Syracuse Basketball: Joe Girard III leads entire country in 3-point shooting

Following a disappointing 15-point home loss to Colgate over the weekend, it’s clear that the entire Syracuse basketball roster, including junior point guard Joe Girard III, has to improve in the 2-3 zone and on the glass.

But despite that setback, let’s not discount what the 6-foot-1 Girard has done on the offensive end of the floor for the Orange (2-1), particularly after he had some ups and downs a stanza ago during his sophomore stint.

In the team’s 100-85 defeat at the hands of the Raiders this past Saturday evening on the Hill, Girard poured in a team-high 27 points, as well as eight assists and an impressive seven rebounds.

Once again, he was perfect from the charity stripe. He shot 57.1 percent from the field and 62.5 percent from beyond the arc, according to ESPN statistics.

Syracuse basketball point guard Joe Girard III has started this term off quite well.

I can already imagine what some of my fellow ‘Cuse fans will say if they read this article or see it on social media. They’ll respond that Girard has only played three games so far, and versus so-so competition.

Well, both of those things might be true, although I would counter that Colgate and another prior Orange foe, Drexel, are both really good squads.

In any event, if it’s fair game for a contingent of Syracuse basketball fans to proclaim that the team’s defense is awful at this point in the season, then it’s fair game for me to opine that Girard has proven stellar on offense so far in the current stanza.

Through those three non-conference clashes, Girard is producing some kind of numbers. He’s second on the ‘Cuse in scoring, at 19.3 points a game, which only trails senior shooting guard Buddy Boeheim, and not by much.

According to his ESPN bio, Girard is tallying 6.7 assists against just 2.3 turnovers per contest, to go along with 3.7 rebounds and 1.7 steals.

Additionally, he’s shooting a perfect 100 percent from the free-throw line, 60.0 percent from the field as a whole and a ridiculous 81.3 percent from 3-point land, which at the time of this writing was No. 1 across the country, per NCAA stats.

He is making, on average, 4.33 attempts from long range per affair, good for No. 3 nationally at the time of this writing.

And in a sign of his strong facilitating to other Syracuse basketball players so far in the 2021-22 campaign, Girard’s 6.7 assists a game was No. 11 nationwide when I wrote this column.

Yes, it’s early on in the current term. But let’s also give credit where credit is due. Joe Girard III, at least on offense, is off to a fabulous beginning.