Syracuse women’s basketball: Orange name team captains for 23-24 season

With opening day for the Syracuse Orange women’s basketball team nearing, the program announced on Thursday its three captains for the 2023-2024 season.

All-ACC First Team guard Dyaisha Fair — who averaged 19.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.4 steals per game this past season — will serve as team captain alongside returning forward Kyra Wood and incoming transfer guard Dominique Camp.

Fair rejoined Syracuse coach Felisha Legette-Jack in her first season with the Orange in 2022-2023 after playing for her with the Buffalo Bulls. Fair’s performance translated from the MAC to the ACC, becoming the best player for a Syracuse team which finished 20-13 overall and 9-9 against the ACC.

In a season-altering move for the Orange’s outlook in 23-24, Fair announced her intent to play for a fifth season (second with Syracuse) instead of sticking in the 2023 WNBA Draft. Now, she’ll look to help lead the Orange to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 2020-2021 season.

Wood, another former Buffalo player who joined Legette-Jack in Syracuse, will serve as a leader this upcoming season after playing in 30 games in 2022-2023, including 18 starts. She averaged 3.1 points and 3.5 rebounds in 16.3 minutes per game last year.

The Orange’s last captain is one of the program’s main offseason additions in Camp, who formerly played for Legette-Jack two years ago at Buffalo before averaging 10.8 points per game, 3.2 rebounds per game, 3.7 assists per game, and 2.5 steals per game for the Akron Zips.

In addition to the news regarding the Orange’s new captains, Syracuse also announced that Fair was selected to represent Team USA in the 3x3 U23 World Cup — which will take place between September 27 and October 1 in Lublin, Poland. Fair and the rest of Team USA will look to bring back gold to the states after finishing with a silver medal in the 2022 U23 World Cup.

Over the summer, Fair and the US team ended up first in the Nations League Americas 3x3 conference in Rancagua, Chile, qualifying the USA for the Nations League Final. All games for the 3x3 U23 World Cup will be livestreamed here.

Syracuse will kickoff its 2023-2024 campaign on November 7 versus Lafayette at the JMA Wireless Dome.