Syracuse Ranks Eighth in ESPN's College Basketball Future Rankings

ESPN ranked Syracuse eighth in its College Basketball Future Power Rankings in an Insider piece released on Wednesday.

A panel of six college basketball experts -- Andy Katz, Jeff Goodman, John Gasaway, Paul Biancardi, Jay Bilas, and Eamonn Brennan -- rated programs in five different categories (Coaching, Current Talent, Recruiting, Program Power, and Stability) on a 1-10 scale. The results were combined and weighted to give each program an overall score on a 1-100 scale.

Syracuse scored a 91.5. Its highest ratings (95 each) came in the coaching and stability categories, while its lowest rating (87) was in current talent.

Ranked one through seven, in order, are Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina. Rounding out the top ten are two Big Ten rivals: Michigan State and Michigan.

Virginia and Pittsburgh, two of Syracuse's ACC companions, are ranked 15th and 21st, respectively.

Also worth nothing: Connecticut, winner of two of the last four national championships, is ranked only 14th.

Truthfully, I'm having difficulty making much of anything with this piece.

Kentucky should probably be No. 1. I love to hate John Calipari, but the guy recruits like no other and gets to Final Fours like it's nothing. It was the stability category, where they scored an 88, that put the Wildcats below both Duke and Kansas. How the hell is a program that wins as much and as consistently as Kentucky does not stable? Sorry, I don't get it.

As for Syracuse, eight seems two spots too low. It'd make more sense, at least to me, if we were swapped with Arizona (sixth).

The Orange start their season two months from Sunday (November 14th) against the Kennesaw State Owls in the 2K Sports Classic.