Syracuse Basketball: Top 5 records Tyus Battle can break in 2018-19
1. Total Minutes Played
What was Tyus Battle most well known for last season? Being a freaking Iron Man for the Orange. We all know Jim Boeheim has a pretty tight rotation, but we’ve never quite seen what we saw last season.
Battle averaged 39 minutes a game, for reference there’s 40 minutes in a game. But it goes beyond just the minutes he has cranked out, its the usage rates and the analytics regarding most possessions ending with the ball in Battle’s hands, via ACC Sports Reference.
So how does he compare historically? I wanted it to be a fair debate, so I eliminated every four year player in program history. So let’s be real for a second, Battle has decided to come back for his Junior campaign, but he has made it known that he will enter the 2019 NBA Draft.
So knowing that, we quite literally cross referenced every ‘three year’ player in Syracuse basketball history:
- Billy Owens (3618 minutes played) Forward, 1989, 1990, 1991
- Ryan Blackwell (3400 minutes played) Forward, 1998, 1999, 2000
- Dwayne ‘Pearl’ Washington (3178 minutes played) Guard, 1984, 1985, 1986
- Paul Harris (3152 minutes played) Guard/Forward, 2007, 2008, 2009
- Michael Gbinije (2950 minutes played) Forward, 2014, 2015, 2016
- DeShaun Williams (2751 minutes played) Guard, 2000, 2001, 2002
- Tyus Battle (2487 minutes played) 2016, 2017, 2018
Next: Syracuse Basketball: Top 30 Players in School History
Based on our research, Battle is seventh all-time in total minutes played (among three year players). Last season Battle played over 1,400 minutes, in his freshman season he had over 1,000 minutes. If Battle pulls off the incredible 1,400 feat again, he’ll be the top total minutes played athlete (among three year players) in basketball program history.