Syracuse Basketball: 2020-21 season preview for the Orange

Although expected to only stay afloat as a middle-tier ACC team, Syracuse basketball awaits its chance to reclaim its notoriety during the 2020-21 season.

After concluding a streaky season last year which ultimately left the team with a mediocre 18-14 record, the Orange once more failed put forth a product apparent to its incredibly successful past. Even though our favorite spring tradition never came into fruition last March, most still expected Syracuse Basketball to go unmentioned on Selection Sunday, rather than trying on its dancing shoes.

Making losses occur at heartbreaking levels fashionable once more, one or two shots dictated several Syracuse losses to opposing ACC teams last year. Separating what almost became a ten-game winning streak, the Orange dropped back to back incredibly close games to Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, losing to the Fighting Irish by a point and the Hokies by four.

Adding further salt to the wound, Orange’s future losses to contending teams such as Clemson, NC State, Florida State all came by a combined nine points. Needless to say, the ball certainly failed to bounce Syracuse’s way when it mattered most during the 2019-20 season.

But even with an overtime victory coming against the defending champion Virginia Cavaliers serving as a shining moment for the team, unattractive losses to Georgetown, before North Carolina and Miami, still weighed far too heavy, pulling the Orange away from tournament contention.

Now although Elijah Hughes’s emergence as the conference’s leading scorer alongside Buddy Boeheim’s rise as a dominant three-point shooting threat still granted Syracuse fans a reason to watch, very few categorized last year as a success by any means still due to the team’s overall lackluster effort.

But looking burry last season where it belongs while replacing it with one far more prosperous, Joe Girard III, who averaged 12.4 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game last year, returns beside Boeheim, hopefully having elevated his game to an even further extent with his freshman year now under his belt.

Joining them comes sharpshooting transfer Alan Griffin, four-star recruits Kadary Richmond, Woody Newton, Frank Anselem, and redshirt freshman John Bol Ajak, all looking to turn things around during the 2020-21 campaign as well.