but we look at which ACC teams are
The college basketball season wasn’t finished for 24 hours before we started seeing a lot of 2025-26 Top 25 lists posted.
No, the Syracuse Orange aren’t included in any of the ten early rankings listed below, but do prognosticators expect the ACC to be more competitive next season?
Consensus men’s basketball way-too-early Top 25 rankings for 2025-26:
— Heat Check CBB (@heatcheckcbb.bsky.social) 2025-04-08T18:25:59.455Z
The answer is apparently no as most of these include only three ACC schools: Duke, Louisville and North Carolina. It is in fact “way-too-early” to know what teams will look like as we still have the transfer portal open and potential NBA Draft entries, but the early thought is that the ACC will not be very strong in 2025-26.
We don’t know who Syracuse will face in ACC play, but since the Orange didn’t travel to North Carolina in the regular season, we’d expect a lot of visits to Tobacco Road next winter. Syracuse didn’t go to Louisville either, so Adrian Autry and his squad might face a tougher time when it comes to conference play next year.
The ACC doesn’t flip the schedule from year-to-year, but Syracuse should be hosting Stanford and Cal, which would take away the west coast swing. It will be interesting to see who the ACC gives the Orange home and homes with besides Pitt and Boston College.
No matter what happens between now and November, Syracuse is likely to be outside looking in on any rankings. External expectations might be low, but we know inside the fanbase the pressure is on to get back to the NCAA Tournament. No one wants to spend another March standing on the side while everyone else dances.