Three sets of eyes fixate on Brandon Triche. They follow his every move, studying his footwork and analyzing his mechanics at an otherwise deserted Melo Center on Sunday night.

His uncle Howard feeds him from the wing, while his oldest brother Melvin rebounds. His brother, Mike, charts everything with paper and pen from his spot on the baseline as the Syracuse guard fires away from the top of the key, where he starts to find his rhythm.

Catch. Shoot. Swish.

“Easy,” Melvin says as Triche loads another shot. “Easy like Sunday morning.”

Catch. Shoot. Swish.

“Fourteen-for-20,” Mike calls out after tallying up his total.

“Money time,” Melvin says from under the basket.

Three days before his final home game at Syracuse, Triche is fittingly with his brothers, trying to get back on track as his senior season winds down. They molded him from a young age, taking him to local parks and gyms to play the game they all loved. Whether it was at Kirk Park, Archbold Gymnasium, the Jewish Community Center or simply the backyard of their Jamesville, N.Y., home, they pushed their younger brother to his limits.

Triche will suit up for the last time in his hometown Wednesday at 6 p.m. when Syracuse takes on DePaul at the Carrier Dome.

The senior has been a mainstay in the Syracuse backcourt the last four years, starting all 136 games of his career. He’s developed from a role player as a freshman to the team’s leader as a senior – a season in which he’s second on the team in points with 14.2 per game, and assists with 3.7 per game.

“It just happened so fast,” Triche said. “You’re almost at a loss for words for how fast it went.”

On Sunday night at the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, his brothers and their uncle focus their efforts on Triche’s stroke. He’s been mired in a slump during Syracuse’s three-game losing streak, a stretch in which he’s gone 10-for-34 from the field and 1-for-13 from 3-point range. And he’s barely 24 hours removed from a gut-wrenching, seven-turnover performance in his team’s latest loss to Louisville.

His family tries to help him through the latest “hurdle” he must overcome in his career, offering encouragement and pointers during the workout.

“He’s always been the baby, so we always looked over him to try and protect him, but also to push him,” Mike said. “It’s great to be hands-on, especially at this time in his career.”

***

The ball never stopped bouncing.

The familiar sound could be heard as early as 5 a.m. as the sun came up in the summer, and as late as 1 a.m., long after the sun had set. The Triche brothers spent their childhood dribbling, shooting and playing games for hours on end in their backyard on Thompson Road.

Brandon, the youngest of the three, was often asleep during the late-night sessions. But sometimes, he’d awake to that familiar sound in the middle of the night.

“If he heard that ball bounce, he’d run right out there,” said his father, Melvin Sr.

His obsession with the game started at a young age. By the time he was 3, Triche could make shots on a 10-foot rim. Soon, Triche would tag along to brother Melvin’s practices, and along with both brothers to the park whenever they went.

That’s where his game first developed.

Melvin, who is seven years older than Triche, was too big and strong for him to challenge. So Mike, who is four years older, became his nemesis growing up. The sibling rivalry would bring out the worst in 9-year-old Triche when the pair matched up at “bulldog camp” at H.W. Smith School. Triche would lose his temper and resort to screaming at the referees when the game didn’t go his way.

“They ended up sitting me down and then I started crying,” Triche said. “Just being so competitive and wanting to win all the time, I was just trying to do whatever I could.”

All of the beatdowns paid off as he got older.

By seventh grade, he started to beat Mike. By 10th grade, he was beating Melvin, too.

“We pushed him to be good, so whatever someone said, we already knew,” Mike said. “We knew that he was going to be a high-level Division-I player.”

*** 

By middle school, Triche didn’t want to be viewed as the loose cannon who would go off at any moment. So, he bottled up his emotions – rarely showing as much as a facial expression.

The stoic approach, which is something his father stressed to him growing up, stuck with him for the rest of his career.

“You never want to let anybody see your pain,” Triche said. “Whether you’re hurt or you’re feeling great, you never want to let anybody see that.”

Triche has tried to break out of his shell and show his personality this season, beginning with his dance at Midnight Madness.

Still, Triche said he prefers to keep to himself. During his freshman year at SU, he would spend his weekends at home with his brothers, rather than check out parties.

