After a disappointing 15-point home defeat to Colgate over the weekend, it is clear that the entire Syracuse basketball roster, including junior point guard Joe Girard III, needs to improve in the 2-3 zone and by the glass.
But despite that setback, we shouldn’t overlook what the 6-foot-1 Girard did for the Orange (2-1) on the offensive end of the floor, especially after hitting some ups and downs before a verse during his second stint would have.
In the team’s 100-85 defeat to the Raiders on the hill last Saturday night, Girard picked up 27 points for the team as well as eight assists and an impressive seven rebounds.
Once again he was perfect from the charity strip. According to ESPN statistics, he shot 57.1 percent out of the field and 62.5 percent out of the bow.
Syracuse basketball point guard Joe Girard III has got off to a pretty good start this season.
I can already imagine what some of my fellow Cuse fans will say when they read this article or see it on social media. You will answer that Girard has only played three games so far and against mediocre competition.
Well, both could be true, although I’d like to counter that Colgate and another former Orange opponent, Drexel, are both really good squads.
In any case, if it’s a fair game for a contingent of Syracuse basketball fans to announce that the team’s defense is terrible at this point in the season, then it’s a fair game for me to believe that Girard has so far proven to be excellent on the offensive stanza.
Through these three non-conference clashes, Girard produces some kind of numbers. He’s runner-up at the ‘Cuse, with 19.3 points a game that only lags behind Senior Shooting Guard Buddy Boeheim, and not much.
According to his ESPN bio, Girard has 6.7 assists against just 2.3 turnovers per contest, along with 3.7 rebounds and 1.7 steals.
Additionally, he shoots a perfect 100 percent from the free-throw line, 60.0 percent from the entire field, and a ridiculous 81.3 percent from the 3-point land that was # 1 in the nation at the time of this writing, according to NCAA statistics.
He makes an average of 4.33 remote attempts per affair, which is good for 3rd place nationwide at the time of this writing.
And as a sign that he’s been helping other Syracuse basketball players so far in the 2021-22 campaign, Girard’s 6.7 assists per game was number 11 across the country when I wrote this column.
Yes, it’s early in the current term. But let’s also give credit where credit is due. Joe Girard III has got off to a fabulous start, at least on the offensive.
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