Along with its regular updates of men’s college basketball bracketology, ESPN also provides a women’s version every week as well.
In this week’s edition, the Syracuse Orange find themselves falling down a line to a No. 6 seed in the Bridgeport, Conn. bracket.
Syracuse is 18-8 on the season and 9-4 in the ACC. However, they’ve had a tough time with top-15 opponents this year, including Friday night’s double-digit loss to Duke.
Still, the Orange women own victories over Virginia Tech, Miami, NC State and Michigan State, and are on track to earn double-digit wins in league play. No, they haven’t beaten the most elite opponents, but in a sport that can be sort of top heavy, not a whole lot of other teams have either.
If SU’s seeding here were to hold, they’d end up in Seattle for the first two rounds, playing in No. 3-seed Washington’s section of the bracket. Last we saw the Huskies, Syracuse beat them 80-59 to advance to the National Championship Game last April. Unfortunately for the Orange this time around, UW would probably be favored. SU would also have to get past 11-seed Gonzaga in the first round in a virtual home game for the Zags (despite being a lesser seed).
There’s plenty of time for all of this to change -- and it’s not official to begin with. Obviously the goal for the Orange is to get home court for the first two rounds (which they can do with a four-seed or better). Beating who you’re supposed to isn’t likely to bump them up a couple lines, but a victory over a team like Notre Dame could certainly help.
So in case you needed another reason to hope and pray on Sunday’s matchup with the Irish, there you have it. Syracuse and ND tip off at 5 p.m. ET at the Carrier Dome.