UPDATED: March 26, 2012, 10:26 p.m.

Sophomore guard Dion Waiters declared for the NBA Draft on Monday, two days after Syracuse’s season ended with a loss to Ohio State in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

Waiters, who took home the Big East’s Sixth Man of the Year award, said he spoke with his family and SU head coach Jim Boeheim before making his decision. Both his family and Boeheim supported the decision to move on.

‘They had my back 100 percent, my family and coach Boeheim,’ Waiters said when reached on his cellphone Monday. ‘He said he thought I was ready, and that’s all I needed to hear.’

Waiters made his decision public through a statement issued by the athletic department, saying that he is ‘pursuing his dream of becoming a professional basketball player.’ He also said he intends to sign with an agent.

After an up-and-down freshman season, Waiters emerged as an offensive star for the Orange in 2011-12. He finished second on the team in scoring with 12.6 points per game and led the team with 1.8 steals per game.

His 6-foot-4, 215-pound frame allowed him to drive on smaller defenders with ease. Waiters showed an uncanny ability to absorb contact at the rim and finish off acrobatic shots in traffic.

That size and strength are two characteristics NBA scouts are very excited about, said draft analyst Aran Smith, of nbadraft.net. Because of those attributes, Smith called Waiters one of the most NBA-ready players in this year’s draft.

‘He’s got a really strong upper body. He’s got really strong legs,’ Smith said. ‘When he’s attacking the basket, he’s either going to draw a foul usually or make a basket. … If he’s got an isolation against a player with similar size, he’s able to use that strength really well.’

All throughout the NCAA Tournament, Waiters faced questions about his future. He turned repeatedly to the stock answer of sitting down with his coaches and family once the season was over before making his decision.

When reached via text message in the early afternoon Sunday, Waiters said he wasn’t sure when he would make his decision.

His mother, Monique Brown, said he told her he was going pro later that same day.

‘He thought on his own he was ready,’ Brown said. ‘I said, ‘OK. Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’

‘He pretty much knew that he was definitely going to go.’

Smith said he was high on Waiters right from the beginning of the season after the guard scored in double figures in five of SU’s first six games. He showed an offensive arsenal that seemed unlimited, scoring the basketball in a number of ways.

Perhaps most impressive was Waiters’ newfound commitment on the defensive end of the floor. Before Syracuse’s game against Ohio State, Boeheim said Waiters played no defense at all his freshman season. It was a factor that contributed to his limited minutes.

But this year, he was the Orange’s best defender for a good portion of the season. He finished the season averaging 1.8 steals per game.

‘When I saw him and the improvement and the confidence and the scoring at the beginning of the year, I was thinking maybe next year he could be a lottery pick or first rounder,’ Smith said. ‘I wasn’t really thinking this year. Then he kept it up and the hype started building.’

By the midway point of the season, Smith said Waiters was receiving plenty of first-round buzz. And now that the season is over, he feels Waiters has cemented himself as a first-round pick.

‘With Dion’s case, I think it’s in his best interest to go,’ he said.

Waiters said he was traveling back home to Philadelphia on Monday night to spend time with family. He will take a few days off before returning to Syracuse to make a decision on when to leave for pre-draft camps.

Waiters is projected to be selected with the No. 20 overall pick, according to nbadraft.net. A good performance in pre-draft workouts could move him higher, Smith said, possibly to the mid-teens.

Waiters thinks he can prove himself worthy of being taken even earlier.

‘At the end of the day, I feel as though I can go higher once I get through the workouts and everything,’ Waiters said.

His mother said ever since Waiters got to Syracuse she knew he would come out early. She said it was only a matter of whether he would do two years or three years at SU.

Waiters struggled through a freshman season in which he was disappointed about his playing time and not having the chance to start. The breakout sophomore year sealed his departure.

‘Some people were saying, ‘If you’ve got it, go.’ And in his mind he had it, so he thought he might as well go,’ Brown said.

Brown said the coaching staff broke her son down and built him back up during his two years on campus. She called it a good thing for Waiters. She said he will always call Syracuse home once his basketball career is over.

In his statement released by SU athletics, Waiters thanked his coaches and teammates for an ‘amazing experience’ at SU. He also thanked the Orange fans, who he often referred to affectionately as ‘Cuse Nation’ throughout his career.

He helped guide SU to the best regular season in program history and was visibly shaken in the locker room after the loss to the Buckeyes on Saturday night.

And less than 48 hours later, Waiters announced he would be moving on from Syracuse.

‘It really hasn’t hit me yet,’ Waiters said. ‘I still feel like I’m a regular kid and a regular person.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

-Staff writer Zach Brown contributed reporting to this article.

Published on March 26, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13