Yet again, Syracuse appears to be on the outside looking in when it comes to a tournament bid.
Regardless of how the rest of this offseason concludes, all signs are pointing to an uphill climb for the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team if it wants to snap a three-year NCAA Tournament drought.
In ESPN’s first bracketology update since the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, seven ACC teams are projected to make the 2025 NCAA Tournament… and none of those include the Orange. It means that for the second-straight year under head coach Adrian Autry, Syracuse will certainly need to play its way into the bracketology conversation over the course of next season.
The seven ACC teams mentioned include Duke, North Carolina, Miami, Wake Forest, NC State, Pittsburgh and Clemson. The ACC is projected to have the fourth-most teams in next year’s NCAA Tournament, according to the bracketology update which was released on Monday. Both the SEC and Big Ten lead the way with nine teams, followed by the Big 12 with eight.
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Similar to when we broke down some of the “way-too-early top-25” lists out there, it’s generally important to take projections like these with multiple grains of salt.
At the same time, this can provide some insight both with describing the road Syracuse faces ahead in the ACC as well as quantify what the program needs to do in order to return to the NCAA Tournament.
For example, Syracuse is scheduled to play those seven ACC teams projected to make the 2025 NCAA Tournament a combined eight times next season. Five of those games will be in the JMA Wireless Dome and include a mix of projected top-two seeds like Duke and UNC to more of the bubble programs like NC State, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh.
Based on this bracketology update, the Orange will only have to play three times on the road against ACC teams currently projected for the postseason — Clemson, Miami and Pitt.
Similar to last year, Duke (one-seed) and UNC (two-seed) will again be the early favorites to win the ACC with Miami (five-seed) continuing to emerge as the consensus third choice. After that, however, is where projecting the rest of the conference starts to become a bit murky with Wake Forest (eight-seed), NC State (nine-seed), Pitt (Last Four Bye), Clemson (Last Four In) and Virginia (First Four Out) all sitting in a tight pack.
The Orange finished 20-11 overall last year and 11-9 versus the ACC, ending up as the No. 6 seed in the ACC Tournament. Syracuse last made the NCAA Tournament in the 2020-21 season.
Now it’s your turn: what are your initial thoughts on ESPN’s latest bracketology update? Is the Orange’s preseason projection fair or unfair? Let us know in the comments.