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BLACKSBURG, Va. — Three minutes into his first career start, plugging the gap left by an injury to one of Syracuse’s most indispensable players, Frank Anselem rolled to the right block off a screen and watched as Buddy Boeheim streaked toward the rim. The Orange’s guard spun right and attracted the help of a second defender, Virginia Tech’s Keve Aluma, before lofting a shot that bounced off the backboard, and then the rim, and into the air.

That’s when Anselem started to jump. He pushed the ball toward the backboard — an intentional swing to knock the ball away from one Hokies defender and back toward himself — and then jumped again to grab the offensive rebound. Anselem glanced to his right, to the corner for a check in case an open 3 emerged but turned back to the basket and finished a two-handed dunk to put the Orange up 4-3.

With Jesse Edwards set to miss the remainder of the season after fracturing his left wrist in Syracuse’s win over Boston College on Tuesday, Anselem emerged as one of the possible solutions to replace SU’s starting center. Postgame, Anselem said that he found out he was starting in practice after Edwards’ injury in the Boston College game, when head coach Jim Boeheim said, “Frank, you’re starting.”

And in the first sample collection, a 71-59 SU loss to Virginia Tech that snapped its four-game winning streak, Anselem finished with six points, 15 rebounds and two blocks. Boeheim said that Anselem did a “monster job there rebounding,” and he logged a career-high 36 minutes, with Bourama Sidibe spelling him for the other four, and helped anchor the center of SU’s 2-3 zone while trying to replicate some of the strengths — like pick and rolls — the Orange’s offense had acquired in recent weeks with Edwards. 

“He’s not going to score a lot, but he sets good screens,” Boeheim said. “He moves without the ball. And his defense was good, and he rebounded the ball. That’s what he has to do, and he did a tremendous job there.”

Anselem’s first half offensive rebound and second-chance basket was his first rebound and point on Saturday, and he went almost six minutes before grabbing his next board. After that span, Sidibe, who two years ago served as the Orange’s starting center but has been derailed by knee injuries since, had checked in for Anselem. But when Sidibe picked up an offensive foul in the paint rolling from a screen, Boeheim signaled for Anselem to reenter. Boeheim said that Sidibe’s “feeling better, but he’s not ready” and needs to have a “good week of practice.”

Anselem said that Boeheim told him during one timeout to “read (the rebounds),” mixing in a spin move or trying to wind up on the other side of the ball. “Keep doing that time and time again, and I could’ve had 20 rebounds easily,” he said. But a couple of times, he added, balls close to his grasp were knocked away and collected by Virginia Tech. He picked up his first foul with 12:41 left in the first half when David N’Guessan sprinted through the paint when Darius Maddox missed his 3 and beat Anselem for positioning, drawing contact as he tumbled toward the ground.

“I know if it’s around the rim I can go up and get it,” Anselem said. “That’s pretty much all I have to do.”

Part of Anselem’s increased presence rebounding, Boeheim said, stemmed directly from his increased playing time with Edwards out. Boehiem said after the Orange’s win over Boston College that Anselem needed to jump more, to not stand on the ground and wait for the ball to come to him but added four days later that “he hasn’t played enough to really get a feel for it.” That translated to his impact offensively too, as well as his level of comfort within the 2-3 zone where Anselem said he thought he did a “pretty good job defensively.”

Heading into the under-8 timeout, Justyn Mutts flashed from the low block to the high post and stationed in the spot that allowed Virginia Tech to navigate its offense and allowed him to record a triple-double. And Storm Murphy, after a brief hesitation, tossed him the ball. There were three options Aluma had after squaring up — kick it out to the wing for a 3, complete a high-low pass, or elevate for a jump shot himself. This time, he flung the ball to Aluma on the left block, and Anselem pivoted to recover.

Cole Swider jumped first and forced Aluma, mid-air, to take his layup from the right side of the basket instead. And that allowed Anselem enough time to make it to that spot, rising from behind Aluma and swatting the ball into the ground and out of bounds. He fist-bumped Joe Girard III, then turned and did the same to Buddy and jogged back to Syracuse’s bench still trailing by just one as his longest collegiate outing grew longer and his impact, measurable in a variety of ways, resonated more, too.

Published on February 12, 2022 at 10:30 pm

Contact Andrew: [email protected] | @CraneAndrew