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Jacob Young and Myles Johnson started to converge on Kadary Richmond as soon as Syracuse’s screen peeled away. It was almost the six-minute mark in the first half when the pair of Rutgers defenders thrust their arms in the air, pushing the Orange’s freshman point guard back near mid-court and forcing Richmond to pick up his dribble.

On the bench sat Joe Girard III, SU’s regular point guard, his hands clasped in his lap next to assistant coach Gerry McNamara. Richmond commanded SU’s offense for the fifth time against the Scarlet Knights, navigating the trap and threading a pass to John Bol Ajak underneath the basket. The pass led to a Woody Newton dunk, closing Syracuse’s early deficit to five.

For most of Syracuse’s first three games, it was Girard who dribbled the ball up the court, ran the offense in blowout wins and was whom head coach Jim Boeheim turned to late in games over Richmond. But as Tuesday night progressed — even after Girard peeled off his orange mask and jogged back toward the scorer’s table following his short rest — Richmond continued to bring the ball up, and Girard floated in an off-ball role.

Richmond’s role has drastically increased the past three games with Buddy Boeheim sidelined due to COVID-19 contact tracing, his time ballooning from nine minutes in the opener to more than 30 minutes against Niagara, Rider and Rutgers. He’s not ready for that workload, though, Boeheim said after the game.

“He gets tired,” Boeheim said. “But I think these games have really helped him.”

Richmond’s extra minutes and his mirroring emergence has also come with an uptick in the number of possessions he’s tasked with engineering increasing game by game. He scored six points, dished out seven assists, grabbed three rebounds and only turned the ball over twice in Syracuse’s 79-69 loss to Rutgers. He’s been the most active defender at top of the zone, the quickest penetrator, the source of life when the Orange’s offense needed it most amid Girard’s continued struggles. And how he fits into their offense and defense after Buddy returns could provide a much-needed spark as conference play looms.

“He’s going to bring it up sometimes with Joe, and Joe’s going to bring it up sometimes,” Boeheim said. “We’re going to mix it up, but they both can do that.”

Coming out of Syracuse’s preseason, Richmond was the promising freshman with no game experience. He was the “really good penetrator,” Boeheim said in his season-opening press conference on Nov. 12. The freshman who didn’t make a lot of mistakes. The jump shooter and finisher in the lane — and the point guard, not the small forward — who’s better than people thought.

“He’s a freshman, and you just need to learn some stuff,” Quincy Guerrier said on Nov. 17.

But Boeheim said then and reiterated after Syracuse’s win against the Bulldogs that it’d take time for Richmond to reach his potential. When a walk-on player tested positive for COVID-19 and forced Buddy out after contact tracing, it expedited Richmond’s development.

In the opening minutes of his first start against Niagara, he found Marek Dolezaj in the lane for an and-one and, a possession later, drove in the left lane, missed his layup and finished the possession off his own offensive rebound. He was the “difference in the game,” Boeheim said.

“He gives a different dynamic with his ability to get the ball to the paint,” Niagara head coach Greg Paulus said Thursday. “He’s got good size, and the more experience that he gets, he’s gonna get more comfortable.”

That continued early in his second start against Rider, when he lifted and hit a 3-pointer on Syracuse’s first possession. It built up in Tuesday’s game in Piscataway, New Jersey, the first real test against a ranked opponent and the last test for Richmond before Buddy’s return to the starting lineup. Through games played Tuesday, Richmond ranked 25th in the country with a 6.1 steal percentage and 167th in assist rate.

None of the first four possessions he brought the ball up the floor ended in points, with Dolezaj missing a shot off the pick-and-roll on one and committing a moving screen on another. When Richmond left his chair and walked over to the scorer’s table with 7:50 left in the half, his increased role as the Orange’s point guard coincided with mini runs that helped them back against Rutgers. When Guerrier flung a crosscourt pass to Richmond with four minutes gone in the second half, his quick-touch to Dolezaj caught the Rutgers defender off-balance and prevented them from recovering to defend the jump shot, which Dolezaj hit to trim Syracuse’s deficit to three.

Six minutes later, he drove baseline and waited for the Scarlet Knights’ help defense to slide before weaving the ball around the pair and finding Alan Griffin on the opposite block.

“Kadary isn’t going to score a lot, but he made plays and did some good things,” Boeheim said. “I don’t think he’ll be a big scorer.”

Syracuse’s backcourt, led by Girard and Richmond, combined for just nine points on 2-for-13 shooting. It was the third time this season that Girard scored less than six.

But for Richmond, it’s been those “good things” — those little things such as lane penetrations and finishes, those disruptions and breakups at the top of the 2-3 zone — that’ve slowly started to shape his role in Syracuse’s lineup going forward.

Published on December 9, 2020 at 2:30 am

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew