A preseason look at the journey ahead for this year’s Orange
This week, the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball unveiled its complete 31-game regular season schedule for the upcoming 2024-25 campaign. Syracuse fans now officially know the full path ahead for this year’s new-look Orange heading into coach Adrian Autry’s second year at the helm.
To recap, headlining the non-conference schedule are a season-opener versus Le Moyne, Texas and either Texas Tech or Saint Joseph’s in the Legends Classic, a true road game versus Tennessee for the ACC/SEC Challenge, the 100th ever game versus Georgetown and a Brooklyn battle versus Maryland. The ACC slate includes 20 games, beginning with the conference opener against Notre Dame.
With the full schedule out, now comes the right time to contextualize the road moving forward for Syracuse. Two obvious caveats to obviously keep in mind: 1) a lot will change between now in the preseason compared to the middle of the year and 2) preseason projections are nothing more than that. However, it does give Syracuse fans out there a chance to look at the bigger picture and identify some of the key moments to watch for this season.
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To date, the two main “measuring sticks” available to gauge the Orange’s schedule is ESPN’s bracketology (helps to understand who is currently in the preliminary NCAA Tournament conversation) and Bart Torvik’s site (able to quantity the “tier” an opponent might be in — top-25, top-50, top-100, etc.).
Using the latest updated projections from ESPN’s bracketology and Bart Torvik, here is what Syracuse’s schedule looks like this coming season:
It’s a lot to unpack, so to quickly synthesize the entire chart, the full schedule includes:
- Between 4-5 opponents ranked top-25 by Torvik — Duke (No. 2), Tennessee (No. 5), North Carolina (No. 6), Texas (No. 11) and Texas Tech (No. 19, if the Orange end up playing the Red Raiders)
- 8-9 opponents ranked top-50 by Torvik
- At least 21 game with opponents ranked top-100 by Torvik, 17 of which are ACC competition
- A minimum of 12 games (or roughly 39% of the schedule) is against teams at least named in the latest ESPN bracketology update (8 are ACC opponents — Duke (one-seed), North Carolina (three-seed), Clemson (eight-seed), Wake Forest (eight-seed), Miami (nine-seed), Pittsburgh (Last Four in) and Louisville (Last Four in)
From a numbers perspective, it certainly appears Syracuse will at least have plentiful opportunities to build up a resume.
There’s a couple key stretches that really stand out when you look at the whole schedule. First, there’s this Legends Classic. All three of Texas (five-seed), Texas Tech (four-seed) and Saint Joseph’s (Next Four Out) make an appearance in bracketology and rank top-85 in Bart Torvik. The Longhorns and Red Raiders both rank top-20 in Bart Torvik projections.
The biggest long-shot upset is likely Tennessee on the road (a projected top-four seed ranked No. 5 in Bart Torvik). Specifically in non-con, at least one quality win in the Legends Classic and an optimistic result against Maryland (No. 42 in Bart Torvik, First Four Out) in the Gotham Classic would be key. The rest of Syracuse’s 7 non-con opponents rank between No. 101 and No. 315 in Bart Torvik, five of whom are No. 200 or lower.
Moving to the ACC, the West Coast trip to play both Stanford and Cal almost acts like a perfect divide between this conference schedule.
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Before playing the Cal opponents on January 29 and February 1, Syracuse plays eight conference games — Wake Forest (home), Florida State (road), Georgia Tech (home), Boston College (road), Louisville (home), Notre Dame (home), Clemson (road) and Pittsburgh (home). That stretch pretty much includes the entire bulk of the ACC’s “middle class” — the programs fighting in the middle of the conference to sneak into the tournament.
It’s a stretch in itself that will define a season, one where you would say there are plenty of “swing” games that will make plenty of difference by March.
After that stretch plus the Cali road trip, the ACC schedule suddenly gets a whole lot tougher on paper. I am personally labeling this as Syracuse’s toughest stretch all year from February 5 to February 18: home against Duke and BC, road versus Miami, back home for North Carolina before concluding in the Pitt of Doom. That’s two projected three-seed opponents (and the likely ACC favorites) and two additional tournament-projected teams, all in about a two-week time frame.
The end of the schedule (the final four regular season ACC games) include home for NC State and Virginia, plus road against Virginia Tech and SMU. Again, that’s four more teams slated to be in this big middle of the pack forming in the conference.
Clearly, there are some clear stretches in this full schedule where the Orange’s outlook in 2024-25 will be determined.
Now it’s your turn: what are your thoughts on Syracuse’s schedule this season?