ACC Basketball: Syracuse Orange Preview

Syracuse enters the 2014-2015 season in a rebuilding year amid a cloud of uncertainty. The Orange loses three of their top four scorers in Tyler Ennis, C.J. Fair, and Jerami Grant. This is especially bad news for a program whose offensive struggles hindered this team last season. The loss of Tyler Ennis is especially critical as this leaves coach Jim Boeheim’s squad with uncertainty at point guard.

That’s the bad news. The good news? For Syracuse these questions are Déjà vu. For the third consecutive season Syracuse will turn to an unproven point guard to lead the offensive. The off-season storyline for this program for each of the last three years has focused around “rebuilding.”

Despite the prospects of a “rebuilding year” Syracuse has had strong showings in each of these seasons. This very well could be the year where graduation and NBA losses finally catch up to Syracuse. However the lesson in all of this should be to never underestimate Boeheim’s ability to fill holes and adjust with each passing off-season.

More from Busting Brackets

Backcourt
Syracuse has Trevor Cooney as their top-returning scorer. Cooney, a redshirt junior, was hyped as a 3-point ace when he first stepped foot on the Syracuse campus. He has not quite lived up to the Gerry McNamara comparisons, but he has shown flashes of deadly 3-point shooting in the past.

Highlighted by a 33-point game (9/12 on three point attempts) against Notre Dame, and a 44% three point shooting percentage through the first 22 games of last season, Cooney clearly has the skills to be a major offensive factor. The only question is whether or not he can consistently be depended on to make baskets for the duration of a season.

Syracuse fans have had a love/hate relationship with Cooney during his time with the program. Cooney managed to win forgiveness from Syracuse fans for his disappointing freshman season in 2013-2014 with strong numbers. However he faded towards the end of the season. He also justified some of the hype surrounding his three point shooting abilities but not all of it. Watching Cooney’s three point shooting and his attempt to silence the critics will be a major storyline for Syracuse this season.

Freshman Kaleb Joseph will be tasked with leading this offense as the starting point guard. Joseph finds himself in the exact same situation as Tyler Ennis was at this point in time last season. If he can duplicate even a fraction of Ennis’ success from last season, Syracuse will be in good hands.

Sophomore Ron Patterson played sparingly last season but will be tasked with backing up Cooney/Joseph. Former Duke transfer Michael Gbinije is a true wild card for this team. Gbinije has both front court and back court experience. Coach Boeheim has the ability to place him at a number of different positions.

Frontcourt
Rakeem Christmas returns to Syracuse’s frontcourt. At 6’9″, Christmas provides another long body for Boeheim’s trademark 2-3 zone. Christmas is a former top-20 recruit that has played 111 games for Syracuse, starting 109 of them.

He’s has been billed as an extremely talented player who has not yet reached his full potential. Whether he will reach that potential will be one of the story lines for SU this season.

Dajuan Coleman is the only other frontcourt player with significant playing experience. However he has been hampered by injury problems in the previous two seasons. Coleman will be unavailable for the start of the season and the role he will play on this team is also a mystery.

Boeheim will look to sophomores Tyler Roberson, B.J. Johnson, and Chino Obokoh (redshirt) to solidify the frontcourt along with with incoming freshman Chris McCullough. With the exception of Christmas, Syracuse will be fielding a frontcourt with little to no previous playing time heading into the season.

The Schedule
Syracuse (ranked #23 in Associated Press Poll) will play California in the 2K Classic at Madison Square Garden on November 20th. This will be the third match-up between these two programs in as many years. Syracuse will then play either #10 Texas or #25 Iowa.

Syracuse also travels to #24 Michigan for the ACC/Big Ten challenge. These two schools find themselves neck and neck in the rankings in what will be billed as a Final Four rematch.

Syracuse faces home games with their historic rivals Cornell, Colgate, and St. John’s at home. They also travel to the home arena of another historic rival with #12 Villanova.

In ACC play Syracuse faces home & home match-ups with Boston College, #4 Duke, Pittsburgh, and Virginia Tech. Syracuse travels to Chapel Hill to play #6 North Carolina. However #8 Louisville and #9 Virginia both play Syracuse at the Carrier Dome.