Syracuse men’s basketball: what will Jyare Davis’ role be for the Orange?

A closer look at the Delaware transfer and what he brings to the team

Of the four transfers that the Syracuse Orange brought in this offseason, former Delaware big man Jyare Davis was the only one to earn All-Conference honors in 2023-24.

In his third year with the Blue Hens after redshirting at Providence, Davis averaged 17.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game, shooting 46.6% from the field. This was good enough to net him All-CAA Second Team honors for a team that finished 6th in the conference.

Despite this, he has not received as much fanfare as some of Syracuse’s other transfers, and he’s not expected to shoulder as big of a load either.

“He knows he’s not going to average 17 this year,” head coach Adrian Autry said on Syracuse’s media day. “But he’s willing to come in and do what he needs to do, and I think he’ll be a great help for us.”

The first place where he helps the Orange is on the glass. Syracuse has struggled to rebound the ball for years, but with the additions of Davis (7.5 per game), Eddie Lampkin (7.0 per game), and Donnie Freeman (9 per game in high school), SU put a clear emphasis on changing that trend.

Although he stands just 6 foot 7, Davis was often the tallest player on the floor for the Blue Hens, playing as a small-ball center on the offensive end. However, he shot under 26% from three-point range last year, limiting the spacing advantage that Delaware got from playing a primary small lineup.

Now at Syracuse, Davis said that he hasn’t been practicing much as a small-ball five, as the Orange are making a concerted effort to play more through the post this season with the likely starter Lampkin and his presumed backup Naheem McLeod.

Davis has focused heavily on his three-point shot over the offseason.

“I’ve grown a lot as a three-point shooter this summer,” Davis said. “That’s something I’m very confident in right now. My coaches have helped me a lot with believing in that, and repping that out a lot in workouts.”

Forcing teams to respect him from beyond the arc will change the spots where he is able to catch the ball and attack the basket from.

One of the most common ways that Delaware would create opportunities for Davis to score is by clearing out a side of the floor and letting him attack one-on-one with a defender from about 20 feet.

Here, Davis is on an island with Stony Brook rim protector Chris Maidoh, dragging him away from the basket, and with all of the help defense on the weak side of the floor. He rips right, and attacks the baseline, finishing through contact in the paint.

He shot 61.9% at the rim last season for the Blue Hens, which ranked in the 71st percentile nationally.

“I was definitely a little bit of an iso scorer at Delaware,” he said. “I could just go stand where I wanted to be, get the ball, and be able to shoot the shot I wanted to shoot.”

Note where Davis catches the ball though, with both feet inside the three-point arc.

When he would catch the ball behind the three-point arc, defenders would back off, allowing them to better absorb his drive. Davis would often have to spin off of his man and take a fadeaway or a mid-range jumper.

Fortunately for the Blue Hens, he was pretty good at that. Davis was one of the CAA’s top mid-range shooters, tying for the conference’s 4th most points per game off of two-point jump shots last season. He also shot the 4th highest percentage on two-point jump shots off the dribble among the 29 CAA players with at least one attempt per game.

For Syracuse, with another big man often in the paint, Davis will not be afforded the space he’s used to for attacking the basket when he catches the ball inside the arc. He’s taken on a new role at Syracuse, both diversifying and simplifying his game.

“It’s a little bit of everything,” Davis said of where he’s catching the ball at Syracuse. “I think part of the reason why Coach Red was able to sell me on here, and why I was able to sell him as a player is that he has an offense where guys can get the ball at different spots, and I’m a player who can be effective at different spots.”

For the first time since 2021-22, Davis will not be the biggest player on the floor for his team, and he won’t be the focal point of his team’s offense.

“I saw on Twitter (my role/playstyle) described as a ‘power wing’,” he said. “I think that’s a very good description. I’m kind of like a tweener. I’m not necessarily a big man at all, I’m not necessarily a guard. I think I have guard skills, I have big man skills. I can be physical, I have nice size, and I think I have a blend of different things I can do on the basketball court to try to take advantage of whatever mismatch I have.”

Everything stems back to the three-point shot, as Davis won’t be able to catch and rip effectively from the wing if defenses are equipped to absorb his drives.

Each archetype in college basketball is on a spectrum, and to illustrate the idea of a “power wing,” I’ll use Providence’s Bryce Hopkins as an example. He’s the edge of the spectrum in the positive direction, and while it remains to be seen where Davis will fall on this spectrum, he almost assuredly won’t be at or near Hopkins’ level.

In his 2022-23 season, Hopkins played exclusively as a four, with Ed Croswell, Clifton Moore, and Rafael Castro at the center spot, and still managed to attack the basket in a packed paint. Teams had to respect his outside jump shot as he drained 28 of his 77 attempts that year, good for 36.4%. Hopkins averaged 15.8 points and 8.5 rebounds per game and Providence had the 18th-ranked offense in the country on KenPom

Like Davis, he’s a good ball-handler at that size and can beat defenders into the paint and finish in different ways. Here, he catches the ball behind the three-point line and creates enough leverage on Alex Karaban, who can’t sag a few feet off of him, to spin back right and fight through between him and Adama Sanogo for the layup.

This past season before his injury, Hopkins was shooting under 20% from three, and the Friar offense struggled much more with him on the floor.

Syracuse won’t be as Davis-dependent as Providence was Hopkins-dependent, but as a role player at the high-major level, Davis’ offensive impact will be tied invariably to how much teams have to respect him at the three-point line.

Because over the last two years, Delaware used Davis as a facilitator, he has improved as a playmaker over the course of his career.

“I got a lot of double teams at Delaware,” he said. “I think that improved my feel on the basketball court. I can kind of see passes before they happen, and I think that helps now because we have a lot of good players. It’s going to be hard to double team different guys on this team because everybody can play good basketball and get each other involved.”

One wrinkle that I think Syracuse should use with Davis is a callback to his freshman season at Delaware.

That year, the Blue Hens had two bigs in Dylan Painter and Andrew Carr that played as centers, allowing Davis to play as a four. Head coach Martin Inglesby put Davis in the dunker spot, which is just outside the paint along the baseline, positioned well to catch short roll passes and step into the lane for dunks.

Davis has dunked the ball just 12 times in the last two years, when he was a primary facilitator, but he had 17 dunks in his freshman year despite much lower usage.

It’s not hard to imagine Syracuse running a pick-and-roll with Davis playing in a similar spot to where he is in this video, and allowing either Jaquan Carlos or Eddie Lampkin to make a quick read, delivering him the ball for an easy dunk.

Moving to the defensive end, Davis is a versatile piece that can defend multiple spots. As we’ve already established, he moves well for his 6 foot 7, 220-pound frame, and can slide on the perimeter.

With a lesser load on offense, he’ll be able to exert more energy on the other side of the ball.

He’s capable of defending fives in spurts, even though it wasn’t always his job at Delaware despite being their biggest player.

“I don’t think it’s something I’m really fazed by,” Davis said. “I’m a pretty physical player, I’m a strong kid, and I think that it definitely helps when I do get one of the bigger players that I feel comfortable.”

Davis is a big piece of Syracuse’s puzzle even if he won’t be one of the featured stars. He left his hometown school where he was on track to be a top-five all-time scorer to come to Central New York, and he’s ready to make it worth it.