Syracuse Basketball: 2021-22 season preview and outlook for Orange

Schedule outlook

Syracuse’s first three games are all the Carrier Dome against Patriot League foes Lafayette and Colgate, as well as CAA enemy Drexel. Not a bad start to the schedule, right?

Things get tougher from there. Syracuse is participating in the Battle 4 Atlantis, which features an opening act of the VCU Rams. The other teams playing in the tournament are not too shabby either: Auburn, Arizona State, UConn, Loyola, Michigan State, and the defending national champion Baylor Bears.

After that, it’s a Big Ten/ACC Challenge game against an intriguing Indiana squad under first-year coach Mike Woodson, a brief conference trip to Florida State, and then the Jimmy V Classic against Villanova at Madison Square Garden. The rest of the non-conference schedule is made u of a road game at Georgetown and home games against Lehigh and Cornell.

The ACC schedule will be its usual gauntlet, although it feels like a conference in flux with Roy Williams gone and Coach K soon to follow. The most favorable stretch comes beginning January 25, with games at Pitt and home against Wake Forest. After trickier tilts against NC State and Louisville, the Orange get both of their Boston College games, sandwiching a road trip to Virginia Tech.

There aren’t any horrendous stretches in conference play – the Orange only play UNC once for instance. Three games starting January 15 include conference contenders Florida State, Clemson, and Duke, but the non-Blue Devils games of that stretch are at home.