Akir Souare is a perfectly normal backup big man. He cleans up the trash with offensive rebounds, blocks shots, and patrols the paint for about eight minutes per game. He’s also a major statistical outlier. Despite his consistent minutes, he hadn’t attempted a single field goal — or scored a point — before Wednesday’s game against Mercyhurst.
“I feel like it was a curse man,” Souare said after the game. “Not getting no field goals, not getting no buckets, but by the time that happened, I was like,
thank god, finally.”
Entering the Mercyhurst game, Souare was the only player in the country to play more than 20 minutes without attempting a field goal, and he’d played 83.
With four minutes left in the first half, he scored his first points of the season from the free throw line. He was fouled going up for an offensive rebound. But in the second half, he finally got a shot up there.
Kiyan Anthony dashed into the lane from the right corner and fed Souare with a bounce pass underneath the defense. He corralled it and went up immediately with a layup off the glass, and it fell into the basket.
It was ironic that Anthony would be the one to feed him for the field goal, because during practice earlier in the week, Anthony and Sadiq White were talking about the statistic with Souare.
“We were joking with him yesterday in practice,” Kiyan Anthony said. “Like you can’t even get a shot up?”
But how does a player even stay on the court for 89 minutes over the course of 11 games without taking a field goal? How is that something that a coaching staff sees and tells to stay out there?
For starters, he provides some athleticism and length off the bench in the frontcourt, something Syracuse doesn’t have much of. The On-Off numbers aren’t terrific, but with this small of a sample, don’t tell the full story. And also when his minutes mirror the team’s best defender in Kyle, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Anthony called him the team’s “glue guy,” after the game. Head coach Adrian Autry loves the effort and energy that he brings.
Even though he doesn’t score, you feel his presence when he’s on the floor.
“He’s a guy that’s very active,” Autry said. “He stays around the rim, and the things we talked about for him was being able to get his hands on balls and he gets rebounds and things like that. So him being able to cash those in. I thought earlier in the year, he had some times where he was around the rim and could have finished.”
Naithan George has played with Souare at three different stops. First in high school, then at Georgia Tech, and now here at Syracuse. He’s seen more of Souare than anybody else in the building.
So what did he think about the statistic, and how did he react when he finally scored?
“I’ve been with him forever and he has changed his game,” George said. “I feel like that’s a reflection of where we were at, but I know Souare as a guy who could score the ball. When I grew up with him in hgh school, he was scoring the ball like crazy, dunking on people. But I know what Souare is capable of, and him not having a field goal attempt is wild because he’s a really talented guy.”
Now that he’s scored his first points, he’s awaiting his first alley-oop from George, something that the two connected on many times between high school and Georgia Tech.
“I keep looking for it, I keep asking for it,” he said. “Whenever I get my first one, I’m gonna be good with it.”
While Anthony would joke with him about not taking any shots, he still understands the value that Souare brings to the team.
“He doesn’t care about scoring,” Anthony said. “He only cares about winning, and you need more players out there like that.“
