It is rare to think of any college basketball player, let alone an international forward who knows considerably less English than most players in the country as “seasoned” by their sophomore season.
After a 2017-18 season in which Marek Dolezaj compiled a field goal percentage of 54%, and played 725 total minutes combined during ACC and NCAA Tournament action (30 minutes a night), the 20-year-old has more than demonstrated the qualities of a seasoned competitor.
Fourteen months ago, when the Slovakian phenom decided to take his talents to Central New York, I believed that he would make “a seamless transition into Jim Boeheim’s legendary 2-3 zone, and eliminate all of Syracuse’s rebounding woes that seemed to never get fixed during their forgetful 2016-17 season“.