Brandon Triche’s first shot of the game looked completely normal.

Just two-and-a-half minutes into the action, Kris Joseph found the junior guard outside the 3-point arc on the left wing. Triche caught the pass and went up with the jumper in rhythm, draining the open trey to give Syracuse its first lead of the game.

And were it not for the tape covering his right hand and thumb, there would have been no way to tell that Triche was battling an injury that SU head coach Jim Boeheim said continues to nag him.

‘It definitely still bothers him,’ Boeheim said. ‘He had a really good first half and then we wanted to play Michael (Carter-Williams) a little bit more.’

Triche and sophomore guard Dion Waiters both played through thumb ailments in SU’s 80-61 win over Tulane Thursday in the Carrier Dome. Triche finished with nine points on three 3-pointers despite the injury to his shooting hand. He also rested for most of the second half. Waiters, who led SU with 15 points against the Green Wave, was battling a left thumb injury.

But aside from the tape on both players’ injured hands and the limited action for Triche in the second half, neither seemed to be slowed by the bad thumbs.

‘Hopefully, we’ll get those two guys healthy,’ Boeheim said, ‘and get them ready for the Big East.’

Triche was not available for interviews in the locker room after the game. He played 14 minutes of the first half and in addition to that first 3 early in the game, he played a major role in SU’s decisive 19-0 run just before halftime.

He started the run by finding a wide-open Joseph for 3. Two minutes later, Joseph returned the favor and Triche knocked down a shot from deep. And the junior guard capped off the run with his third 3-pointer with 17 seconds left in the half.

‘Brandon I thought was very good in the first half,’ Boeheim said, ‘very aggressive and got in the right spots.’

Waiters, whose bad thumb is on his non-shooting hand, came off the bench as he has done all season and was once again an offensive spark. He played 24 minutes in the game, second only to Joseph’s 28.

The sophomore knocked down a couple off-balance jumpers falling away from the basket and was his usual self-creating off the dribble.

Early in the second half, Waiters blew by Tulane’s Malte Ziegenhagen with a lefty dribble at the 3-point line and got all the way to the rim. He finished by gliding around another defender to avoid contact and finishing with a right-handed layup at the rim.

‘I think he’s played well,’ Boeheim said. ‘I think his defense has improved. He’s a very, very good offensive player and he’s played well all year.’

Freshman Carter-Williams filled in for Triche for most of the second half. He was also impressed with the play of his teammates despite battling through injuries and said he wouldn’t have been able to tell either was injured if he didn’t know already.

‘Probably not,’ the freshman said. ‘They’ve been playing unbelievable.’

And while both Triche and Waiters look to get healthy going forward, the Orange showed once again that it has the depth to make up for any lack of production should the injuries become an issue.

Ten different players played 11 minutes or more and all of them scored. And that decisive run to end the first half came with Waiters, SU’s second-leading scorer, watching from the bench.

‘I was just on the bench cheering them on,’ the sophomore said. ‘I was really excited, really happy. Just to see your teammates out there come right in and pick it up and just get it going like that, it was awesome.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

 

Published on December 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm