ST. LOUIS — With 33 minutes left on the pregame countdown, the Syracuse managers chased down loose basketballs and the team jogged into the tunnel.

But Malachi Richardson hung back, hellbent on making his last shot before heading to the locker room. After swishing a 3 from the top of the key, Richardson launched a half-court prayer that clanked off the backboard and fell to the Scottrade Center floor. The ball bounced back to him and he took a top-of-the-key 3 and, sure it was going in, started off the court.

But it rimmed out and he had to take another. There was to be nothing left on the floor on Friday. Not before the game, not during it and certainly not after. Richardson gathered the ball again, sloppily dribbled between his legs and sank a corner 3.

Then he nodded at the rim and reluctantly jogged toward the tunnel. When he came out of it some 20 minutes later, he played with the same mindset that kept him on the court well after his teammates exited for one final cool down:

Take everything, and leave nothing behind.

***

Since the start of his freshman season, Malachi Richardson has been as stylish as he’s been precocious. Easy to watch and even easier to compliment. At first look a player feeding off the attention paid to Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije, but really an offensive weapon the Orange can’t live without.

That was the case in 10th-seeded Syracuse’s (20-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) 70-51 Round of 64 win over seventh-seeded Dayton (25-8, 14-4 Atlantic 10), in which Richardson led all scorers with 21 points before fouling out with 1:54 left in the game. He became the first SU freshman to score 20 points in an NCAA Tournament game since Carmelo Anthony did so in the 2003 national championship game. If his dynamic scoring ability was being at all hidden by the Orange’s up-and-down season, it’s surely shining on the biggest stage college basketball has to offer.

“Heck of an experience,” Richardson said, a smile spreading across his face, of playing in his first Tournament game. “I loved it.”

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With Syracuse trudging through a slow start, Richardson scored eight straight points to jumpstart the offense. First came a pull-up 3 from the right wing, then a catch-and-shoot 3 from the same spot and a swooping reverse layup through a crowd of Dayton defenders. As he emerged from the crowd around the rim, Richardson yelled “Come on!” before running back to his spot on the wing of the 2-3 zone.

“He was just really aggressive,” SU guard Trevor Cooney said. “He took what the defense gave him and he got in the lane and made plays.”

Richardson had a game-high 10 points at the half — at times getting to the rim, at others creating space on the perimeter — and he lightly nodded his head while jogging until the tunnel.

Not last this time, but leading the way.

***

Logan Reidsma | Senior Staff Photographer

With the ability to knock down perimeter jumpers paired with a lightning-quick first step, Malachi Richardson is simply hard to guard. But it’s even harder to describe the 6-foot-6 “wing,” who isn’t guard or forward and plays with a polished carelessness that blurs positional lines.

He doesn’t model his game after any player in particular, saying he can only play like himself. If you tried to illustrate Richardson from the top down, the first thing you’ll see is his peacock-like hair. When he goes to Nick’s Barber Shop in Syracuse, he asks big barber Will for the same cut every time: cut the sides down, fade it a little bit, let the sides go.

A straw poll of the Syracuse locker room after beating Dayton came up with these adjectives to describe Richardson’s hair: sporadic, swaggy, awesome, swagged-out, outrageous.

“I don’t know if outrageous is a compliment,” said SU walk-on Shaun Belbey, cracking a smile as he peered at the top of Richardson’s head. “Malachi just does what he wants. That’s how he is.”

It was that unpredictability, that will to do whatever he wanted, that made him a matchup problem for Dayton on Friday. Flyers head coach Archie Miller tried to slow Richardson down. First was 6-foot guard Kyle Davis, then quick-sliding Scoochie Smith, then 6-foot-6 Charles Cooke who played with Richardson at Trenton Catholic (New Jersey) Academy.

None of it worked. None of it really came close.

With Syracuse pulling away from Dayton six minutes into the second half, Richardson crossed over a defender and unleashed an off-balance 3. As it sailed toward the rim he screamed, “And 1!” which translated to, ‘I know this is going in.’ And it did, making an 11-point lead 14 and permanently putting the Flyers out of reach.

Seven minutes later, Richardson high-stepped inside and flicked a layup through a heavy foul. As the ball slowly trickled in, he bounced up and down in the middle of the paint and again screamed, “And 1!”

The refs whistled a media timeout and everyone on the SU bench sprung up to give him a high-five. He slapped their hands and sat down, a stern look on his face. Then he stood up and smiled wide. Then he sat down again and took a deep breath — unsure of what to do with himself during the short break, fixed on extending Syracuse’s season to the Round of 32 on Sunday.

“You want me to describe Malachi in one word? His hair?” SU forward Tyler Roberson said after the game. “I mean he’s just Malachi. Malachi is Malachi man, I don’t know.”

Margaret Lin | Senior Staff Photographer

***

Before he scored 21 points, used all five of his fouls for good measure and entertained a crowd of reporters in front of his locker, Richardson woke up to an alarm at 6:55 a.m.

With the Orange’s game tipping off at 11:15 a.m. central time, it was a particularly tough wake-up time for a 19-year-old who enjoys his sleep. But his pregame routine didn’t waver from there, starting with a team meeting over breakfast, 30 minutes of relaxation, a little bit of film and then a short trip to the Scottrade Center.

“I always try to keep it the same no matter how early it is,” Richardson. “I just try and make sure I get my music in and make sure I relax a little bit and come here and get ready to play.”

Music is the most important part of that. Richardson’s the self-proclaimed team deejay, even if not everyone agrees. If he’s not on the court he probably has a pair of headphones wrapped around his sporadic-swaggy-awesome-swagged-out-outrageous hair. His go-to artists are Future and Drake, but it seems like the list could go on.

When asked if there was one song, above all others, that he has to listen to before games he didn’t miss a beat with his answer.

“March Madness by Future,” he said, smiling wide once again.

There’s hardly anything predictable about Richardson, which almost makes that choice hard to believe. But if you consider his performance Friday, and all he’s capable of as Syracuse moves further into the Tournament, it starts to feel just right.

Published on March 18, 2016 at 5:39 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse