Syracuse Basketball: No preseason love for SU from pundits means squat

‘Cuse to play fast, fast, fast

The squad’s guards and wing players are plentiful, and I think they can replace Girard’s scoring production while being better on defense. That being said, guys like freshman shooting guard/small forward Justin Taylor, freshman guard/wing Quadir Copeland, sophomore forward Benny Williams, freshman forward Chris Bell and freshman forward Maliq Brown all put forth some nice performances in 2022-23, but they were inconsistent both in terms of production and minutes earned.

How Autry deploys his minutes in the upcoming season remains to be seen. The center spot is a question mark. The Orange needs to greatly improve on defense and in the rebounding department. Taylor, Williams and Bell have shown they can knock down 3-pointers, but as a whole, how the ‘Cuse will fare from the perimeter is an area to monitor. Mintz, Starling and Westry all need to get better from long range.

With a deep bench, Autry should be able to utilize either a full-court or a half-court press without fatigue being a concern. The team is also looking to play at an fast, up-tempo pace, getting out in transition after forcing turnovers to secure easy buckets.

On defense, Autry has gone on record more than once in saying that he will likely rely on both man-to-man and zone defensive schemes. All of this sounds awesome to me, but again, until Syracuse basketball starts playing actual games, the hype around this team from some ‘Cuse fans, myself included, is understandable, but also speculation.

I adamantly believe that Autry and his staff can get Syracuse basketball back to a place where it is regularly winning 20 or more games, competing for league titles and not having to sweat out Selection Sundays for March Madness invites.

I’m also all for positivity. Conversely, before the hype train becomes too massive, let’s see how the ‘Cuse does in the early goings of the 2023-24 term.