Syracuse put up its best performance of the season in a 102-85 win over UAlbany on Tuesday night. That makes for some pretty good grades, but there’s still plenty of room to grow. After all, this is what an ACC team is supposed to look like against UAlbany.
Jaquan Carlos: A
This performance is what many Syracuse fans were expecting from Jaquan Carlos entering the season, and it’s exactly the type of performance that he should be putting together.
12 points, for him, is totally fine. As head coach Adrian Autry says all the time, the Hofstra transfer was brought in to set others up, not necessarily score a ton. Carlos did a great job distributing against the Great Danes, finishing with 12 assists. He doesn’t have to put up that number every time. There are some games where good passing doesn’t turn into a high assist total, but still, the higher the number is, the better.
Jyare Davis: B
Offensively, Jyare Davis was great: 15 points on perfect 7/7 shooting. However, his rebounding was a little concerning. 2 boards is bad, even if Syracuse as a whole dominated in that phase of the game. There are four true rebounders on this team: Davis, Donnie Freeman, Eddie Lampkin, and Petar Majstorovic. The first name on that list should never finish with fewer rebounds than the rest of those names. Davis needs to be a rebounding leader.
Chris Bell: B-
Chris Bell didn’t hit a three-pointer for the third time in the last four games. Simply put, that is unacceptable.
Bell did score well overall, with 18 points. Plus, it was one of the better rebounding games of his career, with 6 boards. However, he needs to hit threes. A few layups and a dunk is fine, but it’s not Bell’s specific role. He should be doing all of that on top of making multiple triples each game – that’s what helps the team.
Three-point shooting is one of the Orange’s biggest weaknesses, albeit one of many. The team is shooting well under 30%, while Bell is just a hair over 25%.
The forward is barely even shooting three-pointers. He attempted at least six triples in four of the first five games, but is averaging under three attempts since.
Bell threes would do wonders for Syracuse’s spacing and ball movement. Actually making those shots would make the Orange much better than they are now.
