Syracuse will host Eastern Washington, Morehead State for 2K Classic

On Friday, we received confirmation on what everyone expected: the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team would face the UConn Huskies as part of the 2K Classic at Madison Square Garden this year.

On Monday, we learned who Syracuse would host for the on-campus portion of the event:

The Orange welcome the Eastern Washington Eagles to the Carrier Dome on Tuesday, November 6 and the Morehead State Eagles on Saturday, November 10. That’s a very “Eagles”-centric few days for Syracuse. There’s a joke in here somewhere about orange things/people and Eagles, but we’ll leave that for another day...

The 2017-18 season was not a positive one for Morehead State, as they went 8-21 and finished last in the Ohio Valley Conference. However, almost that entire team was full of underclassmen, so the thought is that the Eagles can progress with another year of experience under their belts.

EWU, on the other hand, finished just short of the NCAA Tournament last season. The Eagles went 20-15, losing to Montana in the Big Sky championship. However, Eastern Washington won’t have Bogdan Bliznyuk on this year’s roster after he scored over 21 points per game last year and now aims for the NBA.

According to OrangeHoops, Syracuse has never faced EWU, but is 2-0 all-time vs. Morehead, with a nice 110-69 victory at home in 1987 and a 74-59 NCAA Tournament win in 1983.

While we had spots saved in the schedule for TBD opponents, this still helps considerably in getting toward SU’s final slate of foes. For a refresher, here’s where we stand right now:

• November 6: Eastern Washington Eagles (2K Classic)
• November 10: Morehead State Eagles (2K Classic)
• November 15: UConn Huskies (at MSG)
• November 16: Oregon Ducks/Iowa Hawkeyes (at MSG)
• November 28: at Ohio State Buckeyes (ACC/B1G Challenge)
• December 1: Cornell Big Red
• Early December: Georgetown Hoyas
• December 15: Old Dominion Monarchs
• December 18: Buffalo Bulls

That still leaves four more dates to be added, and one of those is almost definitely Colgate. It would seem likely that the Orange wrap up the schedule in the next month or so as the ACC and ESPN try to finalize TV details.