Alshwan Hymes, his closest friend and high school teammate, said Triche was always known as a quiet guy in school. It’s something Bob McKenney quickly learned coaching him at Jamesville-DeWitt High School.

When McKenney drove Triche to camps, they’d engage in small talk for the first two minutes before riding in silence the rest of the way. The same scene played out between them at lunch or dinner through the years.

“It was like pulling teeth,” McKenney said. “I was tired by the time we left to try to keep a conversation going.”

His parents and brothers have always seen the other sides of Triche. The jokester who’s good for a one-liner to get you laughing. The artist whose self-portrait – featuring him dunking in his No. 25 Jamesville-DeWitt uniform – is framed at home. And the writer who composed poems inspired by the motivational quotes in his countless recruiting letters.

“He came a long way from this little mad kid,” Melvin Sr. said. “He grew up into a nice young man – very seldom do I ever hear anything bad about him, and that makes me feel real good.”

***

Brandon Triche waited three years for this moment. He may have started every game, but he deferred to a host of SU stars throughout his career.

It was finally his turn to take over this season. This Syracuse team is his team.

“This year is a year that I kind of wanted a few years ago, but still a year where there’s ups and downs,” Triche said. “I’m finally able to showcase my talent.”

The ups have displayed his capability to carry the load. A 25-point, six-assist performance in SU’s dismantling of Rutgers. A career-high 29 points at Seton Hall. A steady floor game against then-No. 1 Louisville, in which he scored 23 points and took over at point guard in the second half to calmly direct the SU offense in a hostile environment at the KFC Yum! Center – his father beaming with pride watching from the first row.

The lows have only highlighted his leading role on the team. When Triche struggles, Syracuse does too, as evidenced by the team’s current three-game slide.

It started with the setback against Georgetown in front of a record crowd. The senior went 1-for-7 from beyond the arc and finished with 10 points. Triche was a nonfactor in a three-point loss to Marquette, going 0-for-3 from long range.

His brothers were quick to point that out.

“They were just saying, ‘A lot of the games where you’re not key to the game or you’re not dominating the game in one aspect or another, are a lot of the games y’all lose,’” Triche said. “That was eye-opening to me.”

The senior already knew it. But hearing it again from Mike and Melvin hit home. His forgettable, 2-for-11, seven-turnover performance against Louisville last Saturday served as another painful reminder.

“For us to win, he’s got to play well,” backcourt mate Michael Carter-Williams said. “That’s a tough job to have.”

***

Back at the Melo Center on Sunday night, Triche lines up beyond the arc on the right wing. He hits 10 in a row, Mike calling out the number with each make. He stays hot, climbing to 18 consecutive makes before leaving one short.

Then, Triche gets on the foul line.

“Ten in a row,” his brothers say before he steps to the line.

“Blindfolded, Mr. Miyagi,” Melvin cracks, a nod to the brothers’ shared affinity for action movies growing up, but Triche coolly sinks free throw after free throw.

The workouts have become a part of Triche’s routine for two to three days a week in the past two months, Melvin said. Mike said they often start at 9 or 10 p.m., sometimes lasting three hours until 1 a.m.

“It was like we had to step in when we seen things going a little south,” Melvin said. “He’s been playing really well – it’s just certain things should look better than what it does.”

They create workouts with various drills, the routine laid out by Mike on the paper he uses to track the results. On this night, Triche took about 300 3-pointers. The results at each spot on the floor are documented in Mike’s notes on a folded piece of paper.

Above the sketched-out arc are three words – all variations on words Mike uses to describe Triche when he looks back on his accomplished basketball career, which included overcoming a torn ACL in high school and the ups and downs of Syracuse.

Resiliency – Toughness – Heart

Triche has met each challenge with hard work – always trusting his brothers and always returning to the gym to get through it. And on Wednesday night, emotions may run high when his family watches Triche take the Dome floor one last time.

“It’s been sort of breathtaking,” Mike said. “It’s been extremely enjoyable to be able to go from working out together as kids to now as adults, and him getting ready for his last month at SU.”

Published on March 6, 2013 at 1:20 am

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