Syracuse Basketball: Looking towards the future might benefit the Orange

Syracuse basketball could really stand to benefit by looking towards the future. Here are all the details and why this strategy makes a ton of sense.

The roller coaster continues for Syracuse basketball in 2019-20.

Louisville showed Syracuse’s downfalls Wednesday night. The Cardinals dismantled the Orange in the second half outscoring Syracuse 49 to 32. The signs were evident towards the end of the first half.

The second half showed the Orange just did not have enough horses to stick with a team of Louisville’s caliber with the current talent.

Syracuse like any team needs to struggle before the grass gets greener.

In the last few years, Syracuse has hit those rough patches a bit more often than this team or program is used too.

Sometimes success has plateaued over the years and turnover on the roster has caused the cycle to start over before the success really ever presents itself.

This year’s squad has a chance to buck that trend with presumably the only turnovers coming from losses in the transfer portal.

This leaves the five, quite winnable games, remaining as quite important for the Orange. Also, this puts the coaching staff in a particular spot that could be illuminating moving forward.

The Orange are outside the NCAA Tournament picture, like far out of the picture.

Syracuse plays four of the bottom six teams in the ACC. The fifth team is Georgia Tech on Saturday, a team Syracuse beat by 34 on the road.

This means it isn’t a stretch to picture Syracuse winning a bunch of games and ending up 19-12 overall with 12 ACC conference wins. Believe it or not, they still have a shot at the four seed in the ACC Tournament and probably the favorite for the five seed, especially if they win out.

Well, what does five more ACC wins mean? Unfortunately not too much this year.

This year it could mostly just mean a couple of small steps closer to heartbreak come Selection Sunday. Thus this brings up an interesting stretch nonetheless for the Orange.

It will be interesting to watch going forward the decisions coach Jim Boeheim and his staff make throughout these games.

Will they give hints of what Boeheim sees in his team’s future? My guess would be no. That is because in college basketball you’re never really out of it until Selection Sunday comes and goes.

This means that playing for any future that consists of any time other than this season is a tough sell to a program’s fans, administration, players, and coaching staff. If anyone has the ability to do this and has enough pull around their program it is coach Boeheim.

Something that would be interesting to see from Coach Boeheim in their remaining ACC games is how he uses his upcoming rotations.

There is a strong argument that college athletes playing 40 minutes on a college basketball game is very manageable. Especially with the numerous media time outs each half and the half-time break. If you need evidence, check out former Syracuse teams.

The difference between these teams is they all have a sixth man who can contribute, whether it is a Kris Joseph or Dion Waiters or go down the list. This season the Orange have Quincy Guerrier who has really started to come to his own the past few games.

In the past four games, Guerrier has averaged 14 points and 6.8 rebounds on 55 percent shooting and 26.5 minutes. Guerrier is showing he just needs a little more experience and a summer away from being a real impact player for the Orange, and dare dream, All-ACC performer.

Riding Guerrier should be done strategically. He is due for at least one or two really big mistakes, that you expect a freshman to make, a game. Some of these errors Guerrier should be allowed to play through.

However, Guerrier is not the only young Syracuse player to keep an eye on. If Boeheim’s eye is on the future these final few games before the ACC Tournament might be an opportunity to lighten the load for some of the big minutes like Joe Girard III, Buddy Boeheim, Marek Dolezaj, and the recently banged up, Elijah Hughes.

This does not mean cut each of their minutes to 20 each. But a spell to recharge them before a potential ACC Tournament run. A substitution a minute or two before a media timeout to sneak extra rest could be beneficial.

For this to happen coach Boeheim will have to have confidence in his guys that they can absorb more minutes coming off of the bench. This mostly points to the other three healthy guys; Howard Washington, Brycen Goodine, and Jesse Edwards.

All three of these guys have had bright spots this year.

Washington played a season-high in minutes against Syracuse’s next opponent Georgia Tech in December. Washington did not make a field goal but had eight assists to one turnover. Goodine has the game-winner against Wake Forest and has shown the ability to be a spark plug. Edwards certainly caught some eyes in his limited minutes against Louisville with seven points and a pair of blocks.

With Bourama Sidibe constantly struggling to play without fouling, it might be worth allowing Edwards to use up his fouls if one of the main large bodies in-front of him gets in any trouble. Dolezaj will still get many of the center minutes but giving Edwards a few minutes a half could be helpful bringing him up to the speed in the college game.

Syracuse will not make their only focus on the 2020-21 season, nor should they. But with some interesting potential recruiting classes coming up and the state of this year’s team pretty obvious the thoughts of brighter days should not be dismissed completely. The future of the Orange and who will be the future might just be identified in these next couple of weeks.