Syracuse Basketball: Top 50 Players of All-Time (50-46)
By Josh Peelman
#46: Tyler Lydon
Forward: 2015-2017
Most of you probably expected Tyler Lydon had to be on this list somewhere, but didn’t expect him to be this low in Syracuse Basketball’s Top 50. Lydon didn’t do anything wrong to end up at #46 in our rankings, there were just a lot more talented players ahead of him.
Sure, he was one of kind in that he could shoot three’s with ease and block shots extremely well at only 6’9. However, he fell in our rankings because, for some reason, we feel he could have been so much more.
Much like Donte Greene, he could have been something really special, but didn’t stick around long enough to really show that or develop into that. In Lydon’s case, he did spend a year longer than Greene, but the two cases just feel so similar. Of the two, we think Lydon was the better player for Syracuse Basketball if we’re comparing them head-to-head.
Lydon’s freshman year was amazing as he averaged 10.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks per game, according to ESPN.com. However, in his sophomore year he was sort of a letdown. The stats show he improved in many areas, but he wasn’t the star on the court we saw from him freshman year. He deferred and passed the ball to others a lot, when he should have looked for his shot.
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The one thing that is great about Lydon though was he was a great team player. Much like Scoop Jardine, he put the needs of his teammates ahead of his own interests. That was a good and bad thing for the Orange. In 2017, it just happened to be a bad thing as the Orange sufficed for an NIT berth and lost in the second round.
Lydon is talented enough to be in the Top 25 of this list we’ve compiled. However, his short-lived career along with a letdown sophomore season in Orange dropped him to 46th. Had he stayed, much like Greene, I expect he would have been Top 20 easily. I guess we’ll never know.