The Syracuse basketball team has completed nonconference play, up next the challenge gets even greater in the highly competitive ACC.
The Syracuse basketball squad has finally finished nonconference play. It didn’t go exactly as planned with the team losing four nonconference games.
No Jim Boeheim team has ever made the tournament after losing four or more nonconference games, so safe to say the Orange have work to do.
But there’s a few positives to look at to make you feel a little bit better heading into ACC play:
- Syracuse has some mojo right now. The team has won two games in a row and in-particular seemingly found that special something in the second half vs Arkansas State and used that to annihilate St. Bonaventure. For context, the Bonnies aren’t very good this year but it was arguably Syracuse’s most complete defensive game of the season.
- The ACC looks to be the best conference in all of college basketball, per usual. Wait how is that a good thing?
- With great challenge, comes great opportunity. If this Syracuse team is going to make the tournament and defy history, they’ll have to get some skins on the wall. They already have a big one with their road win vs Ohio State (previously ranked the No. 1 team at the time by the new NET rankings system, which will be the primary indicator whether a team makes it in the tournament or not).
- Some specifics on the schedule: according to the latest rankings, Syracuse will play seven top-25 teams this season. There could be even more based on how those teams and others perform, which means there’s ample opportunity for the Orange to change their destiny.
- Syracuse has the talent.
- Last season you could see why the team wasn’t very good. Offensively they were trash. Only five and a half guys could suit up on a nightly basis which almost instantly put the team in foul trouble and provided no security if anyone was having an off night, obviously not a recipe for success.
- This season, that’s not a problem. This team *could* legitimately go eight or nine deep with the current roster makeup. According to ESPN Stats and Information, right now Syracuse is going nine deep (at least nine players average over 10 minutes per contest). Notably that’s a little skewed because Frank Howard missed four games as a starter which prorates his minutes to the other players on the roster, but still. Syracuse has a choice to go deeper if they want to, they couldn’t do that last season.
- Which making a long story short, means Syracuse can turn it around if they choose. Tyus Battle and Oshae Brissett can be lottery picks in the upcoming 2019 NBA Draft, but they have to play better (Tyus got ACC player of the week again, the only member of the ACC to win it twice so far this season). The young guys on the roster (Jalen Carey, Buddy Boeheim, and Elijah Hughes) have to find their roles on the roster as new guys in the rotation.
As former Syracuse grad-assistant Katie Kolinski told me recently in an interview, championships aren’t won in December. She’s right, so anyone who has told you the season is already over doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Everything is still very much on the table for the Orange, but they have to seize it.
In recent games, several Syracuse basketball players told me that they were looking ahead to conference play. Be careful what you wish for, because you just might just get it. Syracuse opens up conference play vs Notre Dame on the road this Saturday at high noon.
- With great challenge, comes great opportunity. If this Syracuse team is going to make the tournament and defy history, they’ll have to get some skins on the wall. They already have a big one with their road win vs Ohio State (previously ranked the No. 1 team at the time by the new NET rankings system, which will be the primary indicator whether a team makes it in the tournament or not).