When Boston College arrives in the Carrier Dome for a 7 p.m. tip on Wednesday, it will visit Syracuse without being a conference bottom dweller for the first time in a while. BC has upset top-ranked Duke at home and narrowly edged Wake Forest and Florida State, two teams Syracuse failed to close out late in games earlier this season.

There’s one aspect of the Eagles (13-7, 3-4 Atlantic Coast) game Syracuse (13-6, 2-4) needs to give extra attention to, SU head coach Jim Boeheim said on Monday’s ACC teleconference.

“I don’t think anybody shoots the ball from the 3-point line better than this team,” he said. “They’re extremely good from the 3-point line.”

BC ranks tied for eighth in the ACC with a 36.4 percent mark from 3-point land. That weaponizing from beyond the arc, Boeheim said, can mainly be attributed to the development of young players who struggled through tough seasons before. He specifically cited the Eagles’ three players in the backcourt — sophomore Ky Bowman and juniors Jerome Robinson and Jordan Chatman — for their increased production and diversity in skillsets. Each can make plays by putting the ball on the floor or shooting, he said.

“They have as good of three offensive players in the backcourt of any team in the league,” Boeheim said.

He also praised the team’s “really solid” defense. Under head coach Jim Christian, the Eagles have managed a remarkable turnaround. Last season, BC finished 2-16 in conference play. The season before, 0-18. One player’s best memory of playing on the team was “going out to eat.” Since, Christian has piloted the program upward by taking lightly recruited players — including Bowman, who had a scholarship from Alabama in football — and developing them.

In a way, Syracuse’s head coach has handled a level of youth similar to those past BC teams on his own squad this season. The Orange has focused more on parts of the game that veterans would usually already know, Boeheim said, like positioning or the finer points in the team’s offensive and defensive schemes.

“This team needs more basic, fundamental teachings of what we’re trying to do,” he said. “That’s to be expected. …. This team is probably the youngest team we’ve ever had. We’re constantly trying to reinforce the fundamental things we need to do to win.”

Other notes from Boeheim’s teleconference:

• Boeheim’s salary could force SU to pay thousands of dollars in additional taxes every year as part of the Republican Party’s tax overhaul plan. Asked for his thoughts on lawmakers’ decision to target college coaches to make up for the plan’s cuts, Boeheim said, “I don’t have much of a feeling on that. I don’t understand exactly what this is all about, really. It’s beyond me.” Read the full story about the tax plan’s implications on SU here.
• Boeheim was asked about Howard Garfinkel, the high school basketball scout who ran the popular Five-Star Basketball Camp. Garfinkel died on May 7, 2016, and on Saturday, Feb. 3, Madison Square Garden will host the inaugural “The Garf” event in his honor, when St. John’s plays Duke. Here’s what he said about Garfinkel: “(Garfinkel) once called us at the end of recruiting and he said, ‘I’ve got a kid for you down here, nobody’s recruiting him and you should.’ I said, ‘Come on,’ but long story short, we recruited him, kid named Greg Kohls. In his senior year, he averaged 24 points per game for us. One of the best long-range shooters I’ve ever seen. And that was without the 3-point line. You never knew when Howard would call, it would be something or somebody. That was the best call I got from Howard.”

Published on January 22, 2018 at 1:33 pm

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR