Syracuse Orange
2013-14 Record: 28-6, 14-4 in the ACC
Head coach: Jim Boeheim
Tenure at Syracuse: 39th season
Career coaching record: 948-319
Home court: Carrier Dome
Starters: C Rakeem Christmas, F Chris McCullough, F Tyler Roberson, G Trevor Cooney, G Kaleb Joseph
Bench: C Chino Obokoh, G B.J. Johnson, G Michael Gbinije
Overview: The Orange find themselves in a major rebuilding year—having lost senior forward and leading scorer C.J. Fair, second-round NBA draft pick Jerami Grant and first-round NBA draft pick point guard Tyler Ennis. The talent turnover is nothing new to head coach Jim Boeheim, but this could be one of the toughest years yet. Syracuse starts the season ranked No. 23 in the country after spending the first 18 weeks of last season in the top 10 of both the AP and USA Today Coaches’ Polls.
Two of the players expected to help the Orange replace missing production are freshmen Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph. The five-star power forward McCullough will be slotted in one of the two forward slots vacated by Grant and Fair and sophomore Tyler Roberson will likely fill the other. McCullough, with a huge 7-foot-2 1/2 wingspan, will be counted on to play a big role in Boeheim’s vaunted 2-3 zone.
A four-star point guard, Joseph will be the fourth Orange starting point guard in as many years, following in the footsteps of Ennis, Michael Carter-Williams, and Scoop Jardine. If Joseph does not live up to the hype, scoring could be a real issue for this year’s team, as the more talented 2013-2014 squad averaged only 68.0 points per game, the school’s lowest scoring season since 1962.
Returning starters center Rakeem Christmas and shooting guard Trevor Cooney will need to step up for a young team that needs to find its identity after so much talent lost to the NBA. Christmas will direct traffic on defense and has to keep the unit running effectively to give the team’s likely-to-be-lackluster offense a fighting chance. Cooney is a streaky shooter who must create more on offense and maintain a steady stream of jump-shooting throughout the season.
One thing that needs to go right: Cooney must carry the offensive load as the leading returning scorer for a Syracuse team that has just lost three of its four top scorers from last year—Fair, Ennis, and Grant. The junior will need to consistently find his shooting stroke and draw opposing defenses and open up the court for his teammates to step up.
One thing that could go wrong: Senior Rakeem Christmas doesn’t show marked improvement from his 5.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game last year and he fails to hold down the paint at the heart of Boeheim’s 2-3 zone.
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