Syracuse Basketball: Orange Ranked 10th in Season's Final Coaches Poll

Rankings rarely matter. But even with that said, it's worth noting that the Syracuse Orange men's basketball team finished 10th in the final USA Today Coaches Poll of the 2015-16 season. Syracuse hadn't appeared higher than 19th during the year, and went into the NCAA Tournament unranked. Obviously that mattered little, since SU found themselves in the Final Four.

Syracuse was the poll's biggest mover, going from unranked to top-10. The vanquished Gonzaga Bulldogs were next, going from the 30th-highest vote-getter to 21st in these rankings. The Orange were the fourth-best ACC team according to the rankings: North Carolina (second), Virginia (fifth) and Miami (eighth) all finished in front of them. Duke (17th) and Notre Dame (18th) also appeared in the poll to make it an even six teams from the conference.

Gripe if you must about the fact that the Hoos were placed ahead of SU, despite the result of the teams' Elite Eight matchup not too long ago. But again, these polls matter very little. It's nice to be ranked among the top-10 teams in the country at any point. It's better when you only had to play up to that level for a three-week stretch to do so.

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That's the only poll Syracuse will appear in, as the AP doesn't release an end-of-year rankings list. Plenty of outlets already got started ranking teams for next year, and so far, the Orange find themselves on nearly all of those lists.