Syracuse basketball players score well-deserved All-ACC; Adrian Autry gets some love

Two Syracuse basketball players, late Monday afternoon, received inclusion on All-ACC teams as the Atlantic Coast Conference disclosed its various awards and honors for the 2023-24 regular season.

In addition to the well-deserved recognition for Orange sophomore point guard Judah Mintz and sophomore big man Maliq Brown, I was delighted to see that ‘Cuse first-year head coach Adrian Autry finished No. 3 in the voting for the ACC coach of the year.

The 6-foot-4 Mintz has been named to the All-ACC second team. The 6-foot-8 Brown received inclusion on the All-ACC defensive squad.

Orange Nation sends a huge congrats to both Judah and Maliq!

Syracuse basketball fared pretty well in All-ACC honors for the regular season.

Mintz is averaging 18.7 points, 3.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.1 steals per game. During the 2023-24 regular season, he was No. 4 in the ACC in points per contest, along with No. 3 in steals per game and No. 3 in assists per affair.

Additionally, on a national scale, Mintz is within the top 10 around the country in free-throw attempts and made shots from the charity stripe.

Brown, a power forward/center who has been the Orange’s starting center for a while now, is averaging 9.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 2.2 steals per game.

He’s among the league leaders in the ACC in boards per contest, currently at No. 10. Brown in 2023-24 became the first center in conference history to finish a season as the league leader in steals per game, according to SU Athletics.

Since Syracuse basketball moved from the Big East Conference to the ACC in 2013-14, Brown is now the fourth Orange player to be named to the All-ACC defensive unit, joining Jesse Edwards, Michael Gbinije and Rakeem Christmas.

I thought that maybe Brown, sophomore guard J.J. Starling or sophomore forward Chris Bell might receive an All-ACC honorable-mention nod, but that didn’t occur.

In voting for the league’s defensive player of the year, Brown and sophomore wing Quadir Copeland picked up votes. Brown, deservingly, also received votes for the conference’s most improved player award.

Copeland, meanwhile, finished at No. 2 in the voting for the ACC sixth man of the year, behind Pittsburgh’s Ishmael Leggett. Candidly, I think that Quadir should have won this award, but No. 2 is nice.

That brings us to Autry. In the voting for the ACC coach of the year, North Carolina’s Hubert Davis was No. 1, followed by Pittsburgh’s Jeff Capel and then Autry.

I have no issues here. The Tar Heels won the league’s regular-season crown by two games, going an impressive 17-3 in conference contests. The Panthers, led by Capel, had a top-four finish in the ACC regular-season standings.

Autry, after succeeding the Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim, guided Syracuse basketball to its first 20-win regular season in a decade.

The ‘Cuse (20-11, 11-9 in the ACC), forecast to finish at No. 10 in the league race, earned the No. 7 seed for this week’s ACC Tournament in Washington, D.C.

Syracuse basketball, which needs to go on a deep run in our nation’s capital to have any shot of reaching March Madness, will first play in the 2024 ACC Tournament on Wednesday, March 13, in the second round against either the No. 10 seed N.C. State (17-14, 9-11 in the ACC) or the No. 15 seed Louisville (8-23, 3-17 in the ACC).

The Orange’s encounter with the Wolfpack or the Cardinals is scheduled to tip off at 7:00 pm, with television coverage on ESPN2.