Syracuse Basketball: Amid stretch ACC run, Orange is seeing it all come together

It remains to be seen whether Syracuse basketball is going to hear its name called on Selection Sunday in March following a two-year absence from the NCAA Tournament.

And I will readily acknowledge that, at least for the time being, the Orange is not a top-25 team. In fact, when the ‘Cuse has faced top-flight competition on the road or at neutral sites, the Orange has gotten soundly defeated.

But to me anyway, I feel like Syracuse basketball is turning a corner and playing some solid ball these days. Yes, two Saturdays ago, at then-No. 7 North Carolina, the ‘Cuse suffered its largest-ever defeat since joining the Atlantic Coast Conference from the Big East Conference back in the 2013-14 campaign.

For some context, though, the Tar Heels are playing as well as any team nationwide of late. UNC is the favorite to win the ACC regular-season crown and potentially secure a No. 1 seed in this spring’s Big Dance.

What’s more, North Carolina has never lost to Syracuse basketball in Chapel Hill, N.C., and the Tar Heels historically are a bad match-up for the Orange, given UNC’s prowess on the glass.

Yet Syracuse basketball, since that awful setback, has looked pretty darn good.

Since the debacle at North Carolina, the ‘Cuse has played some of its best basketball of the 2023-24 season. The Orange went to long-time rival Pittsburgh, and, suiting up in a hostile environment, Syracuse basketball notched a key road win over the Panthers by double-digits, a result that could amount to a quadrant-one triumph for the ‘Cuse depending on where Pitt’s NCAA NET ranking ends up.

Then, this past Saturday afternoon, with a flood of Syracuse football recruiting targets in attendance amid the team’s junior day, Syracuse basketball found itself down to Miami for about 75 percent of this pivotal league encounter.

No worries. Even though the ‘Cuse shot relatively so-so from the field, and both squads were without their respective starting centers due to injury, the Orange kept on grinding and won the game on a buzzer-beating 3-point heave from sophomore wing Quadir Copeland.

That left the ‘Cuse at 13-5 overall and 4-3 in ACC play. In the near term, Syracuse basketball will host Florida State and N.C. State, followed by a road game against Boston College.

Those are three winnable contests. If the Orange can manage a triple-sweep, so to speak, and get to 16-5 overall and 7-3 in ACC competition, the ‘Cuse is going to start meriting more discussion as far as a 2024 NCAA Tournament invite is concerned.

More important than bracketology projections, at least to me, is how Syracuse basketball is playing these days as a collective unit. Yes, the loss at UNC was bad. What’s more, the Orange’s other four losses were all at least by 17 points, albeit against some good teams away from the JMA Wireless Dome.

However, it’s not just about points on the scoreboard, in my humble opinion. First-year head coach Adrian Autry and his staff have a 13-player roster that is missing junior center Naheem McLeod and sophomore wing Chance Westry because of injuries, plus freshman center William Patterson is expected to take a redshirt in 2023-24, Autry has said.

Regardless, things appear to be coming together at the right time for the ‘Cuse. The Orange remains an average shooting team, both from the field as a whole and beyond the arc.

However, in recent games, Syracuse basketball has shown that it can be a threat from long range. The ‘Cuse defense, primarily relying on man-to-man schemes, has proven solid in recent ACC affairs.

The rebounding and turnover arenas will always be a hot-button topic for the Orange, and the glass is an area to monitor especially with McLeod out for the rest of 2023-24.

Yes, if Syracuse basketball can hold its own on the boards, which it has done over the past two meetings, that’s a positive sign. By extension, when the ‘Cuse takes care of the ball and gets a sizable amount of transition points via defensive rebounds, deflections or steals, this is a dangerous unit.

Individually speaking, we all know that sophomore point guard Judah Mintz can score. Versus the Hurricanes, though, while he struggled with his shot, Mintz was a fabulous facilitator, collecting 13 assists.

Over the past two games, sophomore guard J.J. Starling has been simply sensational. When he’s knocking down mid-range jumpers and 3-pointers, supplementing his keen sense to get into the lane and score in the paint, Starling is an immensely important contributor to this Syracuse basketball squad.

Lately, a lot of Orange fans have expressed some disappointment in sophomore wing Justin Taylor, and I get it. His shooting has been sub-par, although he does rebound well.

Sophomore forward Chris Bell is a bit up and down, but when his 3-point shot is on, we can count on him for 10-plus points. What can I say about Copeland?

He’s the consummate teammate, his smile is infectious, and he’s playing at a high level these days. His outside shooting isn’t overly great and he can be a tad turnover-prone, but he’s a playmaker and hugely vital to this ‘Cuse 2023-24 roster.

As I’ve said numerous times of late, sophomore big man Maliq Brown, to me, is the most important player on this Syracuse basketball roster, especially with McLeod unavailable. Brown, by and large, has been excellent in recent encounters.

I discussed this in a recent column, but without McLeod out, it will be interesting to see how many minutes reserve centers Mounir Hima, a junior, and Peter Carey, a sophomore, receive during the remainder of the 2023-24 regular season. And we could see some of junior forward Benny Williams, here and there, at the center spot, depending on the opponent and the situation.

Kyle Cuffe Jr., a redshirt sophomore guard, hasn’t played massive minutes to date in 2023-24, but he has hit a big shot here and there over the course of the current term.

My point with all this context is two-fold. Number one, I don’t necessarily view the Orange as a group that is going to make a deep run in March Madness, but I could be totally wrong with such an assertion.

Number two, the ACC is ripe for the pickings. UNC seems to be the cream of the crop, but Duke just lost to Pittsburgh, and the rest of the ACC – including Syracuse basketball, Clemson, Virginia, Wake Forest, N.C. State, Miami, Florida State and others – appears to be muddled together without much separation between the rest of the top tier and the middle tier of the league’s pecking order.

It's by no means a guarantee that the Orange is going to make the 2024 Big Dance. But the ‘Cuse has turned a corner, a top-four to a top-six placement in the ACC isn’t out of the question, and the Syracuse basketball line-up is coming together nicely as a cohesive unit.

The rest of the regular season, with 13 games left, followed by the ACC Tournament and, hopefully, the NCAA Tournament, should prove a fun ride for the Orange and the Syracuse basketball fan base.