. Usually when Boeheim gets a McDonald’s All-American like Richardson, he starts him. Even if he only plays a minute before getting pulled. That was the case for Coleman, Christmas, Fab Melo, and many others as freshman.

The one thing we do know is that the guard duo of Gbinije and Cooney will be one of the most experienced in the country. Both are fifth year seniors, both started last year, and both averaged over 12 points a game. With Christmas gone, they will both be leaned on heavily to provide leadership and offense to a team that will have a completely new identity this year.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the potential starters on offense so that we’ll have some kind of idea of what to expect from them this year. Let’s start with guards.

Next: Better Shot Quality This Year