Pinned on the wall of Frank Howard’s room was a list of skills college basketball programs were looking for. Ranging from ball handling to defense, the curled up piece of paper confronted Howard each day from sixth grade through high school.

It came down only when Howard validated the list, receiving a scholarship from Syracuse.

Howard knew the skills he needed to hone and had the mental capacity to pick himself and other players apart. He’d return home from games and break down which of his teammates benefitted most playing certain positions.

“You can never turn it off,” Howard said of his basketball IQ. “It’s how you play the game. How you move, where to move to.

“It’s the biggest part of the game.”

Basketball has always been methodical to Howard. It’s rooted in a lifetime of watching basketball games with his grandmother, who drilled her grandson asking why plays happened the way they did.

It’s rooted in a year of high school spent recovering from an ACL injury, taking up the role of assistant coach instead of dead weight at the end of the bench. It’s rooted in a relentless drive to get a scholarship, temporarily shelving his desire to help others.

The sum of those parts is between the ears of Howard, a crafty freshman guard for the Orange who prides himself in calculated, yet ambitious decisions with the ball. Head coach Jim Boeheim dubbed him the best creative passer on the team.

“I don’t know if I see him as risky,” Howard’s mother, Gloria Howard, said of her son’s style of play. “I always saw it as, ‘Ooh, that was beautiful. I didn’t even see that.’”

Standing 6 feet tall since age 12, Howard spent the majority of his early basketball life commanding the court as a center. At an adolescent age when Howard did, and could have dominated the opposition with brute strength, his family wouldn’t stand for it.

It was a concerted effort to build Howard’s basketball foundation off intelligence and knowledge of the game, punctuated by readings such as “Coaching Basketball Successfully,” penned by famed basketball coach Morgan Wootten.

Gloria Howard reminded her son that he had to be smart to play the game. Howard’s grandmother reminded him basketball was more than running up and down the court. The onus was on him to heed their advice.

The center-turned-guard steadily applied his basketball intellect, but didn’t test it to the greatest extent until being sidelined for his junior year with a torn ACL. Head coach Glenn Farello of Paul IV Catholic (Virginia) High School appointed Howard as a student assistant coach rather than next year’s hope.

He had a perfect view for a student trying to pick apart fast breaks and transitions on the fly. Howard attended late coaches meetings and was sought out for his opinion regarding certain team situations.

Howard still refers to his temporary role reversal as the best thing that could’ve happened to him. It eased his transition from point guard to shooting guard in addition to shedding light on a potential career path.

During Syracuse’s basketball media day, Boeheim said there’s no one on his team that won’t play. But Howard’s blocked by mainstays Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney, in addition to freshman Malachi Richardson and sophomore guard Kaleb Joseph.

Knowledge of the game can’t supersede physical talent, and Farello cited his former player’s defense as a particular weakness.

But Howard isn’t oblivious. He watches film of former SU guard Michael Carter-Williams to pattern his game off it. He listened closely to the “whispers” of Syracuse stars Eric Devendorf and Scoop Jardine in pickup games over the summer.

It’s a constant aggregation, then application. He doesn’t know if he’ll find the success Carter-Williams did or if he’ll improve his defense enough to compete collegiately. But the question he can answer, is why he’s here.

“Sometimes I might make a turnover and (Boeheim) still tells me that’s a good play,” Howard said. “He saw what I was looking for, or he’ll tell me how I could’ve accomplished it.

“That’s the reason I’m here, is for me to make plays like that.”

Corrections: In a previous version of this article, Trevor Cooney, Michael Gbinije and Malachi Richardson were listed as the only players blocking Howard from playing time. Sophomore guard Kaleb Joseph will also impede Howard’s playing time. The Daily Orange regrets this error. 

Published on November 10, 2015 at 9:22 pm

Contact Connor: cgrossma@syr.edu | @connorgrossman