Selection Sunday: Last look at Syracuse basketball’s NCAA Tournament résumé

The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team will officially learn its post-season fate tonight during Selection Sunday. While most bracketologists have included the Orange in their NCAA Tournament projections, the Selection Committee has the ultimate and final say.

The field of 68 will be unveiled when Selection Sunday begins at 6 p.m. ET on CBS. Per the NCAA website, here is the criteria listed for selection:

• An extensive season-long evaluation of teams through watching games, conference monitoring calls and regional advisory committee rankings.
• Complete box scores and results.
• Head-to-head results and results versus common opponents.
• Imbalanced conference schedules and results.
• Overall and non-conference strength of schedule.
• The quality of wins and losses.
• Road record.
• Player and coach availability.
• Various computer metrics.

With that, let’s take one last look at Syracuse’s résumé.

Syracuse finished 16-9 on the season. Syracuse was 13-1 at home, 2-7 on the road and 1-1 in neutral court settings.

As a refresh, here’s how the quadrants break down with the NET as the chief sorting tool.

Quadrant 1: Home (1-30) Neutral (1-50) Away (1-75)

Quadrant 2: Home (31-75) Neutral (51-100) Away (76-135)

Quadrant 3: Home (76-160) Neutral (101-200) Away (136-240)

Quadrant 4: Home (161-357) Neutral (201-357) Away (241-357)

Syracuse is No. 40 in the NET. The obvious holes in its résumé are the 1-7 quadrant one record as well as a 2-7 road record. Syracuse finished strong at 6-1 in both quadrant two and quadrant three games. The Orange’s sole quadrant three loss came at home to Pittsburgh. Syracuse is 3-0 in quadrant four games.

Syracuse finished with a Strength of Schedule of 43 and a non-conference SOS of 90. The Orange are 44 in KPI, 42 in SOR, 33 in BPI, 41 in Ken Pom and 34 in Sagarin.

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Most results broke Syracuse’s way as it relates to the rest of the bubble, with a few exceptions (Georgetown). After Syracuse bowed out against Virginia, Jim Boeheim said he thinks Syracuse is a tournament team.

“It’s not up to me. We’ve done everything we can do,” Boeheim said. “We’re a good team. There’s no doubt in my mind and I don’t think in anybody’s mind that follows the sport and knows what they’re doing. I mean, we’ve got a good team.”

Syracuse has played its best basketball down the stretch. While the committee no longer takes into consideration how teams finish the season (every game is analyzed equally), the Orange won three quadrant two games (North Carolina, Clemson, NC State) to put itself in position on the bubble.

“I’ll make it clear to you,” Boehiem said. “We should be in the tournament. Whether we get in the tournament or not, you never know. But just looking at the profile and watching us play, we should be in the tournament.”