In the Paint: Wake Forest

IN THE PAINT su vs wake forest feb. 8-11, 2018

NEXT MAN UP

Braedon Bayer, a former sharpshooter at Grinnell College, has a role to play in Syracuse’s rotation.

SEE PAGE 3

BIG DEAL

Wake Forest’s starting center, Doral Moore, has come into his own in his junior season.

SEE PAGE 5

WAKE UP

Find out how are beat writers are ranking Syracuse’s chances against Wake Forest on Sunday.

SEE PAGE 10

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Who ya got?

Doral Moore is taller than almost everyone he plays against, but his size didn’t immediately mean success.

See page 5

Our beat writers break down the SU-WFU matchup and make their picks for the winner of Sunday’s game.

See page 10

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‘STAY READY’ Braedon Bayer has gone from Division III guard to Syracuse walk-on to scholarship player at SU

BRAEDON BAYER (center) started his career at Syracuse after transferring from Division III Grinnell College. With the departure of graduate transfer Geno Thorpe, Bayer is now he’s nudging into the rotation. todd michalek staff photographer

I

By Matthew Gutierrez senior staff writer

n Braedon Bayer’s mind, six weeks of 8 a.m. workouts with former Syracuse forward Tyler Lydon and associate head coach Adrian Autry meant he’d earned a walk-on spot. Or at least the right to ask whether he’d be on the team in the fall. He was, after all, sleeping on Lydon’s South Campus couch for summer 2016.

“I didn’t have a place to stay,” Bayer said. “I thought I would be living in my car. That’s how much I was like, ‘Screw it. I want to be on this team.’”

Lydon played AAU basketball with Bayer and convinced him to try to make the SU team from a Division III school in Iowa. One day in July 2016, after several weeks of tryout-like workouts, Bayer asked Lydon for a little more help. Bayer was unsure if he was on the team. Lydon walked into the office of then-head coach designate Mike Hopkins to find out.

“I don’t know, let’s go ask,” Hopkins said, and they walked nearby to head coach Jim Boeheim’s office. Hopkins asked the same question to Boeheim, who looked up from a USA Today newspaper.

“Yeah, he’s on the team,” Boeheim said nonchalantly, then went back to reading.

That’s when Bayer, a 6-foot-4 guard from Lagrangeville, New York, earned a walk-on spot. After redshirting last season, he has progressed all of the way to the brink of the Syracuse rotation, a rarity in Boeheim’s recently thin system. As the Orange (16-8, 5-6 Atlantic Coast) continues

to play its pared-down lineup — former graduate transfer Geno Thorpe left the program, freshman guard Howard Washington is out for the year due to injury and freshman Bourama Sidibe battles tendinitis — production off the bench could come from an unlikely source: Bayer. While he has played only four minutes across four games this season, Boeheim has said Bayer will see playing time down the stretch.

“Braedon’s pretty good,” Boeheim said last week, about a month after Bayer became a scholarship player.

To Lydon, Bayer is more than pretty good. They met as high school sophomores and grew close while playing for the Albany City Rocks, Bayer said. When Bayer told Lydon he was not fully enjoying his time at Grinnell College — “I just couldn’t do the culture out there” — Lydon promised that he’d enjoy Syracuse. Lydon would do his best to help get Bayer a spot on the team, he recalled.

During Grinnell’s 2015-16 season, Bayer applied to four schools, three of which had shown interest in him as a high school player: Bucknell, Binghamton and Fordham. He also applied to a longshot: Syracuse. He sent his application to SU in mid-December. He was accepted by New Year’s Day. He quit the Grinnell team and arrived at Syracuse in January 2016. He watched SU’s Final Four run that semester from his bed. Whenever he could, Lydon would invite Bayer for informal workouts, and they’d sometimes grab food together.

see bayer page 11

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feb. 8-11, 2018 5

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DORAL MOORE went to Wake Forest to play for one of the greatest-ever collegiate big men: Danny Manning. Now in his third season as a Demon Deacon, the 280-pound Moore is averaging career-highs in scoring, rebounding and shot blocking.

courtesy of brian westerholt | wake forest athletics

IN BIG SHOES 7-foot-1 Doral Moore learned from two AllAmerican bigs to thrive in his junior season

By Billy Heyen

asst. sports editor

M

ost human beings do not measure up to 7-foot-1, 280-pound Doral Moore.

Someone seeing him play basketball for the first time might find the plays he makes larger than life. But the things Moore can do on the floor don’t shock his teammates anymore.

“We get used to it,” said Olivier Sarr, Wake Forest’s freshman center. “He just dunks on everybody … He will catch it up at the top of the backboard and dunk on everybody.”

Moore, a junior from Atlanta, will bring that raw power to the Carrier Dome on Sunday when he and Wake Forest (9-15, 2-10 Atlantic Coast) take on Syracuse (16-8, 5-6). In a six-point Demon Deacons’ win against SU on Jan. 3, Moore scored eight points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked three shots. He didn’t shine at Wake Forest right away. It took toplevel coaching, learning from star teammates and a look in the mirror to turn Moore into the player he is now.

