Syracuse men’s basketball’s first official season was in 1898-99.
Since then, the Orange have been one of the most successful D-1 programs in the country, as it ranks sixth in total wins among all D-1 schools, with plenty of memorable March Madness runs since then.
That rich history of success is what makes this year’s team so disappointing and why head coach Adrian Autry is on the hot seat.
Syracuse currently sits at 12-17, with a winning percentage of just 41%. That would be the team’s lowest mark since 1968, when the Orange won just 9 games, and its second losing season in the last four years. Since 1968, when the team had back-to-back losing seasons, it’s the first time the program has had multiple sub-.500 seasons in a four-year stretch.
This year’s team just doesn’t cut it. They look a step behind compared to the rest of the ACC, and it’s shown during conference play. This year’s team is on pace to win only 33% of its games against ACC opponents, which is uncharted territory. No Syracuse team has ever had a winning percentage below 40% against conference opponents.
So what gives? What’s wrong with this year’s team?
The answer is simple: they haven’t been able to win the three-point battle.
Three-point shooting in the NBA is at an all-time high, and college basketball has followed a similar shift. At the D-1 level, 38.9% of the shots that teams attempt are three-pointers, a 1.5% increase from the previous record in 2023-24.
Syracuse, in every way, has been a poor three-point shooting team this season. The Orange only make 6.5 threes a game, making just 32.7% of them. Other teams know that Syracuse doesn’t have many respectable shooters, which allows them to stack the paint to prevent J.J. Starling from driving to the rim or Eddie Lampkin Jr. backing his man down in the post, offensive schemes that have worked well for the Orange this season.
It’s bad enough that Syracuse hasn’t been able to shoot three-pointers, but they also haven’t been able to defend it. The Orange are barely going to make the ACC tournament, let alone March Madness this season, but the last four teams that have won March Madness all had one of the best perimeter defenses in the country.
Instead of making it an asset like previous March Madness champions, Syracuse’s perimeter defense this season has been a liability. The Orange have allowed nine teams to shoot better than 37% from deep against them this season, and Syracuse lost all nine of those games, eight of them coming in conference play. The worst part is that those opponents aren’t even good three-point shooting teams.
The Orange let the 6-22 Miami Hurricanes shoot 50% from deep and hit 10 threes, and allowed Wake Forest to shoot 47% from deep, even though the Demon Deacons have only made 28.8% of their three-point attempts this year.
That’s unacceptable, and it’s one of the main reasons Syracuse has struggled so badly this season. Last year’s 20-win Syracuse team wasn’t that much better at three-point shooting, but it held opponents to a lower percentage from deep and didn’t allow them to attempt as many. That dip, coupled with the increase in attempts this year, has hurt the Orange.
The jury is still out on whether it will be Autry, but regardless of how Syracuse finishes this season, it’s clear that major changes need to be made. The men’s football team just had one of their best seasons in recent history, thanks to its success in the transfer portal, so men’s basketball needs to follow the same blueprint.
If Syracuse can’t adapt next year, this season could be more than an outlier, and the start of a real decline for one of college basketball’s most successful programs.
