Monday morning, multiple sources reported that former Syracuse point guard Kaleb Joseph will transfer to Creighton. The 6’3″ guard from Nashua, New Hampshire was a four-star recruit ranked in the top 50 by almost every recruiting service coming out of high school, and the #9 point guard in the country according to ESPN.com.
Yahoo’s Jeff Eisenberg reported Monday morning that Joseph picked Creighton because of a strong relationship with assistant coach Preston Murphy, and Creighton’s track record with helping transfers improve during redshirt seasons.
After arriving in upstate New York two years ago, Joseph was expected to be the understudy to Tyler Ennis for a year and learn the ropes. Instead Joseph was thrust into a prominent role immediately when Ennis declared for the NBA Draft, and he started 30 of 31 games as a freshman for Jim Boeheim’s club.
Joseph made an impact right away, leading the Orange in assists as a freshman with 3.8 per game and a nice (especially for a freshman playing huge minutes in the ACC) 1.6 assist-to-turnover ratio. In 27.3 minutes per game, he averaged 5.9 points, 3.8 assists, and 2.3 rebounds a game while shooting 37.6% from the floor and 71.9% from the line. Among several big performances, one in particular might be of interest to Bluejay fans — a ten point, ten assist game at then-#7 Villanova.
As a sophomore, Joseph came into the year with Boeheim touting him as a player who had made among the biggest physical improvements of any player he could remember…and yet he lost his starting job before the season to Mike Gbiniji and saw Frank Howard take most of his back-up minutes. Boeheim’s tight rotation led to him playing in only 19 games; he saw action for an average of just six minutes per game when he did get on the floor. According to reports from the Syracuse Post-Standard’s Chris Carlson, it was simply a case of Gbiniji and Howard providing more production in games:
“Despite the demotion, Joseph remained a good teammate, relishing in the team’s run to the NCAA Final Four and appeared engaged on the bench. Boeheim said previously that Joseph continued to work hard in practice but the other players provided more on-court production.”
It’s a strange situation. The Daily Orange wrote about it in February, noting that no one would go on the record to talk about his sudden, near permanent place on the bench. Boeheim would only say, “He has not performed well in game situations. He has not been able to get it done on the court. Frank Howard has moved ahead of him and that’s where it stands right now.”
SB Nation’s Syracuse site, Nunes Magician, wrote in January that it was likely a case of Joseph simply losing his confidence shooting the basketball. The Post-Standard’s Carlson noted the same thing in March, and had some additional insight from people inside the Orange locker room about the situation. If that’s true, then maybe a fresh start in Omaha and a year off will be just what Joseph needs to reach his sky-high potential.
Joseph will sit out the 2016-17 season at Creighton, and have two years of eligibility when he takes the floor in 2017.
Update 2:00pm:
Here’s some of what fans and media have had to say about Joseph’s transfer to Creighton:
https://twitter.com/lflynn_nbanova/status/719555317303001088
https://twitter.com/chrisshuhoops/status/719567442687696901
