BUFFALO — The Kid shows up on the cover of Sports Illustrated now, with a former Syracuse alum named Carmelo Anthony, on the eve of his first March Madness game Thursday against Western Michigan, beneath a line that reads: Can Tyler Ennis Match Melo’s Freshman Title Magic?
So Tyler Ennis is asked whether he feels that pressure.
“No, not at all. The whole year, even before the season, there’s been pressure to fill bigger shoes, and that’s not really what I focus on,” said Ennis, who took over point-guard duties from Michael Carter-Williams, the NBA’s likely Rookie of the Year with the Sixers. “I kind of focus on what I have to do for my team to win. It’s two different situations, and … hopefully we could do what he did and win a championship, but I don’t try to outdo anybody.”
The template for how a freshman should handle March Madness will be sitting on the Syracuse bench alongside Jim Boeheim. Gerry McNamara was the point guard on the Syracuse team Anthony led to the NCAA Championship 11 years ago.
Then again no one, least of all Ennis, expects the NCAA jitters to be his menace.
Ennis has been a point guard from the time he grew up outside Toronto dreaming about being Jonny Flynn to three seasons at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark to playing for Team Canada.
Q: “What can you prove in this tournament?”
A: “I’m not really trying to prove anything,” said Ennis, whose older brother Dylan is also set to play at the First Niagara Center as a reserve with Villanova. “I’m just trying to win games pretty much.”
It’s not just McNamara’s footsteps he’s following.
“I’ve had some really talented point guards who might be a little more talented — Sherman [Douglas] and Pearl [Washington], Adrian [Autry], Gerry — but this kid understands the game as well as anybody,” Boeheim said. “He just knows how to play.”
McNamara describes Ennis this way: “Composed, mature. From an intelligence standpoint, you can’t ask a freshman to be farther ahead of the curve than he is.”
McNamara sure didn’t have NCAA jitters as a freshman.
“I think by this time, at this stage of the year, if you’ve played the minutes you played — similar to Tyler, I played a lot of minutes — you’re used to it,” McNamara said. “There’s no surprises, you feel comfortable. We were different. I think to be as successful as Tyler’s been, you have to be different, you have to be self-confident. He’s got all those attributes.”
The Magic March memories of a 11 years ago seemed like yesterday to McNamara.
“The biggest one is probably that [second-round] Oklahoma State game, coming from 17 back, and just our bench and how they contributed,” McNamara said.
McNamara scored 11 points (4-for-9 shooting) with four assists, two steals and two turnovers in 33 minutes as Syracuse throttled Manhattan College 76-65 in his Dance debut at the Fleet Center in Boston.
The Orange beat Oklahoma in the East Region Finals in Albany to head to the Final Four at the Superdome, where Anthony torched Texas for 33 points in the semifinal.
“That game was his statement,” McNamara said. “What he was able to do on the biggest stage, and elevate the play of his game, elevate his team, that moment — I had already known he was special — but that was the moment that he was going to be one of the greats, and he’s continued to prove that. … I think he endeared all fans of college basketball with his smile during that tournament. ”
Finally, Syracuse 81, Kansas 78. McNamara buried six 3-pointers in the first half.
“That’s still, when I think about it, it’s kind of crazy to even fathom,” he said.
Finally, that One Shining Moment.
“It’s a feeling that as a coach I’ll continue to chase for the remainder of my career,” McNamara said.
Tyler Ennis chases it now. NCAA jitters?
“No, not yet at least,” Tyler Ennis says, and then laughs.