The hopes for Syracuse to win the ACC Tournament hopes feel pretty slim right now. As the 7-seed, SU will have a favorable matchup against NC State or Louisville to start. But then, the possible opponents shift to a more intimidating group, including Duke, Virginia, Clemson, and North Carolina. However, there’s more to consider than just this bracket in a volume. Let’s evaluate how 7-seeds have done in the past at the ACC Tournament.
The historic span we’ll be looking at is the years since Syracuse joined the conference in 2013-14. That gives us 10 ACC Tournaments with Syracuse in them to evaluate, albeit with the 2020 bracket ending early due to the pandemic.
The first takeaway: the 7-seed has a very high ceiling. This shouldn’t be shocking. In fact, most of you probably remember the run Virginia Tech went on in 2022. The 7-seeded Hokies marched through the bracket, beating 10-seeded Clemson, 2-seeded Notre Dame, 3-seeded North Carolina, and even top-seeded Duke on the way to a conference title. VT showed that the path the 7-seed has in the ACC Tournament is manageable.
Despite that possibility of success, 7-seeds are pretty inconsistent as a whole. In 30% of brackets in this sample, the 7-seed lost in their first game. Even when the first matchup is won, 7-seeds usually don’t accomplish more than that. 80% of the time, they don’t get more than one victory in the ACC Tournament.
In fact, the 7-seed has only made it to the semifinals twice since 2014. One of those cases was Virginia Tech’s run in 2022. The other was all the way back in 2014, when NC State made it to the semis, before being dispatched by a strong Duke team.
The general narrative within the Syracuse fandom as of late has been that the Orange likely need to at least make an appearance in the ACC Tournament Championship to have a legitimate shot at an NCAA Tournament bid. History shows that’s quite the long shot.
