Girard Details Recovering from Covid-19

Syracuse starting point guard Joe Girard has a very up and down 2020-21 season thus far. He hasn't looked right in some games, not showing the same type of energy we saw last season. Now we may have an explanation for some of those struggles.

"Both Joe and Buddy were out with it (Covid-19)," head coach Jim Boeheim said after Syracuse's win over Miami. "They were out. They were sick and they were out. Everybody knows this happens and knows they were. Then they expect them to come back like nothing ever happened. It just doesn't work that way."

Girard said that when he had Covid, he experienced various symptoms.

"To be honest with you, yeah I was pretty sick," Girard said. "Having asthma, my parents and the staff was pretty worried about. But, (I'm a) healthy kid, college athlete, I wasn't too worried about it. Obviously I had precautions. A few days I had a sore throat. I think the biggest thing for me, and I think Buddy said the same thing, you're so tired. The disease just made me really tired. I was really tired. Even following it up until now, there's days when I'm waking up and getting out of bed, and if I sit back down I feel like I can fall asleep at any time. It's kinda funny.

"Then obviously some of the stuff like you lose your smell, you lose your taste. I mean, it's not really a funny thing but I sent Buddy a video when I was in quarantine smelling hot sauce and I couldn't even smell it. It's just some stuff like that."

Girard had perhaps his best game of the season against Miami on Tuesday, scoring 23 points with four assists on 8-15 shooting and 5-9 from beyond the arc. He drove by opposing guards, was energetic on both ends, and looked more like the Joe Girard of his freshman season.

"To be honest, I got back into the groove," Girard said. "I was trying to stay in shape the best I could when I was in quarantine. Pushups, sit-ups, stuff like that. When I got back out here, I had to push even harder. It's definitely a struggle, and it's just something that everybody's got to deal with this year. Just moving forward, you've got to know and be prepared. Something like that can happy to anybody and it happened to us. I think we're bouncing back pretty good from it."