For Jeff and Jenny Swider, family vacations revolved around basketball tournaments. Whether it was for Cole Swider or any of his three younger siblings, the Swider family traveled around from tournament to tournament. Jenny can’t count how many times the family has been to the ESPN Wide World of Sports — a hotspot for youth tournaments.
But the Swiders wanted a change. So Jenny and Jeff planned a trip they called “the Pennsylvania loop” and took their children to kid-friendly attractions like Hersheypark and the Crayola Factory. The vacation was meant to be free of basketball, except there was one problem: 12-year-old Swider and his love for basketball, specifically shooting. So, Jenny had to pick hotels that had basketball hoops so Swider could practice shooting.
“Most kids would look for a pool,” Jenny said. “Cole looked for a hoop.”
Jeff accompanied Swider to the court and caught rebounds or watched his son play pickup with kids much older than him. “If (Cole) had to go more than a day without shooting, he was miserable to be around,” Jeff said, which is why Jeff estimated that the pair spent thousands of hours together working on his shot.
Still, Swider went on all family excursions and enjoyed his time at the parks, Jenny said. But the moment the family returned to the hotel, Swider’s siblings jumped in the pool, and he grabbed a basketball.
Swider joins Syracuse from Villanova, where he played in 77 games, averaged 5.2 points and shot 35.7% from beyond the arc. In high school, Syracuse was one of his top four choices, but he chose to commit to the Wildcats. But Villanova didn’t play to Swider’s strengths as a shooter or defender, Jeff said. Now, he’s back to one of his top options, where SU head coach Jim Boeheim said Swider is probably the best wing shooter Syracuse has had in decades.
“It was just a mixture of right place, right time. And obviously having this opportunity has been amazing so far,” Swider said.
At 6-foot-9 and 220 pounds, Swider brings a unique blend of size and shooting to Syracuse’s roster. He said bigger players becoming more capable of shooting 3s is a new phenomenon. But it’s a trend that his parents saw coming.
Both Jenny and Jeff were collegiate basketball players — Jenny played four years at the University of New Hampshire and Jeff walked on at Fordham University. Coincidentally, both Jenny and Jeff were traditional bigs, but because Swider’s pediatrician predicted that he would end up being 6’9 or 6’10, Swider’s parents said they wanted to avoid having Swider pinned to just one position and instead wanted him to be a well-rounded player.
“We wanted to make sure each of our kids had the skills needed to play multiple positions,” Jenny said. “Because that’s where you’re most valuable for a team.”
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When he was younger, Swider played point guard to practice dribbling and driving to the hoop, but it was his obsession with shooting that set him apart. The Swiders built a basketball court in their backyard in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and Jenny remembers Swider being “in his playpen” on the court.
As soon as he could walk and hold a ball, Swider was out shooting on a kids hoop. Inside the house, he’d get shots up on an arcade basketball game. Jenny said all of his birthday parties were basketball-themed. When he was old enough, Swider began to shoot on the court no matter the weather or time of day.
“Cole is the type of kid if he didn’t get a couple of hours in a day, the day wasn’t complete for him,” Jeff said. “We had lights on the court, he’d be out there shooting late at night all summer long. Our neighbors would hear the ball bouncing at 10 o’clock.”
The lights on the court weren’t originally there. They were added because Jenny always had to call Swider inside when it got dark. The long hours weren’t just for 3-point shooting — Swider was also great at free throws.
When Swider was in sixth grade, he participated in the Elks Hoop Shoot, a free throw shooting tournament for 8-13 year olds. This tournament spawned a few more family vacations because Swider shot his way to the finals. Ultimately, he finished in fourth place, but he had a desire for more competition, Jenny said.
The need to challenge himself is how Swider ended up meeting his strength coach, Anthony Tingley. Tingley prepared for his senior year of high school by playing scrimmages against other high schoolers and even some older adults. But one day, Tingley remembers a small 12-year-old kid walking into the gym, whom he estimated was probably six inches to a foot shorter than every other player there. Normally, they’d hate to play with younger kids because it might slow the game down. But with Swider, it was different.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, (the) baby, the young kid,’” Tingley said. “It was like, ‘Oh, he can shoot, get on him.’”
