The Daily Orange's December Giving Tuesday. Help the Daily Orange reach our goal of $25,000 this December


Men's Basketball

Trevor Cooney plans to take fewer shots this season

Courtesy of The Observer

Trevor Cooney averaged 13.4 points per game last season and is now the Orange's leading returning scorer.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Trevor Cooney attempted 230 3-pointers and Jim Boeheim thinks that Syracuse was, for the most part, playing the right odds.

“Last year, he really had to take some shots that were not quality shots. But he had to take them,” Boeheim said at ACC Basketball Media Day on Wednesday. “I wanted him to take them because he had the best chance, his percentage of the bad shots were better than some of the other guys who were shooting about 17 percent.”

As the Orange plans to base its offense on 3s this coming season, Boeheim expects a slight tweak in Cooney’s role. He said the fifth-year senior — SU’s leading returning scorer who averaged 13.4 points per game last season — still has the same green light, but that he’d like Cooney to take out the 40 or 50 “bad shots” he took last season. Boeheim thinks that could bump Cooney’s 3-point percentage — 30.9 last season — up seven or eight points and, in turn, improve the offense considerably.

“I definitely think I, personally, can only benefit from us having more shooters this year,” Cooney said earlier in the day. “The shots I am going to take are going to be better and the whole floor will be opened up for everybody to make more things happen.”

Boeheim said Cooney was one of two reliable perimeter options last season, which led teams to press up on him and force him into contested shots at times. Cooney said Wednesday he hopes opponents play him the same way because this year’s team is better equipped to capitalize on it. Boeheim counted five or six capable shooters on his team, which could include any of Cooney, Michael Gbinije, Malachi Richardson, Kaleb Joseph, Tyler Lydon and Frank Howard.



Syracuse expects to take as many as 25-to-30 3s a game in the coming season, with the attempts spread out to a deeper pool of shooters. That will probably cut into Cooney’s 230 tries, but he see that as a positive change.

“I think it allow me to score more honestly,” Cooney said. “That may sound funny, but if I’m taking less shots but the quality of the shots is higher, then I’ll be in really good shape with the rest of the offense.”





Top Stories