“I’ve grown the most this year,” Moore said. “... Put the right amount of effort in to be successful.”

Moore’s height doesn’t really make sense to him. He said his mother is about 5-foot-11 and his father is 6-foot-3. On Sunday, Moore will face off, at least in part, against SU’s 7-foot-2 Paschal Chukwu, one of the only players in the ACC taller than Moore.

“It’s always fun to play somebody bigger

than me,” Moore said. “You’re not used to it.”

Moore came to Wake Forest as a top-100 recruit in the class of 2015, but he didn’t come into his own until this season. It took tutelage from one of the best college basketball players ever, along with advice from a first-round pick in last year’s NBA Draft, for the lightbulb to go off in Moore’s head.

After playing his senior year at the powerhouse Montverde (Florida) Academy, Moore had his suitors — including John Calipari and Kentucky. But the center knew who he wanted to play for: Danny Manning.

Wake Forest’s head coach was a two-time first-team All-American at Kansas in the late 1980s and was the Naismith and Wooden Player of the Year in his senior year. The Los Angeles Clippers selected the 6-foot-10 Manning with the first overall pick in the 1988 NBA Draft.

“He’s one of the best to ever do it,” Moore said. “He’ll get me where I need to go if I listen.”

But in Moore’s first two years on campus, he underwhelmed. In his freshman season, he averaged 3.8 points and 2.6 rebounds per game.

His sophomore year, the averages dropped to 2.6 points and 2.2 rebounds per game.

Last season, though, the emergence of John Collins — Moore’s classmate and teammate at WFU — into a second-team All-American and eventual first-round draft pick by the Atlanta Hawks gave Moore an idea of the player he wanted to be.

“He just wanted it more than everyone else and went and took it,” Moore said. “So I just had to do the same thing.”

Collins told Moore that he has the size

MOORE was taught by John Collins, an NBA Draft pick. courtesy of bob hebert | wake forest athletics

and potential to be a professional basketball player. The keyword Collins repeated to Moore was “attack.” He just had to get after it.

When Moore assessed the roster coming back for the Demon Deacons this season, he knew it was his turn. Along with Collins’ departure was the early departure of forward Dinos Mitoglou to play professionally in Greece. The only other legitimate height on see moore page 9

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from page 5

moore on the roster would come from the self-proclaimed “tall and thin” Sarr.

Moore would have to be the man in the middle for Wake Forest.

So he came back and turned up his effort. Manning and Moore both emphasized that footwork was a major area he needed to improve.

At the end of the day, you have to want it more than the other team.

Doral Moore

wake forest center

wmheyen@syr.edu | @wheyen3

MOORE, who has a 6-foot-3 father and a 5-foot-11 mother, measures in at 7-foot-1. He’s translated his raw size and athleticism into more than 10 points, nine rebounds and two blocks per game. courtesy of bob hebert | wake forest athletics

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Co Op 3 mp en su le m to te m de up er g se to re ss e on & io e ns n ye o ar nav de of ai gr la stu bl e dy e e s in tu de th re nt e s mo Ca M nt lc ic hs ul r us An Ch obi at em olo om g is try y y Ph & ys Ph ic ys s io & lo M gy or e

“We’re sticklers on that,” Manning said.

The results have been promising for the Demon Deacons. Moore is averaging more than 10 points, nine rebounds and two blocks a game so far this season. His work with the Wake Forest coaching staff has gotten him part of the way to where he wants to be.

“Even though I worked hard, I had to work even harder to put up the numbers,” Moore said. “...At the end of the day, you have to want it more than the other team.”

Moore said he and Collins still text occasionally, and the 7-footer knows where he wants to end up. He’s finally realized that it’s about more than just raw size and athleticism.

Moore has discovered what he feels is the secret to taking the next steps in his career.

He’s almost averaging a double-double right now, but Moore doesn’t think that’s enough. He sees no reason that he can’t put up 15 points and 20 rebounds every night if he works hard enough.

“That’s what makes certain players great and certain players average,” Moore said, “because they can either stay at the same level or they can try and raise it as best as they can.”

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Beat writers unanimously predict close matchup Sunday

By The Daily Orange Sports Staff

Syracuse (16-8, 5-6 Atlantic Coast) welcomes Wake Forest (9-15, 2-10) to the Carrier Dome on Sunday.

Syracuse is coming off its biggest win of the season, a 78-73 road triumph against Louisville in the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday night. The Demon Deacons most recently lost on the road at Miami, 87-81.

The Daily Orange’s men’s basketball beat writers have similar takes in a predicted SU victory. Here’s how they think the matchup will play out.

