JJ Starling emerges against Pittsburgh in Syracuse basketball win: ‘I just felt like myself’

Pittsburgh – JJ Starling felt it during warmups.

Every shot felt good leaving his hand, he said. Everything felt right.

“I just felt like myself today, to be honest,” he said.

That feeling prevailed through the 35 minutes and 56 seconds Starling played against Pittsburgh on Tuesday night in the Petersen Events Center. The Syracuse sophomore scored 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting. He made two of the five shots he attempted from the 3-point line.

He grabbed three rebounds. And on the defensive end, he covered Carlton Carrington, the young Pitt guard who came into the game averaging 14.3 points. Carrington was 0-for-10 overall Tuesday and 0-for-7 from the 3-point line. The Orange won, 69-58.

“JJ, he came to play today,” SU coach Adrian Autry said. “That was his best game in the uniform. He defended. He made big shots. I thought he was aggressive and attacked.”

Starling, of course, grew up in Baldwinsville, where he was such a hot high school basketball commodity, prep schools competed for his attention. He landed at Midwest powerhouse La Lumiere, committed to Notre Dame and after one season, came home to Syracuse and the coaches he had known most of his life.

He has talked this season of the struggles he’s endured this year. A deadly perimeter shooter in high school, Starling suffered a shoulder injury last season that required an alteration to his shooting mechanics. He has spent mountains of time trying to regain the form that helped anoint him a McDonald’s All-American.

He talked of spending hours upon hours at the Melo Center, asking team managers to rebound for him. Some days that work paid off. Some days it did not.

“He’s been up and down,” Autry said.

The Syracuse coach underlined Tuesday night how difficult it is for players who transfer into a new program to acclimate to their new teammates, their new surroundings. And while Starling acknowledged it took time to find his way, he said he felt lucky to have teammates who kept encouraging him, kept believing in him.

On Tuesday, he needed little outward prodding.

He made a pull-up jump shot within the first couple minutes of the game. He caught it in the corner, “did a rip and a dribble pull-up. It felt good leaving my hands.”

From that moment, it was on.

He made a jump shot from the free-throw line, sank a 3-point shot off a pass from Judah Mintz early in the second half.

When Pitt started to make a game of it, he made two tough shots, one a turnaround jumper, the other a jumper that silenced a crowd that was maybe starting to stir. By then, SU led 62-50 and Starling had punctuated a couple of his makes with pumped fists or gestures up high.

“Some internal battles,” he said of the show of emotion. “You know, when you’re a good player you get in your head sometimes. Having a game like this, just breaks it open for you. Really on a couple shots I pointed up to God. Just felt good.”

He felt like his old basketball self, he said. He aggressively hunted his shot. He believed the ball would go in.

“Starling is a talented kid,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “He was a top 30 kid coming out of high school. He was able to get to spots. He was in a rhythm. He was confident and he saw the basketball go in. When you’re a talented player and you see it go in a few times, that gives you even more confidence.”

Starling wants to bottle that confidence, to sip from it as the season progresses. He is 11-for-19 from the field in his last two games, his midrange game the gem of his scoring arsenal.

He kept talking Tuesday night about how good everything felt.

“I’m still going,” he said. “I’m still looking forward to improving because I know I got a lot more to give offensively and defensively.”

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