In case you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, we all know that the only way Syracuse is going to make it into the NCAA tournament is by winning the ACC tournament. On one hand, the Orange have only ever won 2 ACC tournament games since joining the ACC back in 2013. On the other hand, despite all their struggles, Syracuse is currently in 5th place in the ACC. With one game left to go in the regular season on Saturday, it’s worth looking at what the path to an ACC championship could look like.
The Orange as the 5th Seed
If the season ended today, the Orange would have the 5th seed in the ACC tournament. Knowing that the Orange will have a first round bye and if they are 5 seed, they will play next Wednesday at 2:00 in Greensboro. They will face the winner of the 12 vs 13 matchup. Taking into account that Georgia Tech won’t be in the ACC tournament due to NCAA sanctions, that 12 vs 13 matchup would be Pittsburgh vs Wake Forest. The Orange beat the Panthers twice this season by an average of 10.5 points. Meanwhile the Orange just sneaked out a win against the Demon Deacons 75-73 due to foul trouble. Best case matchup would be Pitt and if that’s the case, you feel confident the Orange can pull out the win.
If the Orange move on, at the moment they would face the 4 seed Thursday at 2:30 which would be the Virginia Cavaliers. Since the Orange last played the Cavaliers, Virginia has gone 10-3 and are currently on a six game winning streak. They have been able to get keys wins against Florida State and Duke along the way. Long story short, the Cavaliers are playing their best basketball at the perfect time. Which doesn’t make for great news for Orange fans. Remember it took an overtime effort for the Orange to pull out the win against the Cavaliers. It’s possible they can knock them off, but it’s going to require little to no mistakes on Syracuse’s end.
Now let’s go crazy and say the Orange knock off the Cavaliers and move on to the semifinals. They would face the winner of the 1 seed vs the 8 or 9 seed. Let’s just go with the 1 seed moving on and as of March 3rd, that would be the Louisville Cardinals. This maybe where the dreams of Orange fans might come crashing down. The Orange got absolutely throttled by the Cardinals 90-66. A game in which the Orange shot 7-26 from three, where the Cardinals had 29 free throw attempts, and where both Marek Dolezaj and Bourama Sidibe fouled out. I guess on the bright side if you play the Cardinals again it can’t get much worse right? Either way it’s an incredibly tall task to knock off the Cardinals to get to the ACC title game.
I know I’m pretty much a pessimist when it comes to Syracuse basketball, but the Orange have their backs up against the walls. They have to win four games in four days to make the NCAA tournament. That’s an impossible task to ask any team, let alone this Orange squad. The only hope I can leave Orange fans is this. Nothing make sense in March. Anything and everything can happen in March we all have seen it. So despite all the odds and numbers pointing against the Orange, maybe Syracuse can find a little bit of March magic. They have found it before, whose to say they can’t find it again?
