Jim Boeheim teams don’t usually contain a 10-man rotation. Last season, seven players ruled Syracuse’s minutes. The year before, it was the same amount.

Not 10. But that’s how many players Boeheim thinks are capable of earning significant playing time this season for the 2010-11 version of the Syracuse men’s basketball team.

‘We do have 10 guys who we think are capable,’ Boeheim said at SU’s annual media day on Oct. 15. ‘So we’ll see how practice and we’ll see how the early part of the season goes. The guys who are ready will play.’

Whether what Boeheim thinks is a capability actually develops into a 10-man rotation will start to be determined Tuesday, as the No. 10 Orange gears up for its first contest of the season, an exhibition with Division II school Kutztown (Pa.). Starting at 7 p.m. inside the Carrier Dome, Boeheim will start to discover which players will fill out his rotation — and which will fill out his bench.

Under Boeheim’s tenure at Syracuse, capability has often developed into a tight rotation of seven or eight players as the season progresses. In 2007-08, similar to the two seasons that would follow, five SU players saw more than 30 minutes of action per game while two others got nearly 20 minutes per game.

‘He is a Hall of Fame coach,’ junior guard Scoop Jardine said of Boeheim at media day. ‘He gives us a lot of freedom and lets us do a lot of different things. He thinks about and does what is best for the team, and he is going to find out what is best for the team. At the end of the day, coach knows best.’

Jardine figures to be one returning player who will see significant time this season in Boeheim’s rotation. He is expected to start alongside returning starting point guard Brandon Triche. Senior forward Rick Jackson is back at his starting ‘four’ spot, and Kris Joseph will move from a prominent bench role into the starting small forward.

But beyond those four is where the questions start. Beginning with the presumed starting center: highly touted freshman Fab Melo, who will take over for the departed Arinze Onuaku. Boeheim is expecting both Melo and fellow freshman Baye Moussa Keita to play key roles this season, especially with the presumed season-ending foot injury to sophomore DaShonte Riley.

‘Our big guys are key for us because we’re asking the freshmen to step in and do the work inside,’ Boeheim said. ‘I think the two guys are very capable, but they’re going to have to work hard. Bernie Fine always does a great job with the big guys, getting them ready. It’s up to us to make sure they’re ready to get done what we need to out there.’

Keeping count, that’s six. And in the Orange’s two exhibition games against Kutztown and against Le Moyne on Nov. 9, just how many more Boeheim is willing to put in his rotation will start to come into focus.

That could mean spots for the other two in a top-ranked freshman class, guards Dion Waiters and C.J. Fair.

‘I can do it all,’ Waiters said. ‘I can shoot, I can play defense, I can pass the ball. I am going to bring everything to the table.’

It could mean spots and extended roles for sophomores Mookie Jones and James Southerland, who each saw their playing times dwindle last season as the Orange entered Big East play.

Or it could mean spots for all of those 10. Boeheim at least expects as much. On Tuesday, he will start to find out.

‘I think we have some guys who are very capable,’ Boeheim said. ‘We think the 10 guys we have can play. We don’t think that any of the 10 guys we have are not ready. We think they will be ready and capable of coming in and playing. I don’t have any reservations about these 10 guys. I think they can come in and contribute.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on November 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm