After Michael Gbinije missed a 3 from the left wing, Kaleb Joseph pounced on the long rebound and calmly drained an open jumper from the high post.

It was one of the few times Joseph sought to score, and it’s what SU head coach Jim Boeheim wants to see more of from the freshman point guard.

Joseph tallied nine points, all in the second half, to go with six assists in Syracuse’s 84-35 beating of Adrian on Monday night in the Carrier Dome, and the only criticism Joseph drew from Boeheim was that he didn’t look to score enough.

“I thought Kaleb, he’s got to be a little more aggressive,” Boeheim said. “He’s got to look to score when the opportunities are there and I think he will. But he’s playing very solid and I think he’ll find his opportunities there. In the second half, he found a couple opportunities and made them but he’s had a couple good exhibition games.”

Joseph took the game’s first shot 24 seconds in, but didn’t pull the trigger again until more than 13 minutes later in the game and finished the first half scoreless.

His make off the Gbinije miss were his first points of the night, but Joseph went to the bench 18 seconds later. He re-entered the game at the 7:17 mark, with SU well on its way to victory, and did so in attack mode.

After coming up with a steal, he took it all the way to the basket for a transition layup, added a jumper 21 seconds later and canned a 3 to cap his contributions to Syracuse’s onslaught of the Bulldogs.

As the Orange heads into the regular season after two exhibition wins, Joseph vowed to carry over his late-game surge.

“I felt like tonight, I didn’t need to score in order for us to be successful,” Joseph said. “I saw it as an opportunity to get my guys shots. I thought we took a lot of great shots tonight. We didn’t force many shots at all.

“Moving forward, I will always be aggressive.”

Published on November 10, 2014 at 11:32 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb