Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije have been preparing for the final run of their college seasons for five years. Since 2011. Half a decade.

In the one-and-done era of big-time college basketball, Cooney and Gbinije are each something of an anomaly. Cooney ranked 65th in the Class of 2011 but redshirted as a freshman. Gbinije started at Duke, left after one season and looked on from the bench as the Orange lost to Michigan in the 2013 Final Four in Atlanta.

That’s what brought the pair to this point — two fifth-year seniors trying to steady the steering wheel of SU’s up-and-down season. Before Syracuse (18-10, 8-7 Atlantic Coast) hosts N.C. State (14-14, 4-11) at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Cooney and Gbinije will be honored at half court for the program’s annual Senior Day ceremony, along with walk-on transfer Christian White who hasn’t played this season. Then they’ll play their last regular season home game, which comes a week after their worst collective performance of the year, and try to cap their Carrier Dome careers with a much-needed win.

“Not too many people have two fifth-year guards who are 1,000-point scorers who have won a ton of games, have played in a ton of games,” SU assistant coach Mike Hopkins said Thursday. “At the end of the day, legacy is about winning and legacy, to me, is staying through adversity and getting through it, taking the high road and doing your best.”

Hopkins pointed to the pair’s last two seasons — mired by a self-imposed postseason ban, NCAA violations and a nine-game suspension for SU head coach Jim Boeheim — and said Cooney and Gbinije could have transferred and played their fifth seasons at any other school. But aside from some talk about Gbinije declaring for the NBA Draft last spring, the idea of Cooney and Gbinije ditching Syracuse in a turbulent time wasn’t even floated as a possibility.

And it hasn’t been a two-man effort per se, but Cooney and Gbinije have teamed to gather the pieces after Syracuse started 0-4 in ACC play and looked light years away from an NCAA Tournament bid.

 

Logan Reidsma | Senior Staff Photographer

 

Gbinije, in his first season as a full-time point guard, is tied for fifth in the ACC in scoring (averaging 17 points a game) and is the only player in the conference to score in double figures in every game this season. Cooney has been spotty at times, but he scored 25 in a win at Wake Forest, 22 in a home win over then-No. 25 Notre Dame and has been a rock at the top of the 2-3 zone.

In the bigger picture, Cooney has made the third most 3s in program history (263 and counting), and Gbinije is on the short list of transfers who’ve seemingly been at Syracuse all along.

“They’ve been tremendous, Mike for three years and Trevor, especially the last three,” Boeheim said Monday on the ACC coaches teleconference. “They’ve been key guys for us, tremendously underrated on the defensive end.

“They’re both very, very good defensive players. And both guys have been really solid for us this year. They’ve played really good basketball this year.”

Before the start of practice Wednesday, Cooney and Gbinije were as loose as they’ve been all season. Gbinije played a slow-motion game of one-on-one with Hopkins and tried to make layups while throwing the ball as high as he could. On the other end of the court, Cooney launched 35-foot 3s and challenged assistant coach Gerry McNamara to do the same.

On Saturday, they will walk to center court in the Carrier Dome and hold up their framed jerseys while the crowd showers them with cheers. Then they’ll play in a game that, at least in small part, will sway how that same crowd places them in program history. Overachievers or underachievers. Greats or very goods. Those who did everything or those who couldn’t quite do enough.

But if you ask those within the program, Cooney and Gbinije have little left to prove.

“This last stretch of the season is important for them, it would be important to any players,” Hopkins said. “But we know what those guys have meant. They are committed to this program and committed to being great, and that’s all we’ve ever asked of them.”

Published on February 25, 2016 at 10:07 pm

Contact Jesse: [email protected] | @dougherty_jesse