IU basketball transfer portal names to know: Syracuse’s Joseph Girard

Indiana is taking a look at someone in the transfer portal they faced early in Mike Woodson’s tenure.

The IU staff has checked in on Syracuse guard Joseph Girard according to Adam Zagoria.

When Indiana faced Girard and Syracuse a year ago, he scored 22 points and dished five assists to help the Orange to an overtime win.

Girard is considering multiple options, including the NBA Draft and a return to Syracuse along with transferring.

According to Adam Zagoria, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Auburn, Butler, LSU, Florida, Ohio State, Loyola Chicago, Stanford, Clemson, Nebraska, and BYU also reached out to Girard on the first day he was in the portal.

The 6-foot-1 and 190-pound Girard was a four-year starter at Syracuse. He averaged 16.4 points this past season while making 38.1% of his 3-point shots. A high volume perimeter shooter, he went 88-for-231 from beyond the arc.

He finished his four-year Syracuse career ranked 17th on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,652 points. He made 297 3-pointers in his career, third all-time. Girard is a career 86% free throw shooter. He added 2.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and more than a steal per game over his career.

On the surface, Girard has not been efficient over his career, making just 37.7 percent from the field overall. But more than half (58%) of his career attempts were from three, and that has allowed him to have an effective field goal percentage of better than 50% each of the last two seasons. He has made 36.3 percent of his career attempts from long range.

Obviously Syracuse played a zone defense throughout his career, so there will be questions when it comes to his ability to play man-to-man at a level that would be acceptable to teams that play that style exclusively like IU.

The Glens Falls, N.Y. product has one-year of eligibility remaining.

Below are Girard’s 2021-22 highlights.