Chris McCullough was getting to where he needed to be, the basket. He was already towering over his defenders, but he wasn’t finishing. Bumps and hand checks from players that he stood at least five inches taller than were enough to throw off would-be routine finishes.

“He gets bumped and he misses layup shots, he’s just — he’s got a ways to go,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. “He’s got to be real strong around the basket, but he’s active. He’s going after the ball.”

Syracuse needs McCullough to make the kind of close-range shots he missed in an exhibition win over Adrian on Tuesday night. They’re the chances that shift early-season games from uneasy contests to comfortable wins. The Orange will have its first regular-season matchup against Kennesaw State on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome.

SU may not need the 6-foot-10 McCullough to win its 2K Classic opener. But the game will be the first competitive step in the freshman forward’s collegiate development, and he’ll look to build on help from senior forward Rakeem Christmas and assistant coach Mike Hopkins.

“When he’s confident and he’s in a top mode it opens up a lot of opportunities for everybody else in the group,” freshman point guard Kaleb Joseph said.

As a freshman in the 2011–12 season, Christmas played a secondary big man role to center Fab Melo, dropping down to play center when Melo either needed a rest or got suspended. Christmas started 35 of 37 games, played in every one and averaged 11.5 minutes per game in a season that ended in the Elite Eight against Ohio State.

McCullough has an even more important role for this year’s team, and said Christmas is his main source of advice on how to contribute as a freshman. Christmas just told McCullough to work hard.

Further easing McCullough’s transition is Hopkins, who works with the team’s big men. The forward said that Hopkins also plays the good cop to Boeheim’s bad cop.

“I don’t know, he’s just real goofy, coming into the locker room, doing stupid things,” McCullough said. “After practice he’s always doing something stupid, always pranking somebody.”

It makes McCullough’s job easier, he said, as he has a close relationship with Hopkins and is seemingly always with the former Syracuse guard.

Against Division III Adrian on Monday night, McCullough shot poorly, but finished with a double-double. A series of simple putbacks rimmed out on the freshman, though his aggression did lead to nine points from the free-throw line.

His 16 rebounds were a game-high and accounted for a third of the Orange’s total. But this was against a team whose tallest player is 6 feet, 5 inches.

Unlike the Bulldogs, Kennesaw State can contend with the height of McCullough and the Orange. The Owls have a pair of big men in the 6-foot-8 Bernard Morena and the 6-foot-10 Willy Kouassi — two Ivory Coast natives and Auburn transfers — in addition to 6-foot-8 redshirt freshman Jordan Jones and 6-foot-8 freshman forward Justin Diecker.

But if McCullough can mix some easy buckets in with the rebounding he’s likely to provide, the Orange shouldn’t have many problems.

“He’s got to finish around the basket,” Boeheim said. “We don’t want him really to take contested jump shots. We don’t need him to do that. If he’s open, maybe. But if he’s contested we’d rather have him get inside or set a screen and play in those situations.”

Published on November 13, 2014 at 12:20 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_