Syracuse men’s basketball star Buddy Boeheim, the son of Hall-of-Fame coach Jim Boeheim, will serve a one-game suspension and will miss Thursday’s game against Duke after punching Florida State’s Wyatt Wilkes during Wednesday’s ACC tournament contest.
ESPN’s Jay Bilas shared his thoughts on the suspension on Wednesday evening, and he was not happy with the decision made by the ACC.
“The suspension of Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim for what happened in the Florida State game is just wrong,” Bilas said in a video posted on his personal Twitter account.
“The ACC came in after the fact and decided to suspend Buddy Boeheim and it’s disproportionate to the offense. Rules are rules, and the rules of the game indicate that if play started after the fact and the action could not be reviewed, that’s final. And it was final. The referees could not review the play after play started again. They missed it, and that’s fine.
“Now the ACC could condemn the action and issue a reprimand, but suspending Buddy Boeheim for the next game against Duke is disproportionate to the offense, and I think wrong. That effectively ends Buddy Boeheim’s career, it affects the ACC tournament, and I don’t think it’s the right thing.”
The Orange have their hands full in Thursday’s ACC quarterfinals against top-seeded Blue Devils, and the task will now be much harder for Syracuse without their best player on the floor.
