On the first floor of the Boeheim’s house, two brothers screamed, cried and fell on top of Jamie Boeheim as she tried to play with her Polly Pocket dolls.
The cause of the playroom chaos less than two decades ago was a 1-on-1 basketball game between Jamie’s twin, Buddy Boeheim, and her older brother, Jimmy Boeheim, on the family’s plastic Little Tikes hoop. Their mom, Juli Boeheim, urged Jimmy to let his younger brother win occasionally. Jimmy never did.
Their matchups grew more intense around middle school. Jimmy bent the rules by calling fouls or extending games when he was losing, Jamie said. Controversy brewed regularly, so their dad, Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim, refereed.
But when the two played on the same team at Jamesville-DeWitt High School for a season and a half, that dynamic changed. The siblings’ arguments stayed at home, rarely making their way into J-D’s practices or games. Their 1-on-1 battles became sparse, and they have remained that way ever since, even as the two reunite — playing for their dad — at Syracuse this season. Part of it has to do with avoiding fights and “bad blood” since they’re teammates now, Buddy said.
But it also has to do with the maturing they did as individual players while they were apart for the past five years. Their paths to SU were very different since they “were never destined to play together early,” Boeheim said. But along those paths, they discovered how to handle the weight of the Boeheim name, and how to simultaneously build their own names.
“They’re adults,” Jamie said. “They used to play 1-on-1 more for fun, and now it’s like, ‘We don’t need to play 1-on-1 to know who’s better — we’re both our own selves.’”
Both brothers speak fondly of the last time they played together during the 2015-16 season at J-D since they didn’t expect to play side-by-side again after high school. But after Jimmy graduated that year, the space helped both brothers grow at their own pace. Buddy was the newcomer on Jimmy’s team, former teammates said.
Now at SU, that role has flipped after Jimmy used his extra COVID-19 eligibility to transfer from Cornell into a team centered around his younger brother, who became a national phenomenon last March. With the benefit of that space, this time around — with Jimmy and Buddy as teammates once more — will be different.
“They established themselves individually and grew stronger in their own ways,” Juli said. “They made a name for themselves, even though the Boeheim thing is always going to follow them.”
Juli never had to explain to the kids what their dad’s fame meant and how they should act because of it. She said the family’s trip to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics was reassurance that she and Boeheim didn’t need to have an explicit conversation about it.
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Boeheim was Team USA’s assistant coach, and that meant Buddy, Jimmy and Jamie spent time alongside players like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Juli initially wasn’t sure what’d happen when the kids went back to school after spending the summer with famous athletes, but when Buddy’s third grade teacher asked the class to draw their favorite summer memory, Buddy didn’t draw images of James or Bryant.
Instead, he drew Olympic rings alongside Burger King, Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen since he was fascinated that those American chains were also in Beijing, Juli said. Jimmy’s teacher said the then-fifth grader rarely talked about the Olympics trip, too. Juli was thrilled — even at that age, her kids understood the importance of individuality amid the weight of their last name, she said.
“You hear people say, ‘Oh, that’s Boeheim’s kid,’ and you get a little target on your back, but I don’t think they really see any target on their back,” Juli said. “(Their dad’s) a great guy who happens to be an exceptional coach. And Buddy is a great kid who happens to be a good shooter.”
But Buddy said, when he was in high school, he wasn’t the developed shooter and player he is now. He started on junior varsity during his freshman year before getting pulled up to varsity midseason. Jimmy, a junior at the time, was excited to officially play alongside his younger brother for the first time, then-head coach Bob McKenney said, but the expectations about roles were clear.
“Buddy was still coming into his own,” said Terrence Echols, a J-D teammate. “Jimmy was definitely the leader.”
Some teammates and friends said Buddy was labeled “Jimmy’s little brother” early on, though others disagreed. Jimmy was the top scorer and best player and naturally drew more attention, said Kasey Vaughan, one of Buddy’s best friends. Buddy, while talented, was a secondary option, said Echols.
Jim Boeheim celebrated with his sons after the team’s Elite 8 win over Oklahoma during the 2003 title run. Courtesy of SU Athletics
During that partial season in 2014-15 and the following full season, the two often didn’t act like brothers on the court. The heated arguments from playing basketball at home didn’t spill over often because they “flipped that switch as good as anybody,” said Jeff Ike, who coached them in 2015-16. They’d try to one-up the other, but it was in a healthy, competitive manner, teammates said.
