Syracuse basketball left out of early 2017-18 top 25 rankings

The Syracuse Orange spent the large majority of the 2016-17 college basketball season sitting outside of the top 25. It appears the same will be true for 2017-18, at least at this very early juncture.

SB Nation’s Mike Rutherford’s already compiled his extremely early rankings for next season (based on everything we know now), and the Orange are not present. You can’t necessarily blame Rutherford — or anyone -- for keeping SU off the list. Syracuse struggled for extended stretches of this past season, and loses three of its four leading scorers. Tyler Lydon declared early for the NBA Draft, while John Gillon and Andrew White III have exhausted their respective eligibility.

The Orange were also left off the rankings created by ESPN, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, Yahoo and Fox Sports.

While we’d rather be included in these rankings, they obviously mean very little for the long- and short-term prospects of the team. We were seen as a potential top 25 team to start last year, and look what happened...

Despite the fact that Syracuse isn’t in these, several Orange opponents are. ACC foes Duke, North Carolina and Louisville were in or around most top-10s, as was December opponent Kansas. Miami, Notre Dame, Virginia and Virginia Tech also made appearances in various polls.

It’s a long offseason, so don’t feel defeated by this temporary setback. Plenty more lists for us to be included on and left off over the next several months.