A crucial off-season for the program begins now
The 2024-25 Syracuse Orange (14-19) men’s basketball season has come to an end with a 2nd round ACC Tournament loss to the SMU Mustangs. We’ll have plenty to talk about over the next few months, but let’s get to last night’s takeaways.
Offensive Offense
The Orange got off to a quick start last night but after scoring nine points in the first five minutes, they were held to 44 (#Brand) the final thirty-five minutes of the game. It’s the 12-29 shooting on two-point attempts that highlights what Syracuse was unable to do on the offensive end. Eddie Lampkin was surrounded all night and only managed three shot attempts. JJ Starling started fast and then cooled off for a 6-17 shooting night.
Jaquan Carlos, Lucas Taylor, Chris Bell and Kyle Cuffe combined to make six shots over the two games in Charlotte and that inability to make defenses pay for leaving them open, was the difference against SMU. On the other side, the Mustangs were 7-14 from deep, making Syracuse pay for leaving players open. Finding reliable secondary scoring was a challenge all year for the Orange, and it showed last night.
Turnovers
Syracuse also fell back into the bad habit of driving into the lane and forcing bad passes. As the game wore on, SMU collapsed in the paint well and the Orange ended up trying cross-court passes that were off-target. Fifteen turnovers on the game don’t tell the full story as the eight first-half kept Syracuse from being able to open up a lead and let the Mustangs find their footing.
This season just featured a lot of poor decision-making. Players jumping to make passes. Driving into three defenders. Catching passes while out of bounds. Bounce passes in the paint at the ankles of the bigs. It was all on display last night and maybe the epitome of what we had to witness this year came when Chris Bell tried to lob to Kyle Cuffe on a two-on-one break.
Turn the Page
This season was miserable and now the pressure ramps up on the entire men’s basketball program from John Wildhack on down. This is the 4th straight season the Orange will miss the NCAA Tournament and it’s the 6th season in a row that Syracuse hasn’t won more than 20 games.
If things aren’t turned around next year, there will be major changes all around. To call this off-season critical, would be an understatement. Syracuse has to get back to the NCAA Tournament.