“Jimmy was the big brother,” Ike said. “If Buddy made a crucial 3 or made a block on defense … you could tell Jimmy was super proud.”
There were brief flashes of dispute, though. Echols recalled moments where Jimmy would shoot and Buddy would give him a look, asking for a pass so he could shoot the next time. Matt Carlin, a teammate in Buddy’s grade, said there was some tension because “more often than not, Jimmy had his way.” Carlin recalled times where Buddy “would deal with it by not listening (to Jimmy) and just chucking up a shot.”
Regardless, both Jimmy and Buddy said that they loved playing together in high school. Their chemistry was impeccable because they knew the other’s game inside-out, Ike said. They knew when the other would get hot and where the other was on the court at all times. When an urgent basket was needed, Buddy could find Jimmy and vice-versa, Vaughan said.
When Jimmy graduated and went to New Hampton (New Hampshire) School, Buddy became the team’s focal point, teammates said. Buddy showed a lot of growth after Jimmy graduated, partially because that was part of his trajectory and “growing up,” said Darvin Lovette, a former J-D teammate. Buddy filled the shooting void left by Jimmy’s departure, taking the reins from his older brother, said teammate Ronald Lewis III. It became Buddy’s team.
“He was just more comfortable,” Carlin said. “Once Jimmy left, Buddy was just doing his thing.”
Jimmy had always stayed “at level” compared to those his age but Buddy had more natural talent, McKenney said. The fact that the two only played together for a brief stint during high school was probably good, McKenney said, because it allowed both to develop at their own pace.
Buddy followed Jimmy’s lead by attending prep school. Being in Jimmy’s shadow and then taking over the J-D team was hard for Buddy, Jamie said, and Brewster Academy (New Hampshire) offered Buddy a chance to be in his “own world.” It was at this point when their dad started saying that Buddy was good enough to come to Syracuse, something Jimmy “wasn’t even close to” at that age, Jamie said.
Brewster gave Buddy confidence that he was more than his last name and more than a coach’s son once Syracuse began to show interest in recruiting him.
“It made people realize how legit he is,” Carlin said.
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That year of prep school, in particular, helped both brothers cope with the expectations associated with being a Boeheim. The expectations are why Jamie attends the University of Rochester and didn’t even apply to SU. It’s also why Jamie noticed so much growth from Buddy at Brewster, a time that she said he “just disappeared.”
“It was really a chance for (Buddy) to disconnect from that weight he had on his shoulder to show everyone that he could still do what Jimmy did,” Jamie said. “For him, just getting away from … J-D was definitely the best thing that could have happened for him.”
Jamie joked that Buddy returned home five feet taller and 50 pounds heavier. He was capable of scoring 25 points per game in high school, Echols said, but Brewster boosted him to a different level. He got quicker and stronger, improved his defense and sped up his shot release, Carlin said.
Jimmy made similar strides during the pandemic, working out daily to stay in shape while he was in the transfer portal, Jamie said. And when Jimmy, a forward, eventually chose Syracuse, it was after talking with numerous schools and determining SU was the right situation for him, Jimmy said. He didn’t decide for certain until forward Marek Dolezaj announced he wasn’t returning.
Now at Syracuse, with the brothers reunited as teammates, Jimmy has adjusted to his new team well, Boeheim has said repeatedly. Buddy and Jimmy’s chemistry is growing every day, both brothers said. Carlin said he wonders how the dynamic will function now that Buddy is the more storied player. Jamie said things like that remain unspoken — there’s a sense of respect between them now, which wasn’t present in high school because neither knew the other would be this good.
Jimmy said he’s not too proud to learn from his younger brother at SU, and Buddy said that he’s probably harder on Jimmy than he is on any other teammate. “It’s all out of love,” Buddy said.
Buddy has always admired his brother, Juli said, and Buddy might even feel an unconscious sense of relief that his big brother is playing with him. And this time around, they’re both ready.
“Them taking different paths to prep school and college was a great decision by both,” Lovette said. “But coming back was also like, ‘Once we proved ourselves, what kind of caliber players we are, us playing together would benefit not only ourselves, but also the city of Syracuse, to play under (our) father.’”
Published on November 7, 2021 at 11:35 pm
Contact Roshan: [email protected] | @Roshan_f16