MATTHEW GUTIERREZ (20-4) In the Wake of Syracuse 63, Wake Forest 62

SAM FORTIER (18-6) Wake and bake Syracuse 69, Wake Forest 61

TOMER LANGER (17-7) Wake me up Syracuse 64, Wake Forest 59

In the wake of an out-of-nowhere display at Louisville, I suspect Syracuse will win this game at home. Who knows, though. SU did prove against Boston College last month that, given rest, this team comes out refreshed. With five days off between the UofL and WFU games, Syracuse’s starters rest up and play well Sunday afternoon for a close win against one of the conference’s lower-tier teams. A loss? Well, Syracuse can’t afford too many more of those.

Here’s to a close, entertaining game.

An early Sunday game at home against the weakest opponent remaining on its schedule should be a win. It’s a momentary respite for the Orange before a brutal fivegame, season-ending stretch and SU should snag this one because of its superior guard play and suffocating defense. For all the mistakes down the stretch the last time these teams played — like three-consecutive corner 3s — the Orange has matured and won’t repeat them.

TThe Orange has followed up its most impressive ACC win with nearly a full week off to rest. Now it gets back to its home court against a much weaker opponent. The rest should, hopefully, be enough time for Bourama Sidibe to come back healthy. Syracuse could have, and probably should have, beat Wake in North Carolina in early January and this Orange team, with the improvement of Marek Dolezaj, might be better. sports@dailyorange.com

The last time Syracuse played Wake Forest in the Carrier Dome, the Orange beat the Demon Deacons 81-76 thanks to a 52-point second-half surge. In the teams’ first meeting this season, Syracuse fell to Wake Forest 73-67, at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. jessica sheldon staff photographer

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from page 3

bayer

By May, Lydon told Hopkins that Bayer “wasn’t just going to be a typical walk-on that’s just on the team. He said I could actually help,” Bayer recalled. Hopkins trusted Lydon’s word and didn’t ask Bayer for any film. Bayer impressed enough in summer workouts that he was added to the team.

“It was awe-inspiring,” Bayer said of those first few practices. “Scary and nervous, you know? At Grinnell, I could miss and get my own rebound.”

Around the Syracuse locker room, players have echoed variations of the same phrase: “Stay ready.” Bayer is caught in the in-between, being told his time could come any moment but rarely seeing it come to fruition. Players first heard “Stay ready” during the double-overtime loss at Florida State, where Bayer played about one minute. Players said it throughout the rest of January as a “running joke,” Bayer said.

Boeheim said after the loss at Georgia Tech last week that he should have played Bayer.

Bayer heard “stay ready” before the Virginia game, too. He didn’t play, though. He finally got in the game Monday night at Louisville, a crucial road victory, during which Bayer traveled with the ball in the lone minute he played, right before halftime.

“Stay ready: That’s been the funny joke until this point,” Bayer said. “I’ve gotten in (at FSU), but I’ve been told ‘Stay ready’ every game since.

All of the guys on the team are like, ‘Hey, stay ready. Hey, stay ready.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m ready.’ Always working hard, having a goal.”

That goal was once to play college basketball, almost regardless of level. The Ivy League was Bayer’s dream, but he wanted to attend a school where his parents didn’t have to pay. As a result, he turned himself into a gym rat and drive-first player, said Bayer’s former coach Kenny Dawson, a trainer in Poughkeepsie, New York, and Bill Casson, his head coach at Trinity Pawling (New York) School. Bayer considered the possibility of walking on at Colgate, Bucknell or Marist, but Grinnell’s

head coach told him he thought he could break the all-time assists record in his high-octane system. Bayer was persuaded.

Bayer’s father, Greg, joined him as an assistant coach at Grinnell. Because he had spent a decade surrounding Bayer’s basketball life, he thought, why not watch his son’s college career?

Bayer scored 20 points his first game as a freshman and, after just a year and a half with the program, finished Top 10 in assists, Greg said.

But when Lydon said he’d have a chance at a Power 5 school, Bayer couldn’t say no.

At Grinnell, I could miss and get my own rebound.

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Braedon Bayer syracuse guard

Bayer is unproven, but he has shown he can match up with his scholarship teammates. He scored 10 points in 38 minutes during the Orange-White scrimmage.

Many other walk-ons played fewer than five, he said. Afterward, Boeheim’s wife, Juli, told Bayer’s father, “O-M-G.” She had texted her sons, Cornell freshman Jimmy and SU commit Buddy, saying “how great Braedon is.”

For much of this season, Bayer has played the opponent’s best high-post man in SU practices. He mimics what the opposition’s post player may do, giving SU starters an idea of what they might expect in the upcoming game.

He said he has become more involved in fiveon-five work during practice.

His goal was to get into Syracuse, see if he could explore his options for the basketball team. Then his goal was to be a walk-on. Then it was to be a scholarship player. With those behind him, he has renewed his focus. It is to never forget his trek from Division III, and it is to give starting guards Frank Howard and Tyus Battle a reprieve, whenever that may be.

“This goal,” Bayer said, “is coming true.” mguti100@syr.edu | @Matthewgut21

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