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The Atlantic Coast Conference on Sunday named Syracuse guard Buddy Boeheim to its All-Tournament First Team. In two games, Buddy averaged 29 points and connected on 11-of-20 3-pointers.

His 27 points helped the Orange (16-9, 9-7 ACC) cruise past NC State in their second-round matchup, winning 89-68 after outscoring the Wolfpack by 16 in the second half. The next day, Buddy’s career-high 31 points against No. 1-seed Virginia fueled a double-digit first-half lead and helped erase a final-minute deficit. Syracuse lost at the buzzer when Reece Beekman hit a 3-pointer to send the Cavaliers into the Tournament’s semifinals.

“I can’t even describe Buddy’s play,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said after the UVA loss. “They had a guy all over him the whole game. They were holding him and pushing him the whole game, and he was tremendous.”

The two ACC Tournament games raised Buddy’s points per game average to 23.3 over the Orange’s past seven contests — a span where he shot 50% from the field and led Syracuse to four wins, potentially lifting its season off the NCAA Tournament bubble. His 37.3% on 3-point shooting is nearly identical to his 37% in 2019-20, when he was the conference’s most accurate shooter from beyond the arc. This year, he trails just Virginia’s Sam Hauser (42.8%).

But to open the season, Buddy missed three games due to contact tracing after a walk-on tested positive for COVID-19 following the season-opener against Bryant. Then, he contracted the virus during SU’s second pause, which stretched from late December into the first week of January.

He shot 1-for-12 against Northeastern in his second game back from contact tracing, then stumbled to 3-for-13 against Virginia Tech and 4-for-12 against the Cavaliers two days later.

“I had my struggles early on in the year, and I wasn’t satisfied with how my regular season went,” Buddy said after Syracuse’s quarterfinal loss. “I got going at the end, but I expected more out of myself.”

Buddy’s hot streak started with scoring 17 against NC State on Jan. 31, and he’s been held to single-digits just once since.

“It felt great, just seeing a couple go down,” Buddy said after the win over the Wolfpack in the Carrier Dome.

He took those couple and turned them into a 12-game run — through the rest of ACC play, the conference tournament and now into Selection Sunday, when the Orange find out if that late-season run keyed by Buddy was enough.

Published on March 14, 2021 at 11:31 am

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew