Syracuse Basketball: Redshirting Matthew Moyer makes a lot of sense

It wasn’t surprising on Tuesday when Syracuse announced that freshman Matthew Moyer was going to redshirt the 2016-2017 season. Moyer is still getting over a toe injury and given how deep the roster is, Jim Boeheim could afford to keep him sidelined this year.

When we first found out Moyer injured his foot over the summer, he seemed pretty optimistic about a return in time for the season. What he left out at the time was that his doctors did not share that prognosis.

"Ultimately, I'm proud of myself. The doctor told me when I got hurt, I wasn't going to play, I was done for the season. Just the fact that I fought back and tried to put myself in position to play, I'm proud of myself."

While the effort is appreciated, Boeheim told reporters Tuesday night that Moyer’s ongoing injury coupled with the deep bench made redshirting him a relatively easy decision.

"He missed so much time that he got out of shape. He's still not in shape and wouldn't be because he just started working. It would take him another month to get in shape and in that time, we're going to have 4-5 games against top 15-20 teams. He wouldn't be ready to play and he'd miss all that time."

"Even if he gets better, there's not playing time for him. Next year, we'll have four or five guys, maximum, coming back and now you have a great opportunity to play."

We don’t see a lot of talented players come to college and think about the longterm. Certainly, this wasn’t what Moyer had in mind as well, but it seems like it could be a situation that really works out for him. Get his injury sorted, practice with the team this year, and come out strong in 2017-2018 battling for a starting job. Given how SU is going to lose DaJuan Coleman, probably lose Tyler Lydon, and could possibly lose another big to the draft, Moyer will have a clear path to playing time.

Moyer’s time will come. It’s just not right now.