Syracuse basketball head coach Jim Boeheim clarified the status of guard Jalen Carey moving forward. Here are all the details and what it means.
Over the last week, a lot of Syracuse basketball fans were pondering the future of guard Jalen Carey.
We got some answers after the Cornell game on Wednesday from head coach Jim Boeheim.
Throughout the offseason the path seemed clear, Frank Howard was leaving Syracuse and Jalen Carey was taking over as the point guard of the present and future.
During the foreign trip to Greece to Italy and in the preseason, Carey was the man for the Orange. Then when we reached the regular season, something seemed off about his game, then five minutes into the game vs Colgate, Boeheim yanks Jalen and lambasted him in the post-game presser.
Shortly after that rant, Jim pauses, then says Joe Girard will be starting in the next game.
Despite the starting lineup change, many of us still expected Carey to have a role on this team, but he didn’t receive a single minute of action vs Seattle.
Which led to speculation that Carey could be thinking of transferring. Heck, he recently wiped his social media of everything references Syracuse hoops.
Although before we could see what this was all going to mean, Syracuse basketball dropped a bombshell right before tip vs Cornell: Jalen Carey is out indefinitely with a right thumb injury.
After the game Jim Boeheim shed some light and clarified what is actually going on here:
"“Jalen has had the injury for quite some time, he was perfectly able to play on it, but it was one of those things that needed to be fixed. I think it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know how much it hampered his playing if it did at all. It just needed to be fixed at this time. It’s an 8-10 week recovery period, so he would certainly be able to get a medical redshirt. So that’s probably the right thing to do.”"
This confirmed multiple points that the Voice of the Orange Matt Park suggested before the game.
The injured thumb is Jalen’s shooting hand and his jump shot has looked odd so that makes sense. Being out for over the next two months would put him back in the middle of February and who knows how quickly he could come back after that, so Jim is right that redshirting is the right thing to do.
This would preserve Jalen’s collegiate eligibility and in theory, allow him a pass on the usual one-year layover on a possible transfer.
For example, Elijah Hughes when he joined the Orange from East Carolina couldn’t play immediately he was forced to sit out a year. It seems like, through this process, Jalen wouldn’t be subject to those normal rules.
This injury now leaves Syracuse with four healthy guards on the roster and Boeheim feels confident with the depth he has at that position:
"“We still have four guys there so I’m not too worried. We had too many and now we have four plus Elijah can swing back there. We’ve used him at the guard spot, you saw that in some of the plays vs Cornell. So we’ll use that and we have used that any way but we could use that some more.We have to get Brycen (Goodine) comfortable, he’s playing tight right now. I think Howard Washington will get an opportunity to play in the next game. So we have plenty of guards.”"
Losing Jalen likely for the year hurts, but fortunately, it was at a position of depth. You never like to see injuries, but they provide opportunities and now Howard Washington, Brycen Goodine, and Buddy Boeheim will get some more chances to prove themselves.