Syracuse Basketball: First look at Wake vs Cuse in ACC Tournment

It’s official the Syracuse basketball team will play Wake Forest in the opening round of the ACC Tournament. ITLH breaks it all down.

It was a perfect storm for the Syracuse basketball team on Saturday in their ACC regular season finale. It took 31 games for the Orange to get their first top-25 conquest of the season.

Longer than expected, but when you think of the journey that the Cuse has been on, it’s actually been an impressive coaching job by Jim Boeheim and company.

SU has a couple of days to gather themselves before heading off to Brooklyn for the ACC Tournament. Speaking of everything is locked in, the Orange clinched an 11 seed with their win over Clemson and losses by Boston College and Wake Forest.

Speaking of the Demon Deacons, that’s who the Cuse will open up against on Tuesday night as the Orange search for their first ACC tournament win in program history.

The teams split their regular season series and the third matchup will be the charm for one of these two teams. Before we preview the opening round, lets take a look back at the first two matchups and how these games played out.

January third: 73-67 Wake Forest beats SU

This was the second conference game of the year for both teams. While this game was a great microcosm of the Orange’s season this year: missed opportunities.

SU for as unfortunate as they’ve been (Geno Thorpe leaving, Taurean Thompson leaving, and Howard Washington tearing his ACL), they’ve also been quite blessed this season. Although they didn’t take advantage of it.

Lady Luck for whatever reason caused several of SU’s opponent’s top players to miss action when they played the Cuse. This was one of those games, Wake went the majority of the second half without top scorer Keyshawn Woods.

This was a game at the time I thought would come back to haunt Syracuse and currently it is as it pertains to their March Madness hopes.

February 11th: SU wins 78-70

About a month and change later, SU was looking for redemption. The cream rose to the top in this game with Tyus Battle dropping 34 points in this game to life Syracuse. Getting swept by a team who at the time was 9-15 overall and 2-10 in conference would’ve been a dagger SU likely couldn’t have overcame.

SU had a ton of those bad losses last season (St. Johns by 33 points). This year SU doesn’t have any grotesque losses, but they have few WOW wins. A few nice ones (at Louisville, at Miami, now home vs Clemson).

I spoke with Seth Walder prior to the Clemson game and he told me if SU won their chances would increase to 47% of making the tourney. If they beat Wake, SU is in prime position to get back to the tournament. Although it seems the consensus is winning two games in the ACC tournament to have a realistic chance.

Getting back to the second Wake Forest game for a moment, the keys to success for the Orange were simple in theory. They cut back on turnovers (eight total), only had 12 fouls in this game compared to 26 for the Demon Deacons. Oh yeah and the Orange shot 39 free throw attempts the most the team has had in over four years.

39?!?!

Getting another 39 attempts seems far fetched, but that’s the Orange’s DNA. Get the FREE baskets and make Wake pay by eating them up inside. Wake has nine guys who average at least 10 minutes. While conversely the Cuse have only seven.

Next: Syracuse Basketball: Top 30 Players in School History

A battle of attrition is possible, so the Cuse have to control the pace, get help beyond the big three, and dominate at the charity stripe. Everything is in front of Syracuse, if they want to punch the ticket to March Madness, they control their own destiny.