ATLANTA — For the second game in a row, Kaleb Joseph sat and watched while his teammates fought for a game he started.

The freshman point guard came out of Syracuse’s (11-4, 2-0 Atlantic Coast) 46-45 win over Georgia Tech (9-5, 0-2) on Wednesday with 12:04 left as sophomore Ron Patterson subbed in for Joseph. The Yellow Jackets were up by one and no team held a lead greater than four points for the rest of the contest, but he wouldn’t return to the floor.

“If he plays 23 minutes, it’d be good if he scored,” Boeheim said when asked what Joseph needed to do to be playing down the stretch. “A point. That would help. That would help.”

Junior forward Michael Gbinije ran the point while Joseph sat halfway down the SU bench. Joseph missed the final 5:30 of the Orange’s two-point win against Virginia Tech with four fouls. Against GT on Wednesday he had just one. But he didn’t add much else to the stat sheet, either.

Joseph went 0-for-2 from the field, snagged three rebounds, five assists and a turnover in 25 minutes against the Yellow Jackets.

During a Georgia Tech timeout with 12.4 seconds left and Rakeem Christmas about to take a free throw for the lead, Joseph was in the back of SU’s huddle, surrounded by Gbinije and Chris McCullough in front of him, and de facto redshirt DaJuan Coleman and walk-on Doyin Akintobi-Adeyeye behind him.

The 42 minutes Joseph has played since ACC play began are the fewest minutes he’s played in any two consecutive games this season.

Joseph said he isn’t frustrated by the limited minutes in crunch time and that it isn’t hard for him to watch.

“No it’s fine, whatever we got to do to win,” Joseph said. “As long as we get the win, that’s all that matters.”

Published on January 8, 2015 at 1:00 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_