Syracuse basketball freshman Jalen Carey adept at not fouling on defense

Syracuse basketball freshman point guard Jalen Carey is really good at not fouling in the 2-3 zone. The Syracuse Orange frosh out of Harlem has rarely gotten the whistle blown against him on the defensive end through the first ten games of the season.

Carey, a slender point listed at 6-foot-3, has only been whistled for five (!) fouls all season. That’s even more impressive when you consider he’s played 196 minutes on the year. Think about that for a second — in almost five full games’ time, Carey has only picked up five fouls. In the most tightly called contest of the year, Carey managed not to pick up a foul at Ohio State.

Carey is actually amongst the nation’s leaders in fouls committed — or in this case more like uncommitted — per 40 minutes. Per Ken Pom, Carey ranks No. 17 in the country with just 1.02 fouls per 40 minutes which you could have calculated yourself given the numbers above.

That’s good for tops in the Atlantic Coast Conference too as the next best in that category is Shelton Mitchell of Clemson at 1.3 fouls committed per 40 minutes. Oshae Brissett, Tyus Battle and Elijah Hughes are a bit further down the scale in the conference, but those guys are whistled for 2.58, 2.73 and 3.31 fouls per 40 minutes which rank 37th, 43rd and 57th in the conference, respectively.

Nice for Syracuse to have someone like that in Carey that isn’t foul prone. Perhaps something like this isn’t of immense value, but it’s nice to know you have a guy on your team that ranks high in a particular category.

This is something that could potentially help as it relates to depth as senior point guard Frank Howard has fouled out twice in the six games that he’s played in.

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