There’s no sugarcoating it, Syracuse men’s basketball’s 2024-25 has been awful. However, a 74-60 win over NC State all but guaranteed that total disaster isn’t imminent, and Adrian Autry’s squad will all but definitely be playing in the ACC Tournament in two weeks. But conference realignment has completely flipped this on its head, and a lot of people are unsure how the new format works. Let me try to help you out.
As of today, February 27th, 2025, Syracuse sits in 13th place in the ACC standings. The Orange are tied with Notre Dame for 14th, however hold the second tiebreaker over the Fighting Irish (first is head-to-head, second is record against the top team in the conference going down, in this case going all the way to Wake Forest who Syracuse beat back in December.) The new format of the tournament is broken down into five rounds: first (only played by seeds 11-15,) second (only played by seeds 5-8 vs winners of the previous round,) quarterfinals, semifinals and the championship.
As it currently stands, Syracuse would match up with Pittsburgh in the #12 vs #13 on Tuesday, March 11th at 2 p.m. This draw isn’t too favorable for SU, as the ‘Cuse has already lost both contests this season to the Panthers, most recently being the 20-point collapse down in the Steel City last week. If Syracuse were to win this game and advance to round two, it would have a date with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Wednesday, March 12th at 2:30 p.m. Like I said earlier, SU did take down WF early in the season, but plenty of Orange fans haven’t forgotten what happened the last time these two squared off in the tournament (PTSD…)
It’s still early to decide all of this, as there are still three games remaining in the regular season. Technically speaking, with a whole lot of help involved, SU could finish as high as 8th in the tournament. Then again, it could also still miss the tournament in its own right for the first time ever. But as we currently sit on February 27th, this is the most likely outcome, it’s just a matter of can this team finish strong.
