Photo: Cuse.com
The last time Trevor Cooney scored over 20 points in a game he did so in historic fashion tying an SU record with 9 threes in a win over Notre Dame early last February to give the Orange its 22nd straight win. That streak eventually stretched to 25.
However, just two weeks after that win over the Irish, Syracuse suffered its first loss of the season to Boston College and then continued a downward spiral, losing four of its last six to end the season and going out in the first round of the ACC tournament. Its season concluded with a third round 55-53 loss in the NCAA Tournament to Dayton.
Mired in that late season collapse was a breakdown from beyond the arc for the previously sharpshooting Cooney who made just 29-percent from three during the second half of the year including going 1-6 in the loss to Dayton. He was shooting 50-percent from long-range up until mid-January.
Cooney scored 25 points on Sunday afternoon against Louisiana Tech on 4-8 shooting from three.
But that's irrelevant. All shooters will go through streaks both good and bad during the course of a season as we saw last year with Cooney. What was promising last game against the Bulldogs was something we've only seen a few times this year from Cooney.
With 10:27 to play in the second half, he inbounded the ball from the right baseline with SU up 45-39. He threw it into Rakeem Christmas who gave it right back. Cooney lined up behind the arc in the corner and hit the three with LaTech's Raheem Appleby right in his face. It was only the second "hard" shot, as Coach Jim Boeheim put it, that he has hit this season.
"He made a hard one tonight off the screen up top off Rak," Boeheim said. "He hasn't made the hard ones this year and he's mostly going to get hard ones."
But it's been not only the "hard ones" but also the easy ones that haven't gone down for Cooney this season. Going into Sunday's game Cooney was shooting just 28-percent from three-point range. That number improved to 32-percent after his four made threes against the Bulldogs.
Through nine games last year Cooney was shooting 48-percent from beyond the arc and had sunk 31 threes. Through nine games this season the redshirt-junior is shooting just 31-percent from long-range.
Numbers like these may lead one to believe Cooney has something to prove especially to NBA scouts(including the six in attendance against Louisiana Tech) who may view him as only a long range threat who can't create his own shot. Or the naysayers who say he only had such a successful season last year because he reaped the rewards of playing with one of the most talented point guards in the country in Tyler Ennis who averaged 5.5 assists in 2013-14.
But according to Boeheim, Cooney has little to prove.
"He doesn't have to prove anything to anybody," Boeheim said. "Well I don't know about anybody else, but he doesn't have to prove anything to me. He's already done that."
What Cooney does have to prove is the extent to which other parts of his game have improved and we are slowly starting to see that as the season progresses.
Over the last two games against St. John's and LaTech Cooney's hit five two-pointers. He had hit only 10 through SU's first seven games on the season. He is 15-32 inside the three-point line this season
One of those 15 came on the first possession of the game against LaTech at the 19:43 mark when
Cooney had the ball at the top of the key, dribbled left against Appleby, and threw in a left handed layup for his first of 25 points on the afternoon.
"Trevor played the way he has to play," Boeheim said. "He was a player; he wasn't a shooter. He got to the basket, he drove, he made plays and that's a huge huge thing for us."
It's especially huge when the team leaders in scoring in Rakeem Christmas(16.4) and Chris McCullough(13.3) combined for only 18 points against the Bulldogs, far less than the almost 30 they have averaged on the season so far. They combined for only eight second half points that afternoon for the Orange. Cooney had 17.
Some of those 17 second-half points were due in large part to the inside outside game the Orange had clicking against the Bulldogs. Christmas and McCullough combined for five assists on the afternoon two of which were dished out to Cooney because of the hard pressure LaTech was forcing inside on Christmas and McCullough.
"They're pressuring so hard and they're playing Rak so hard that there's really good gaps there[for Cooney]," Boeheim said.
Things will not get any easier in terms of shooting for the Orange men when they face-off against Tyler Ennis' brother Dylan and Villanova on Saturday. The 10-0 Wildcats have held opponents to just 26- percent shooting from three so far this season.
Don't tell that to Trevor Cooney though. In last year's matchup with the Wildcats Cooney had 21 points on 5-8 shooting from beyond the arc in the 78-62 Orange victory.
Saturday's contest will mark only the second game SU has played the last two weeks. Game time is set for 1p.m. from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
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