There are so many issues with Syracuse men’s basketball this year. The Orange are on track to have a losing record for just the second time in the last 50 years. That doesn’t happen in a program like SU’s without issues at every level: coaches, players, and even overall roster managements. But at the end of the day, the biggest issue is very simple.
Syracuse is not a talented enough team to succeed this year.
There are three main reasons for the Orange’s issues with talent: retention, incoming freshmen, and transfer portal additions.
Syracuse only returned a few key players from last year. JJ Starling came back, and was poised to be the star of the team. While he does lead SU with 19 points per game, he’s been inconsistent at times. In eight of the last 10 games, Starling has shot below 40% from the field. Volume is the main reasons his scoring hasn’t dropped too much. Still, he’s better than Syracuse’s only other returning starter, Chris Bell. He was benched this year, which was much needed. After shooting over 40% on three-pointers last season, Bell is down to under 34% this campaign. Starling and Bell are the Orange’s only meaningful returning players, and both haven’t met their potential this year.
SU also hasn’t gotten enough from its two high-profile freshman. Donnie Freeman has largely gotten a pass, given he suffered a season-ending injury. Plus, he did average 13 points and eight rebounds per game while he was healthy. However, let’s be real. Freeman did not live up to the five-star, top-ten recruit hype he had. He led Syracuse in scoring just three times: in a loss to Notre Dame, and wins over UAlbany and Cornell. Even worse, the Orange didn’t win a single game against a power conference opponent when he was healthy. In many of those losses to high-major teams, he played limited minutes in the second half because of defensive issues. Donnie Freeman, at the end of the day, was disappointing in his freshman year at Syracuse. That also goes for fellow first-year Elijah Moore. He’s averaging five points per game. The guard has become a starter for the Orange, yet gets pulled early in every game because of defensive issues. If Moore can’t even play well enough to get on the floor, that’s a problem. Between Freeman’s underwhelming play and Moore barely playing at all, talent is clearly also an issue with the freshman on the Orange.
The biggest area where SU shows a lack of talent, though, is in its transfer portal acquisitions. Syracuse picked up four players from other schools last offseason. That group features Eddie Lampkin from Colorado, Jaquan Carlos from Hofstra, Jyáre Davis from Delaware, and Lucas Taylor from Georgia State. That list of programs alone sounds bad. Yes, there are talented players from mid-major schools, but relying on three of them to take a big step up is a big risk. That risk didn’t pay off. Transfers represent 50% of Syracuse’s minutes, yet just 42% of the team’s scoring. Plus, while there’s not as many numbers to back it up, Lampkin and Carlos have had major problems on defense this season. Overall, Syracuse was in a position where it needed to hit it big in the portal, and that clearly didn’t happen.
At the end of the day, Syracuse was in a tough spot to succeed. It didn’t return a lot of talent, got underwhelming results from its freshmen, and didn’t acquire enough talent in the transfer portal. The Orange likely won’t return a lot of talent next year, and while they do have an elite incoming freshmen class, that won’t be enough. The key to improving next year is dominating the transfer portal.
