CHICAGO — Shaun Belbey felt a little more nervous watching Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament games in St. Louis, but it wasn’t totally because his team’s season was on the line.

Belbey, along with all the other freshmen walk-ons, watched the game from the first row of the Scottrade Center because there wasn’t enough room for them on the bench.

For 5-foot-10 Belbey, it was like he was watching the game as a fan, and not from his typical seat on the Orange bench.

“I was kind of apart from the team a little bit,” Belbey said. “… It’s a different view, it’s a different feel. You’re with all the people watching.”

The freshmen walk-on group in St. Louis consisted of Belbey, Adrian Autry Jr., Ky Feldman and Jonathan Radner. They still don’t know what’s next in terms of their seating arrangements for Chicago, where the Orange (21-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) face 11th-seeded Gonzaga (28-7, 15-3 West Coast) at 9:40 p.m. on Friday.

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“Hopefully on the court,” Autry Jr. said, “but probably in the stands.”

They enjoyed celebrating behind the bench before joining the team outside the locker room. But they didn’t get the opportunity to shoot around on the court like veteran walk-ons Doyin Akintobe-Adeyeye, Mike Sutton and Christian White.

“I probably wouldn’t be eligible,” Autry Jr. said. “We’d go get it. All five of us. We score in bunches.”

It was then that Autry Jr. pointed to Feldman — the only walk-on to make a basket this season — next to him.

“This kid averaged 28 points per game in high school. He doesn’t look like it.”

Belbey said he’d rather Syracuse make it easy like it was in the first two rounds, than for him to be forced to enter around the eighth overtime.

Autry Jr. likened the experience to where they sit in the Carrier Dome, which is on the second row of the bench. Even sitting behind the press table, though, the group of walk-ons tried to yell out to their on-court teammates when a shooter had the ball. They were useful in anyway possible.

It’s still up in the air just where they’ll be watching the game on Friday. But they enjoyed the courtside seats for the first two games, and won’t complain if that’s where they are again.

“It’s interesting,” Feldman said. “It’s different. But it’s still fun.”

Published on March 24, 2016 at 6:48 pm

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