INDIANAPOLIS — What happens when you take one part Eric Devendorf and mix it with one part Gerry McNamara? Buckets. Buddy Buckets, to be exact. The shooting phenom currently swishing, flexing and posturing his way across Indianapolis is the son of Jim and Juli Boeheim. But for basketball purposes — and more specifically this NCAA Tournament basketball purposes — Buckets, or Buddy Boeheim as he is more commonly known, is what you get when two hoops scientists go into their gym lab and concoct a shooting monster.
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Once a spot-up shooter who loved the game but lacked the confidence to own it, Boeheim has almost single-handedly shot Syracuse into the Sweet 16. He dropped 30 against San Diego State and 25 against West Virginia, including 23 in the second half as the Orange fought off a Mountaineers rally. Moving into the regional semifinals, Boeheim ranks sixth in points scored, but of the guys ranked above him only two are still playing — UCLA’s Johnny Juzang and Kevin Obanor of Oral Roberts, and Juzang needed three games to get there.
His is a sensation so unexpected and so lights out it is already fueling comparisons in a giddy central New York to McNamara’s magical Madison Square Garden run in 2006, when the guard led the Orange to a five-wins-in-five nights Big East Tournament title. But if the inhales of expectation Buddy inspires every time he touches the ball is all McNamara, the posturing to the crowd, and claiming himself a bucket is total Devendorf. In 2009, Devendorf did that very thing, jumping atop the Garden press table to celebrate what he thought was his game-winning shot against UConn. Instead it was an after-the-buzzer miss that kicked off the six-overtime theater. Watching from the Bankers Life Fieldhouse stands as Buddy flexed his way into the highlights, Devendorf chuckled. “Ha ha, yeah,’’ he says. “That’s definitely me.’’
But just as a child is a combination of his parents, Buddy is the perfect concoction of his coaches, two former Syracuse greats now crafting the latest.
On a spring day last May, Devendorf headed out to a gym, propped up the camera to film and started dribbling. Bored himself, he figured kids stuck at home felt the same, so he started recording short video tutorials. The first was pretty basic but got an instant reaction on Twitter. Kids replied, mimicking his moves. So Devendorf got fancier going from videos of him demonstrating rhythm dribbling to jab steps, hard stops and one-dribble pull-ups. Soon high school coaches were reaching out, asking him to offer instruction over Zoom and eventually Devendorf was giving clinics.
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The appreciation for Devendorf’s teaching did not come as a surprise to anyone in the Boeheim household. He has been working out Buddy and his older brother, Jimmy, since the two were in high school, and helped jump-start the legend of Buckets. “He has been a great influence on him,’’ Jim Boeheim says. During lockdown, Devendorf slipped in the backdoor to the gym at the Boeheim house, masked up and ready to work. Though a good shooter in college, Devendorf wasn’t McNamara. He played with a nice dose of punk in him, just as content to attack the basket as hoist a 3.
He gave a little of both to Buddy, helping him expand both his repertoire and his attitude. On the court, Devendorf worked on Buddy’s angles, using freeze dribbles and pump fakes to get defenders off balance. He worked on his mid-game shot, one- and two-dribble pull-ups, and other ways to create space. He gave him some post-up moves, anything to make Buddy more of an offensive weapon. They spent time talking about how to read a defense and understanding situations, so Buddy knew which move to use when. “It was nothing fancy,’’ Devendorf says. “The biggest thing was that he be able to put the ball on the ground a little better. Now he’s putting it on the floor, changing direction, he can get to the rim. It was just adding that next stage to his game.’’
But Devendorf does nothing without attitude. Whereas Buddy is a buddy. The name suits him. He’s a nice, even sweet, kid. He always loved basketball (not breaking news considering his dad’s history), but he didn’t necessarily always believe he was good at basketball. Or at least as good as he could be. In describing his two boys, Jim Boeheim presents almost a parable of two boys and a golf course. One hits 10 crummy shots in a row and is convinced he will hole in the next. That’s Jimmy. The other plays 10 good holes in a row, one bad one and is certain he is cursed. That’s Buddy.
