Two games into the season, Donnie Freeman and Kiyan Anthony already are drawing some lofty praise.
Syracuse’s dynamic duo aims to lead the team to another victory Saturday afternoon when the Orange head to Philadelphia to take on Drexel as part of the Basketball on Broad: Autumn Invitational.
Freeman, whose freshman season at Syracuse was cut short due to injury, is averaging a team-high 20.0 points in the early going. Not far behind him is Anthony — the son of Carmelo — who is chipping in 17.0 per game. Both players are shooting over 66% from the floor on the young season.
“Those guys are elite, that’s no secret,” Orange center William Kyle III said Saturday after Freeman scored 20 points on 6-of-8 shooting, while Anthony contributed 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting in an 83-43 win over Delaware State.
Kyle added eight points, 13 rebounds and six blocks, but the talk afterward was about Syracuse’s top two threats.
“They’re NBA guys, they know where they belong,” freshman guard Luke Fennell said of Freeman and Anthony.
Perhaps most impressive for the Orange (2-0) is that they have cruised to a pair of victories without top returning scorer JJ Starling, who has only played three minutes this season due to a lower-body injury.
Drexel (1-2) has dropped two in a row since defeating Widener in its season opener. Most recently, the Dragons fell at Colgate 90-83 despite 24 points apiece from Shane Blakeney and Eli Beard.
Blakeney leads the team in scoring at 14.3 points per game despite shooting just 34.9% from the floor.
“(Blakeney) has worked really hard to be in this position,” Dragons coach Zach Spiker said. “He chose to come back. … I believe in what he’s capable of doing.”
Beard averages 12.3 points, although the bulk of that damage came against Colgate. He shot just 5 of 18 (2 of 11 from 3-point range) in the first two games.
Another player to keep an eye on for Drexel is Ralph Akuta, who has nine points and eight blocks in only 19 minutes this season.
