Inside the Loud House
Fansided

Syracuse Basketball: BTS on building the Boeheim’s Army roster

By Paul A. Esden Jr.

SYRACUSE, NY - NOVEMBER 16: Chris McCullough #5 of the Syracuse Orange drives to the basket against the Hampton Pirates on November 16, 2014 at The Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. Syracuse wins 65-47 over Hampton. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)
SYRACUSE, NY - NOVEMBER 16: Chris McCullough #5 of the Syracuse Orange drives to the basket against the Hampton Pirates on November 16, 2014 at The Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. Syracuse wins 65-47 over Hampton. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
4 of 5
Next

Consider this for a moment, the entirety of Boeheim’s Army is a “dream team” of Syracuse basketball greats. Each of these players was the lead dogs of their own Syracuse groups and now are combining their forces for a common cause.

Which means if you play the numbers game, there’s not a lot of minutes to go around. That is one of the hidden challenges of putting this roster together, Belbey provided some more details on this:

"“Something that just popped into my mind is this when I’m thinking of putting a roster together. TBT games are very short, it’s only a 32-minute game. College is 40, NBA is 48, technically TBT is a 36-minute game but it’s usually shorter than that because in the fourth quarter they turn the clock off for the Elam Ending. So really the game is 32 minutes and then whatever happens through the Elam Ending. So if you have 10 or 11 guys on the team it can really be too many on a roster. If you’ve played at any level you know that it’s hard to get into a rhythm coming in and out of the game considering how short it is.”"

Speaking of “The Elam Ending”, here’s a quick refresher on the specifics via TBT site:

"“Designed by Mensa member and basketball superfan Dr. Nick Elam – eliminates deliberate fouling at the end of games, ensures the final minutes are played at the same pace and flow as the rest of the game, and guarantees every game ends on a made basket. Under the rule, at the first dead ball after the four-minute mark in the fourth quarter, the game clock shuts off. A Target Score is set by adding seven to the leading team’s score. The first team to reach the Target Score wins.”"

Interestingly enough due to “The Elam Ending” there’s fewer minutes to go around which feeds into the ego-managing we discussed earlier.

Here’s how Kevin Belbey dances the line during the recruiting process when talking about how many minutes a guy will get vs his role:

"“I usually leave that to head coach Ryan Blackwell. I’m not going to step on his toes or overpromise something like that. But what I will do during recruiting is tell the player the role that I anticipate them having on this team. In this torumanet, everyone has to have a role. For example, here’s what I told one of our players that’s on the team this year: hey this is the type of role you’ll have on this team (shooter/wing) and that we’re bringing you in to score points in bunches. I want to be transparent and not lie to the guys or overpromise something. Again everyone who is joining this team has a common goal to win this whole thing. We’ve never had someone that we’ve recruited step into my office and demand certain minutes or anything like that. But really when you look at our roster over the years, this is a roster filled with Syracuse all-stars who played at a very high level. Most of the time the players were the leading star on their version of the Syracuse team that had great success. Like James Southerland was one of the best players on that 2013 Final Four team and for us, he was coming off the bench and he played in the NBA. So it’s a weird dynamic but these guys are selfless and will do whatever it takes to win.”"

Home/Syracuse Basketball