Jim Boeheim knew that Devendorf could help his son find his snarl. The coach never meddled in Devendorf’s instruction, which also served as a tacit endorsement for Devendorf not to hold back. Not that he needed it. “Once I step on the court, I’m going to forget everything you tell me anyway,’’’ Devendorf says. In those one-on-one battles, he tried to get in Buddy’s head, trash talking like he did back in his playing days. He wanted Buddy to get angry, to use the people who ranked him no better than 300th in high school, and the message-boarders who thought he was little more than a nepotistic benefactor as fuel. There were plenty of them, especially when Buddy struggled out of the gate as a freshman: five scoreless nights in his first 13 games and just 24 percent shooting. “At the beginning of his career, you could definitely see he was questioning himself,’’ Devendorf says. “But once he started seeing it, he started believing it.’’
“You’re the greatest shooter on the planet.’’ So were McNamara’s words of encouragement to Buddy at halftime in the second-round game against West Virginia, as Buddy limped to the locker room with just two points on 1-of-6 shooting. This is saying something, coming from McNamara. The man swished 3s like he was shooting at a wide-open garbage can, making a program record 400 in his career, which ranked him sixth in NCAA history at the time of his graduation. On that Big East run 15 years ago, the Garden crowd gasped every time McNamara touched the ball.
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He knows a thing or two about shooting, and there was no need to mess with Buddy’s stroke. “It’s one of the purest jump shots you can have,’’ he says. Instead McNamara, an assistant coach, takes the baton from Devendorf, and drills down on the same skills. The two work on pump fakes and aggressive first steps, figure out ways to elevate over a defender and use the pick-and-roll. McNamara worked with Buddy to read isolation mismatches better and how to take guys off the bounce. “Thanks to Eric, he was already a step ahead,’’ McNamara says. “He worked on his angles, the physicality at this level, the straight lines. We took what he already had and built on it.’’
McNamara practically saw Buddy grow up, from a toddling boy in diapers while McNamara played to a middle schooler who always seemed to sprout a few inches whenever McNamara saw him after joining the Syracuse staff. “All of a sudden, little Buddy is 6-4 and taller than me,’’ McNamara says.
He is, at this point, more sensei than coach. When McNamara told Buddy to keep shooting despite his cold start against the Mountaineers, Buddy did just that. He hit his first three 1:48 into the second half, and by game’s end had drained four more. The same player who connected on one bucket in the first half turned into Buddy Buckets by the second, connecting on 7 of 11. Against both the Mountaineers and San Diego State, Buddy showed off his full arsenal of shots. Along with the quick-release 3, he hit turnaround jumpers and midrange pull-ups, his versatility making him all the more valuable, and all the more difficult to stop. “I’ve seen a lot of great stories, but this is a perfect example of look what you can do when you give everything to something. Look at what you’re capable of,’’ McNamara says. “He always had a high ceiling, but I don’t think even he knew how high.’’
There is a whole thing about leading a camel that can’t be overlooked. Devendorf and McNamara did the instructing, but it was Buddy who gulped it down. Buddy does not believe in mandatory off days, or mandatory off hours it would seem. In the summer, he routinely started with a 6 a.m. workout, then hit the weights and doubled back at night to work on the shooting gun. During the season, he follows the same grueling schedule, squeezing in a stretch or a workout with his strength coach between practices, and returning after class to make sure he gets up 700 to 800 shots. “Me and Eric, we’ve been through it so we can help him,’’ McNamara says. “But it only helps if Buddy is receptive to it, and he is unbelievable.’’
Even now, stuck in a bubble and his time limited, Buddy makes sure to get 15 to 20 minutes of hard, intense work in with McNamara, aggressively focusing on shooting scenarios. It all has made Syracuse not just a surprise Sweet 16 entrant, but also Buddy an even more surprising tournament breakout star, even catching the eye of NBA folks. His size (6-6) and shot were always going to make him intriguing, but the combination of skills Devendorf and McNamara have helped him craft and the emergence of the swaggering Buddy Buckets make him even more interesting, if a little unrecognizable to those who know him best. “That’s not something Buddy would think of. Or Gerry,’’ Jim Boeheim says. “That’s gotta be Eric.’’
(Top photo: Albert Cesare / IndyStar via USA Today)