Syracuse, N.Y. — Charles Pride acknowledged the jet lag.
He just stepped off an airplane in Syracuse Tuesday morning from New Zealand, where he played his first professional basketball season.
He will get a couple days rest and then by the end of the week will be practicing with Boeheim’s Army.
Pride is the 11th player added to the roster.
Boeheim’s Army wanted to keep the number at 10, but with Buddy Boeheim potentially unavailable for the team’s first game on Saturday (6 p.m., Herkimer Originals, OCC, FS1), Pride adds some insurance at the guard spot. Boeheim is in Las Vegas right now, playing for the Pacers in the NBA Summer League.
Pride, too, adds toughness and grit to the Boeheim’s Army roster. The more GM Shaun Belbey thought about it, the more he believed he needed a lockdown defender in the mold of Deandre Kane, who played for Boeheim’s Army during its championship season.
Another skilled 3-point shooter wouldn’t hurt, either.
Pride, 25, is a Syracuse native. He played on a Liverpool High School state championship team before spending a year at Putnam Science Academy. He played four seasons at Bryant, amassing a career 1,528 points, fourth-best in program history.
Former Liverpool guard Charles Pride has committed to Bryant University.SYR
He played a Covid grad year at St. Bonaventure, where he started all 30 games, averaged 10.9 points on 44.4% overall shooting and 40% shooting from the 3-point line (42-for-105).
He has been an exceptional rebounder from the guard position for his 6-foot-4 size. In his one season with the Bonnies, his 5.7 rebounds per game led the team in that category.
In New Zealand this season, Pride started for 10-10 Tuatara. He averaged 11.7 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists. He shot 50% overall and 33.6% from the 3-point line (45-of-134). His 6.2 rebounds were second-best on his team.
“It was my coach’s first year,” Pride said “It was pretty up and down, but it went well overall. It was a really good experience.”
Pride said as his season was winding down, he contacted a few people he knew who had any relationship with Boeheim’s Army to explore the possibility of playing on that team.
One of those people was Ryan Blackwell, his old Liverpool coach who used to be the head coach of Boeheim’s Army. Blackwell has moved on to become an assistant coach for Gerry McNamara at Siena.
Pride’s agent, Eric Brest, is an SU grad who worked under Mike Hopkins when Hopkins was a Syracuse assistant coach. He was influential, too, Pride said.
Pride knows the Boeheim brothers, Buddy and Jimmy. He’s worked out with Elijah Hughes. He’s looking forward, he said, to playing in TBT.
But first, he desperately needed some sleep.
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