After spending last season in Russia, former Syracuse guard Tyus Battle has a new professional home. Battle has signed with Dinamo Sassari for the 2020-21 season, a professional team in Italy that is part of the LBA and Champions League. Sassari is the current European Cup champion.
Battle announced the move on his Instagram page. Dinamo plays in Serie A, which is the highest level of professional basketball in Italy. Dinamo won the Italian League in the 2014-15 season and lost in the championship during the 2018-19 campaign.
Tyus Battle was one of the best players for Syracuse basketball over the last decade. The 6-6 guard averaged 16 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game during his career with the Orange. He helped lead Syracuse to two NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Sweet-16 run in the 2017-18 season. That year he averaged over 19 points per game.
AllSyracuse.com caught up with Battle in May, and he told two great stories about Jim Boeheim from his Syracuse career.
"I remember two things," Battle said. "The game against Duke (2019 at Duke, Syracuse won 95-91 in overtime. Battle led Syracuse with 32 points). At Duke, my junior year. Before the game, ESPN had us as an 18 point underdog or something like that. We walk into the locker room before the game and coach puts down on the board -18. And he said, 'ESPN has us as an 18 point underdog to Duke today. I've never been an 18 point underdog my whole life.' Him saying that with how people perceived us at that moment, and we thought we were a very good team, I think that just fired us up. We went out there and got the win. Coach shows emotion, but with that, that really got our team fired up.
"The second thing was during my time at Syracuse, coach really didn't get on me too much. But against Georgetown at Syracuse, the first half I was playing terrible. I think I had maybe four points in the first half. He took me out during a timeout or something like that, and he looked at me and said, 'you're trying to score at the highest level and you can't even score against Georgetown?' That was the first time he really got on me, yelled at me, and that just got me going. I think I finished the game with 26 points. Coach Boeheim knows how to get the best out of his players and that's what makes him the coach he is
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