There’s no sugarcoating it: Syracuse basketball has struggled to begin the season.
A 69-64 loss to Notre Dame in the team’s first ACC game further cemented those concerns. The Orange sit near the bottom of a stacked conference with a 4-4 mark, which puts them 15th out of 18 teams. Syracuse is also one of four teams in the ACC without a winning record, so while it may seem early to hit the panic button, the red flags are hard to ignore.
With ACC powerhouses like Duke thriving thanks to top prospects such as Cooper Flagg, it was hard to envision a scenario where the Orange competed for the conference title. Still, an NCAA tournament bid wasn’t out of the question after the team’s 20-win season last year. Considering how disappointing Syracuse has played so far, a tournament berth is well out of reach.
Even when compared to the rest of the ACC, let alone the rest of the country, it’s clear that the Orange are struggling to keep up in key areas. For starters, the defense has been questionable at best. As a team, Syracuse owns a 110.4 defensive rating, which ranks second-worst in the conference, only ahead of 3-6 Miami.
To put that into perspective, the Orange have allowed opponents to score 80.9 points per game. The last time Syracuse’s defense allowed that many points per game was during the 1971-72 season, back when the Orange weren’t even a part of the ACC yet and allowed 81.3 per game. The difference between this year’s team and the 1971-72 squad is that their offense was excellent, and it powered them to a 22-6 record while scoring 86 points per game.
This year’s team hasn’t been nearly as prolific on offense. Especially with lead guard JJ Starling injured, the team has struggled to shoot the three-ball and has made just 26% of their three-point attempts. That puts Syracuse as one of the 15 worst three-point shooting teams in the country, and it’s not a recipe for success.
There’s still time for the Orange to turn it around, so the short answer is no, the season isn’t over. Not yet, anyway.
Still, losing to a below-.500 Notre Dame team that had lost five straight games is another step in the wrong direction. Time is running out for Syracuse to right the ship, and the calls to fire head coach Adrian Autry will only become stronger if the team continues to struggle.
