I’ve adored Syracuse basketball for more than two decades, even when the team has fallen on somewhat tough times.
And while I don’t expect the Orange this season to go, say, 34-3 as it did in 2011-12, I am still tremendously pumped for the upcoming campaign.
A recent piece by CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander on the 2021-22 college basketball stanza got me thinking about why I’m energized for the term that will commence in fewer than two months.
Norlander’s article discussed “50 things to know about the 2021-22 season,” and it included several mentions of the ‘Cuse. So let’s take a further look.
Syracuse basketball fans have many reasons to feel elated about 2021-22.
Everything starts with pre-season All-American candidate Buddy Boeheim, the senior shooting guard. Norlander lists his 20 “big-time players to know now,” and Boeheim made the cut.
After averaging nearly 18 points per contest as a junior, and lighting up the college basketball world in the post-season, expectations are pretty hefty for Boeheim in 2021-22.
Throw in the fact that his older brother, forward Jimmy Boeheim, is a graduate student for the Orange this year, and they’re both being coached by their dad, the legendary Jim Boeheim, and that’s really cool, IMO.
Speaking of Jim Boeheim, he is one of the sport’s elder statesmen, as Norlander points out. North Carolina’s Roy Williams has retired, and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski will call it quits after this coming stanza.
But Boeheim has no plans to ride off into the sunset anytime soon, and that totally works for me.
As Norlander discusses, there are a lot of attractive non-conference match-ups in college basketball during the 2021-22 campaign, and the ‘Cuse itself has an intriguing out-of-conference slate.
Norlander provides a bunch of non-conference duels that he’s excited about, and one that he includes is when former Big East Conference foes Syracuse basketball and Villanova go head to head on Tuesday, Dec. 7, in the 2021 Jimmy V Classic at the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City.
As we all know by now, the ‘Cuse also travels to our nation’s capital to suit up versus Big East nemesis Georgetown in 2021-22. Fun.
For all the whining that some Orange fans do about the team’s annual non-conference schedule, saying it’s cupcake city, that definitely doesn’t hold true this season.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Syracuse basketball will participate in the 2021 Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis. It’s a brutal field, and the ‘Cuse first has to play VCU. If the Orange wins, it likely will go toe to toe with Baylor, the defending NCAA champion, in its next game.
To that end, Norlander says that the Battle 4 Atlantis is the best eight-team MTE (multi-team event) in 2021-22. The entire field, by the way, is Syracuse basketball, Arizona State, Auburn, Loyola Chicago, Michigan State, Connecticut, VCU and Baylor. Love it.
What else am I enthused about? Well, the Orange has a difficult Atlantic Coast Conference docket, led by home-and-home meetings with Duke and Florida State.
Oh, and the sole incoming freshman for the ‘Cuse, Benny Williams, is a five-star forward who should have a stellar first term on the Hill.