cropped Kaleb Joseph with knee pads.JPG
Kaleb Joseph, who led his Cushing Academy team to two straight New England championships, will play at Syracuse next season.
(Courtesy of Tim Hart/Next Level Photography)
Syracuse, N.Y. — Cushing Academy basketball coach Barry Connors encountered senior point guard Kaleb Joseph in the campus dining hall on Wednesday. Since last December, when Tyler Ennis entered the NBA consciousness with his early Syracuse play, Joseph had been advised to stay on high basketball alert.
Joseph committed to Syracuse last summer with the understanding that he would apprentice for Ennis for the foreseeable future. But on Wednesday, Joseph approached his coach with a new sense of urgency.
"I don't know if he had inside information. I don't know if it was just his gut feeling or what," Connors said. "But he said, 'Coach, I gotta be ready. He's gonna leave.'"
Joseph, it turns out, had no "inside information," only an elite player's inkling of the way young basketball minds think.
"I just put myself in his shoes," Joseph said, "and thought if I was in his situation or if any basketball player was in his situation and his stock wouldn't get much higher coming back, why would he come back?'"
Tyler Ennis is, of course, not coming back to Syracuse next season. And consequently, Joseph is now poised to become the fourth Syracuse starter at point guard in four years.
His primary competition will come from Michael Gbinije, who has spent two seasons learning the Syracuse system behind Michael Carter-Williams and Ennis. Gbinije, asked to play three positions at SU this season, showed improved ability to penetrate, score and find open teammates. SU coach Jim Boeheim said Gbinije "has figured out" the point guard spot enough to earn valuable minutes there.
But Joseph, a pure point guard since his sophomore year of high school, will get every chance to earn a starting spot. Boeheim said Joseph and Ennis share one specific trait: Both were undervalued high school point guards.
"He's explosive, he's a good mid-range shooter. He's got to work on his 3-point shooting, which all point guards do," Boeheim said. "He gets to the rim and he's athletic at the rim. He dunks and he can get up. And he's got a good 15-foot mid-range game."
Boeheim, too, appreciates Joseph's maturity. Joseph has played pivotal roles for a prep school program that consistently competes for New England championships. He averaged 16.3 points, 6.8 assists and 5.3 rebounds for a 23-6 team that won its second straight NEPSAC Class AA title.
Connors said Joseph has demonstrated the ability to adapt to his basketball environment. Last year, Connors demanded that his big man "get a touch" every time down the court, a directive Joseph facilitated. This year, Cushing's guard-prominent attack means that Joseph has been free to create for himself and his teammates.
"He's had good coaching, good competition. He's used to playing with good teammates," Boeheim said. "He can make players better. He's a different kind of player but he can have the same impact as Tyler had."
"I think I do whatever it takes to win. I'm not going to try to score 30 points because I can. I want to win the game," Joseph said. "So even if Tyler would have stayed, I still planned on getting on the court because I think I can do things that certain players on the team maybe couldn't have. I know I'll find my way onto the court. This obviously makes the situation a little bit easier. But it was never anything I was too worried about."
Joseph, by all accounts, immerses himself in his basketball work. Interviews with various people who are either close to Joseph or who have watched him develop during his prep school career underline his addiction to perfection and his desire to succeed.
P.J. Frappier, a New Hampshire resident and basketball trainer who has known Joseph since Joseph was a seventh-grader, works with him on his shooting and ball-handling whenever Joseph goes home to Nashua, N.H. Frappier recalls visiting Joseph at Cushing and watching him rise at 5:30 a.m. to tackle a workout.
"His work ethic is silly. I know a lot of people say it, but he wants to be great," Frappier said. "He's self-motivated."
Frappier has worked to improve Joseph's balance on his shot, to "get him to be more consistent" when he's shooting the ball. His coaches said he has improved his perimeter shooting skills, but that the 3-point shot remains a primary area of practice concern.
Joseph, too, will need to layer weight and strength on his 6-foot-2, 180-pound frame. He said he will concentrate, now that his prep school season has finished, on lifting each day after school.
"That hasn't been a focus with him," Frappier said. "When he gets in the weight room -- he's already athletic now — I think he'll get even more athletic."
"He needs to get stronger, he needs to get bigger, he needs to get faster, he needs to shoot better," Connors said. "Is there any specific thing he needs to work on? Probably his 3-point shooting. He's very serviceable. He was one of my best shooters, but he's going to play for Syracuse next year. The nice thing about him is he knows he needs to get better to get where he wants to go. He wants to prove to Syracuse Nation that they have nothing to worry about."
Joseph played shooting guard his freshman year at Cushing, but moved to the lead guard spot a year later. He prefers point guard, he said, because he believes the position dictates the success of every basketball team.
"I like the pressure," he said. "I like being in charge."
He will need that confidence next season, when he encounters bigger, better players in a system he has yet to learn. Joseph and Connors said nothing has been promised to Joseph, that a starting role and abundant playing time must be earned in Syracuse next season.
Joseph said he will continue to prepare his body and his game for the chance to compete for precious playing time. He believes, he said, that practice elevates his confidence and prepares him for whatever he might encounter on the basketball court.
He wants to be Syracuse's primary point guard next season. He wants, ultimately, to follow a path of SU point guards into the NBA. For Joseph, that process started years ago. When Tyler Ennis decided to end his college career, it expedited the urgency.
"Kaleb knows the reality that if Tyler was at Syracuse next year, he was going to play, but how much? But now? There's no guarantees, but there's plenty of opportunity," Connors said. "And the nice thing about Kaleb is he's excited about that. But he knows he's gotta keep working. He knows nothing is going to be given to him. But at the same time, that carrot is out there, playing time is absolutely out there to be had."
"I think I would still be as excited even if he stayed," Joseph said. "But now I'm just glad that I prepared the way I have been. Because the way everything worked out, it's looking like I'm going to play a lot more.I prepared for it. But it's not like I was sitting around, hoping he'd leave, you know what I mean?"