‘Boeheim’s Army’ Member, Syracuse Alum, Finds Next Professional Opportunity

Elijah Hughes, who played college basketball at Syracuse and just represented the ‘Boeheim’s Army’ alumni team at the ‘TBT,’ has found his next professional opportunity.

As noted by Mike Waters of Syracuse.com, Hughes will go back to Germany and play for MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg, who he also played for last season.

Advertisement

Hughes is just one of several Syracuse alums playing overseas – or working to start their career overseas. Recently, we heard about guard Nate Kingz, who signed a deal to play in Israel. 

Hughes played three years of college basketball, beginning his career with East Carolina before transferring to Syracuse.

Under old college rules, players had to sit out a year when transferring, so he sat out the 2017-18 campaign and joined SU in 2018-19. In two years with Syracuse, he started all 66 games he played in, scoring 16.3 ppg in total.

In his final year, he led the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in scoring at 19.0 ppg. The 6-foot-6 New York native was an All-ACC selection in 2019-20.

Advertisement

He helped lead the Orange to an 18-14 record that season, but the season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Syracuse only played one conference tournament game, beating North Carolina, and was not given a chance to try to make the NCAA Tournament.

Now 28 years old, Hughes was drafted in the second round of the 2020 NBA Draft by the New Orleans Pelicans. He spent parts of two years in the NBA with the Utah Jazz and Trail Blazers, averaging 2.9 ppg.

Hughes suited up alongside other former Syracuse alums in this summers version of the ‘TBT,’ a $2 million tournament featuring eight alumni teams and eight non-alumni teams.

Advertisement

Hughes helped lead the Syracuse group to a first round series win over Seton Hall, but the team was eliminated in the semifinals by the team from Kentucky.