A few years later, Swider played for head coach Michael Hart at St. Andrew’s School. Swider played in what Hart called an “offense first” system, leading to Swider becoming the all-time leading scorer at St. Andrew’s with 2,900 points. In Hart’s system, Swider controlled the offense, playing point guard despite being the tallest player on the court.
“He did everything. He brought the ball up, he shot 3s, he posted up,” Hart said. “He did everything. You name it, he did it.”
Hart remembered catching Swider some days at 6 a.m. in the gym working on his game, despite being the star player on the team. Tim Glover — a shooting coach — once led a practice for the team, and afterward, Swider came up and asked if he could continue working out, Glover said.
At the time, Swider was already a top-100 high school player, so the two worked on little things like footwork and where to place his left hand on the ball when shooting. Glover said that Swider is different from other shooters because of how high he gets the ball on the release point. But he also said most players at Swider’s height struggle to have a consistent release.
“His shot form is just perfect every time whether he misses four or five in a row or makes four or five in a row,” Glover said. “It’s just consistently on point every single time.”
By the end of high school, Swider was one of the best shooters in the country, Hart said. It was around this time that Gerry McNamara reached out to Swider about playing at Syracuse.
When Swider ultimately chose Villanova, Hart said he was shocked because he felt that “it was the worst fit for him of the four” schools — Xavier, Villanova, Duke and Syracuse. But Swider wanted to join a national championship contender, so he chose the Wildcats.
In 77 games, Swider started only 17 times for the Wildcats. Still, in limited action, Swider’s shooting skills stood out.
Jeff remembered watching a practice where the coaching staff used a machine to measure the angle at which the ball entered the net. Ideally, a player’s shot enters the net at a 45-degree angle. All of Swider’s attempts were going in at 44, 45 and 46-degree angles, the best range of any Wildcat player at the time. Villanova associate head coach George Halcovage said Swider always had the perfect range for the arc and depth of his shot.
“He’s one of the best shooters out there, potentially in the country,” Halcovage said.
Yet Swider never really fit into Villanova’s style of play. Jeff said he realizes now that Villanova’s switching defense posed a challenge to Swider, who sometimes had to guard a 6-foot point guard or a 7-foot center depending on the switches. Hart said it was frustrating seeing Swider only take a few shots per game.
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Swider went from averaging 26.5 points per game as a junior in high school to only shooting 4.4 field goals per game with the Wildcats. After three seasons at Villanova, Swider decided to transfer.
Jenny remembers Swider coming back from Villanova and being on the phone for three hours fielding calls from other colleges. Soon enough, he received a call from a familiar face — McNamara. This time around, Swider carefully studied each school’s style of play and decided that Syracuse would be the best fit for him and his shooting ability.
“The Villanova offense was a lot of guard penetration,” Swider said. “Here (at SU), we run a lot of down screens, a lot of stagger screens and the offense runs through the shooters.”
At SU, Swider will be tasked with replacing some of the production left behind by forwards Quincy Guerrier and Marek Dolezaj. But Swider offers something different, and he showcased his ability to shoot from 3 in his first points with the Orange during an exhibition game against Pace.
Swider began the play in the left corner of the court, with the ball in Benny Williams’ hands on the opposite wing. But then Frank Anselem curled toward Swider and set an off-ball screen to set Swider free. He flashed to the top of the wing to catch a pass from Williams and then turned, set his feet and drained the 3. He drained another from beyond the arc and finished the night with 21 points, making 71% of his 3-pointers. Swider only topped 20 points once in his three years at Villanova.
“He understands what we’re doing, and he can shoot. And he can shoot, and he can shoot, and he can shoot, okay?” Boeheim said, chuckling.
For Swider, Syracuse is a return to a team where he can do what he does best: shoot.
“For the past two years, three years, I’ve wanted to play with that chip and passion I’ve always played with in high school and AAU,” Swider said after the Pace game. “So it feels good to finally feel like myself and get back to the player I know I am.”
Published on November 8, 2021 at 12:17 am
Contact Gaurav: gshetty@syr.edu
