This year has been a massive disappointment for Syracuse Men’s Basketball. The Orange are on track to have one of their worst records since the 60s and may even miss out on the ACC Tournament. The ‘Cuse has struggled to stay competitive and even look the part against good teams that it’s played. Yes, there’s still more than a month left in the season but this team has shown no reasons for you to be optimistic. So, yes, it’s appropriate at this point to wonder, what if the Orange didn’t lose their best player from last year’s team.
First off, Judah Mintz would be this team’s best player and one of the best guards in the ACC. He plays very similar to JJ Starling but is better at just about everything. Mintz got to the rim with more explosiveness and was a better passer. Neither of them are great three-point shooters or defenders so their similar styles of play make it understandable why many didn’t want Autry to run it back, but it would have been better than what the team has now. A two-guard tandem with another year of experience under its belt would have been lethal and extremely hard to stop. Right now, JJ is a lot of the time the only player on the court who can go get himself a bucket. Even then, the offense has gotten stagnant a few times with him on the court.
Mintz has also developed into a much better passer and playmaker in the G League. He had a 30/10 double-double the other week with the 76ers affiliate. The fact that he left to go undrafted and not even play in the NBA is still shocking when you consider the amount of top talent that has returned to college recently. Judah would absolutely make more money in college than he is now. But we’ll never know what a second year of JJ and Judah would have looked like. We can only imagine.
