Syracuse men’s basketball: TNIAAM staff season predictions

The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team starts the 2021-22 regular season tonight against the Lafayette Leopards. And while we’ll have staff predictions for that specific game, we wanted to share our predictions for the entire season as well.

In the past, we’ve usually been wildly wrong about these things, but that won’t stop us from trying once again. Which TNIAAM staffer below is picking Syracuse to win it all, and who’s a #disloyalidiot?

John

25-12, NCAA Tournament second round loss

This team should be fun on offense and questionable on defense for a bit. And even if those defensive issues create some losses during a loaded early section of the schedule, I think they’ll right the ship to an extent by January. The ACC’s still a bit questionable in the middle, and the conference slate should mean the Orange can pick up enough wins to make the NCAA Tournament. I’m most interested to see how Buddy Boeheim responds to the hype headed his way here in preseason, and if the hot shooting continues with every opponent really honing in on him this year.

Szuba

22-9, NCAA Tournament Round of 32

Perhaps I’m a little more bullish on Syracuse this year but this team should win over 20 games, difficult schedule and all, and earn a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Syracuse should win its first round game but fall to the No. 2 seed in their region. Unless that No. 2 seed is Michigan State. Then Syracuse will win that game, go to the Final Four, beat Duke in the National Semifinal and then lose to Indiana on a last-second Rob Phinisee jumpshot in New Orleans.

Kevin

19-12, NCAA Tournament round of 32

There’s a lot of optimism about this team from Jim Boeheim down to the fans and while I think Syracuse has a lot of offensive firepower I have a lot of questions about this group heading into the season. Even with an 8-3 non-conference record the concerns with the defense, rebounding, ball-handling and depth of this roster have me hesitant to go above an 11-9 ACC record and that’s with the benefit of an easier conference schedule. I believe the Orange will spend another season on the bubble and that unless they can demonstrate a better effort on the boards the March run will be over before it gets started.

So how about you?