Breaking down how non-con played out and the path ahead against the rest of the conference.
As we kick off 2025, the Syracuse Orange will be playing no one but ACC opponents from now until the conference tournament in March.
With the calendar turning, this is a good time to take stock of the current schedule, evaluate how Syracuse performed against its nonconference slate and provide a look at the path ahead.
Let’s begin with the nonconference opponents first:
Non-conference resume by the numbers
Using a handful of the well-known metric out there, here is how Syracuse fared against its 11 out of conference opponents this year:
Here is a brief summary for each category and how the Orange did against this slate:
- Record: Syracuse went 6-5 against its 11 out of conference opponents. The “best” win by the numbers was Cornell and the “worst” loss was to Georgetown.
- Home/road/neutral-site: The Orange finished with wins in five of their six home games (the only loss: GTown). Syracuse did strike out in Brooklyn with three neutral-site losses and lost by 26 points in its only true road game versus Tennessee.
- Bracketology: Five of the Orange’s 11 opponents are listed on ESPN’s most recent bracketology. Syracuse went 1-4 against those programs, only beating a current automatic qualifier in Youngstown State.
- NET: Five opponents rank top-80 or higher in NET, four of which are in the top-35. All five of Syracuse’s losses came to teams ranked top-100 in NET, and the six wins came from teams ranked between No. 123 (Cornell) and No. 323 (Le Moyne).
- Bart Torvik: Similar story with Bart Torvik. The Orange 0-4 against top-30 teams, 0-5 against top-100, 1-0 against anyone ranked between No. 101 and No. 199 and 5-0 against teams ranked No. 202 or worse.
- KenPom: ditto to NET and Bart Torvik, just with slightly different numbers but pretty much exact groupings.
Syracuse’s 0-4 record against the top-30 Bart Torvik teams is probably the stat which stands out the most. Reason: it’s the one category where it’s truly a mixed bag.
Rich Barnes-Imagn Images
The highs mainly happened earlier in the year, where the Orange lost both Texas and Texas Tech in Brooklyn by a combined nine points. The lows, however, came more recently — a 26-point loss to Tennessee and a 27-point loss in Brooklyn to Maryland.
Using those same categories as the chart, the Orange ranks as follows:
- Bracketology: N/A (five teams in conference projected to make tournament)
- NET: No. 139 (14th in ACC)
- Bart Torvik: No. 126 (15th in ACC)
- KenPom: No. 110 (15th in ACC)
Updated conference schedule by the numbers
Part of doing this exercise includes getting a better understanding about the rest of the conference and what Syracuse will now be facing the rest of the way.
Here is the most up-to-date look at where Syracuse’s future conference opponents rank:
A few key stretches to watch for, using just NET below to simply things (again, very similar numbers to Bart Torvik and KenPom):
- Syracuse first five ACC opponents rank between No. 83 and No. 212 in NET.
- The Orange’s first top-50 NET opponent is a road matchup against Clemson. After that, Syracuse heads back to the Dome to play Pittsburgh. Based purely on the numbers, that is the toughest back-to-back out of the entire ACC slate.
- Syracuse plays five top-50 NET ACC opponents: Duke, Pittsburgh (twice), SMU, Clemson and North Carolina.
- Five ACC opponents currently rank below No. 150 in NET: Boston College (twice), Miami (FL), Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech.
- Seven games will feature opponents currently in the tournament conversation: Duke, North Carolina, Clemson, SMU, Louisville and Pittsburgh (twice).
The key takeaway for both the optimistic and pessimists among fans out there: outside the top-six (Duke, Pitt, SMU, Clemson, UNC and Louisville), there’s a clear drop-off to the rest of the ACC. There should be a lot of competitive basketball ahead this winter, so we’ll see if the Orange can play well enough to close out the season.