Syracuse Basketball: Orange In Dire Need Of A Quality ACC Win
By Neil Adler
The Syracuse basketball program is stuck in a rut, and up next for the Orange is a road duel with a ranked Florida State squad.
Losing streaks happen. Particularly for hoops outfits that are relatively inexperienced and lack deep benches.
Enter the ‘Cuse.
SU, after the departures of both Taurean Thompson and Geno Thorpe, has a mere eight available scholarship players, the bevy of whom are freshmen.
Growing pains will occur. Setbacks will pile up. And we all, myself included, must exercise some patience.
An 11-2 non-conference mark got Orange Nation extremely excited. We then kicked off Atlantic Coast Conference competition with a drubbing of a high-scoring Virginia Tech group.
Sweet. Things are looking juicy.
Then, we fell by six at Wake Forest in a contest where we could have emerged victorious. Following that, our guys had a meltdown in a stunning home defeat at the hands of a depleted Notre Dame bunch.
Finally, earlier this week, Syracuse hung tough with No. 3 Virginia in Charlottesville, before ultimately bowing to the Cavaliers by seven.
Thus, the ‘Cuse is in the midst of three demises in a row. The 2017-18 campaign hasn’t entirely crumbled, but SU (12-5, 1-3) is in danger of dropping further in the ACC standings when it travels to No. 23 Florida State (12-4, 1-3) on Saturday afternoon.
The Seminoles, an offensive juggernaut, have themselves gotten beat in three of their last four contests.
On Wednesday evening, Louisville snapped FSU’s long stretch of successes in Tallahassee, which means the Seminoles will want to take out their disappointment on the Orange.
Awesome.
Given Syracuse’s current state, it would go a long way toward jump-starting its season if SU could snag a win away from Central New York against a ranked foe.
Let’s remember that around a year ago, a struggling ‘Cuse upset No. 6 Florida State in the Carrier Dome.
Just saying.
Overall, the Orange, with a present RPI of 27, owns a 7-2 edge versus the Seminoles, who possess a RPI of 48.
So far in this stanza, FSU has dethroned then-No. 12 North Carolina at home, and it also secured a road smashing of then-No. 5 Florida in an out-of-conference battle.
Solid.
Plus, its losses are to the aforementioned Cardinals, along with highly ranked Duke and Miami (both away from Tallahassee), as well as Oklahoma State at a neutral site.
In short, the Seminoles are pretty freaking good, and Syracuse has to execute quite well if it has any chance to prevail.
Florida State averages nearly 84 points a game, and it shoots better than us from the field as a whole, and beyond the arc. Additionally, the Seminoles dish out more assists.
On the other hand, we hold slight advantages in rebounding, blocks and steals.
FSU is a bit turnover-prone, so if we can generate easy baskets in transition, that would prove huge, especially considering that our half-court offense is totally stagnant these days.
I sound like a broken record, however, the ‘Cuse has to control the glass. And, for gosh sake, can we please get to the free-throw line? Opportunities at the charity stripe have drastically diminished of late.
On Jan. 10, Jay Bilas, the esteemed ESPN college-basketball analyst, listed his top-68 teams. The Seminoles check in at No. 25. SU is No. 50.
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I love Bilas. He rocks. But, come this Saturday, I hope that the lower-rated roster in Bilas’ power index is the one which reigns.