Syracuse basketball entered the 2023-24 season with what seemed to be a sizable amount of depth at every position group.
Now, as the Orange (14-8, 5-6 in the ACC) prepares to host Louisville on Wednesday night, the 'Cuse has seen its roster of 13 scholarship players decrease to nine who are currently available to play. On Tuesday, the team announced via its X page that junior forward Benny Williams had been dismissed from the program.
Junior center Naheem McLeod, a transfer from Florida State, is out for the rest of the 2023-24 term after having surgery on his foot. Freshman center William Patterson is expected to take a redshirt this stanza, head coach Adrian Autry has said.
And sophomore guard Chance Westry, who suffered a lower-body injury before 2023-24 got underway, has yet to play in a game this year. My sense is that he's not likely to suit up at all in the current campaign, but I could be wrong.
That leaves Autry's once-deep 2023-24 rotation in a much more precarious position for the remainder of this season.
With Benny Williams gone, other Syracuse basketball players will have to step up.
To be fair, Williams wasn't in the starting rotation and wasn't playing a ton of minutes, as he averaged 17.0 minutes per contest. But he did provide depth at the forward spot, a position group that is now much more thin.
Autry has been rolling with a starting rotation of sophomore point guard Judah Mintz, sophomore guard J.J. Starling, sophomore small forward Chris Bell, sophomore wing Justin Taylor and sophomore big man Maliq Brown.
I expect that starting line-up to continue onward for the Orange. Taylor has struggled with his shot for much of 2023-24, although he did have a nice second half over the weekend when the 'Cuse got pounded at Wake Forest.
This means that the four reserves for Syracuse basketball moving forward are sophomore wing Quadir Copeland, redshirt sophomore guard Kyle Cuffe Jr., junior center Mounir Hima and sophomore center Peter Carey.
Save for Copeland, none of those other bench players have seen a lot of court time this season. Copeland averages about 21 minutes per game, and then it's 10 minutes for Cuffe, 5.5 minutes for Carey and around three minutes for Hima.
Copeland is likely to see his minutes further climb, particularly since he can play guard as well as small forward out on the wing, similar to Taylor. Should Copeland play more at small forward, that could lead to more minutes for Cuffe as a primary back-up guard to Mintz and Starling.
Additionally, it's possible that Cuffe could be in the backcourt along with either Mintz or Starling, with the other starting guard maybe getting some run at small forward. This would amount to a "small-ball" line-up for Syracuse basketball, as both Mintz and Starling are listed at 6-foot-4.
Carey has gotten more minutes of late, so if he were to be in the center spot, that would likely shift Brown to his more natural position of power forward. Whether Hima gets increased playing time remains to be seen.
What I could also envision happening is that both Taylor and Bell will witness their minutes increase. They both average about 24 minutes per game, but with Williams not an option, Taylor and Bell both will probably have a longer "leash," so to speak, out on the wing.
One thing that is clear to me: Autry and his assistants will have to become a bit more creative in their line-up combinations, now that Williams is no longer with the 'Cuse program.