Syracuse basketball has many wonderful traditions. There's one in particular that seemed to pop up a few years ago and quickly became de rigueur.
The Annual Syracuse Basketball Summer Slimdown.
In the summer before the 2009 season, it was Arinze Onuaku.
In the summer before the 2010 season, it was Rick Jackson.
As we all know, when talking about a trilogy, the third one has to really up the ante. And so this time, we've got two Orange players losing the weight and muscling-up, Scoop Jardine and Brandon Triche.
Both of SU’s starting guards have shed weight this summer in an effort to streamline their bodies to faster, more efficient basketball machines. Triche estimates he’s lost about 15 pounds from his playing peak last season; Jardine said he’s lost seven pounds and plans to eliminate five more.
"We’re big guards, but we want to get our weight down so we can be quicker and also play longer," Jardine said. "We gonna load a lot of minutes this year, me and Brandon, so I just want to be in shape and be able to play longer."
According to Triche, he gained 15 pounds over the course of the season last year (What was he eating?!?!) and five more afterward.Now, Triche is playing a lot quicker and has been handling point guard duties quite well at the King of Kings League.
Plus, this is all going to make Triche's favorite past-time, posting shirtless pics of himself to Facebook, that much more enjoyable for everyone.
Scoop's weight loss is a little more in line with the reasons AO and RickJack got their act together...they all wanted to go pro. As mentioned yesterday, Scoop says he's lost seven pounds this summer and plans to lose a little more before the season starts.
Those cheesesteak days seem so long ago...