By: Jeff Arnold

For any college basketball buff, it shouldn’t surprise you that this year’s Syracuse team is good. Pretty broad statement, but also 100% true. Coming into the season one of the biggest secondary story lines behind the talented crop of freshmen was the development of senior small forward C.J. Fair, add in the fact that Tyler Ennis has more than lived up to expectations and  that they have one of the most athletic front courts in college basketball (led by sophomore Jerami Grant) and you have the make-up of one of the best teams in the country.

Through their first 23 games they went above and beyond their expectations. They didn’t lose and looked dominant against inferior teams while also proving to be able to sustain a high level of basketball in high pressure games. A perfect example of this was the February 1 showdown against Duke. In what might have been the best game of the college basketball season thus far, Syracuse squeaked out an overtime win over a then struggling Blue Devils squad. This win made them the clear cut number one team in the country for anyone who had had any doubts about them and made them the front runner for the national championship. Obviously it was still relatively early in conference play but assuming they could play anywhere close to the level they played in that one game, they should have been fine until, at least, their next road showdown with Duke.

Fast-forward to right now and that team is in shambles. Yes they are 25-2, but that aforementioned dominance is gone, in fact they have looked underwhelming even in their victories. After needing a long buzzer beating three from Ennis to get past Pitt, they then struggled on the road against a sub-.500 conference play team in NC State and got a gift in the form of a late steal and by Rakeem Christmas and layup converted by Fair.  In the eyes of many these were two anomalies in a long season and, despite poor performances from the floor, these performances were not indicative of what the team actually is. I agreed with that, it’s not like Pitt or NC State are awful teams and considering that both games were on the road, and that their next game before heading for a rematch with Duke at Cameron Indoor was against a terrible Boston College team at home, they should have gotten back on track. Here’s the problem though, they didn’t. In fact they may have gotten worse.

To anyone who watched the first match up (which Syracuse won by 10 at BC) it was clear that Syracuse was the superior team. BC put up a good fight but at the end of the day, their athleticism and raw talent overwhelmed the Eagles and, despite being down in the double digits in the second half, it wasn’t all that surprising that they won. As for the second match-up, I, and pretty much every other sports fan on the planet, had Syracuse winning. In fact, a blowout would have been entirely expected at the beginning of conference play. However, instead of dominating, they came out flat. Ennis didn’t dominate, their athleticism never broke through, C.J. Fair was cold, and Trevor Cooney struggled again and, in the end, Boston College came out with a win. As much as you can say that it was a combination of destiny (earlier in the week they lost long time Sports Information Director, Dick Kelley to ALS) and an overall lucky performance, you can’t say that Syracuse was the better team that night. BC’s duo of Olivier Hanlan and Ryan Anderson outplayed Ennis and Christmas, so did the rest of the team. This wasn’t a huge red flag, but when you add in the fact that they then lost at Duke three days later and almost blew a game against Maryland, and you start to have serious questions.

Here’s the point, Syracuse is a good, but not great team. They have as much developed talent as anybody else in the country, BUT team’s now know Syracuse is beatable. Not only are they beatable, but it doesn’t take a perfect game from them and a terrible game from Syracuse. As long as you play well, Syracuse seems to take care of themselves. The impenetrable zone defense that has been a Jim Boeheim calling card for years has shown to have holes. As long as you have one or two decent shooters you can pull the exterior of the zone away from the paint and thus open up the foul line entry pass that can be used as either a feeder to the low post or as a means to collapse the zone and thus open up the perimeter for outside shots or separation for guys to get to the basket. This would be complicated, but that first pass to the man at the foul line is not tough. Syracuse chooses not to defend it and concedes that position which, for the first 23 games, worked but recently has proven to sometimes be a problem. It’s not like just because you make that entry pass you will automatically score or that that is the only way to put points up on the Orange, but it has proven to be extremely effective. If a team can execute that, even if it is not executed very well, along with slowing down the  pace of the game as to limit the number of possessions that Syracuse has, then they are beatable. Independent of these things is the fact that Syracuse also isn’t playing that well offensively and at this point, you can’t help but wonder whether this is just a slump or whether this could carry over into the conference tourney and decrease their chances at a National Championship.

This year’s team has never claimed to be an offensive juggernaut. They’re good, but because of the way teams play them (limiting offensive possessions) they don’t score a lot of points and in all honesty, C.J. Fair still isn’t a consistent efficient scorer. His field goal percentage varies and, notably, in the BC loss, despite having 20 points, he struggled from the field on his way to a 7-23 shooting performance. Less than stellar. Of course Fair isn’t their only offensive force and Ennis has done well in picking up his slack and proving to be a clutch scorer himself. Despite this positive, you then have to look at Trevor Cooney as being the Syracuse offense in a nutshell. For most of the season Cooney has proven to be a clutch scorer who, although being a three point specialist, could also create enough shots to earn significant minutes. Since the start of the Syracuse skid at Pittsburgh however, he has struggled shooting 21.5% from beyond the arc, way down from the 42.4% he was shooting for the rest of the year and has looked to increasingly uncomfortable on the floor. That pretty much sums up the Syracuse offense as a whole over the past few games. They have struggled and had rely more and more on Ennis and Fair instead of spreading the ball around. Even if you say that these past few games have been anomalies, it’s still glaringly obvious that their offense isn’t where it needs to be. In terms of pure field goal percentage they are 172nd in the nation, behind the likes of Duke, Oklahoma State, Michigan State, Kansas, Virginia, Ohio State, among others. Plain and simple, Syracuse’s offense is a weakness.

Who knows how the rest of the season will shape up, but their match up Saturday against ACC leading Virginia should tell us whether they have made the correct adjustments on defense to contain an average offensive team and whether they can score against against a premier defense. The Orange are not what we thought they were a month ago. Their defense has been figured out and their offense is suspect at best.  Even if you can say that some of these problems are just short term slumps, it is undeniable that teams are no loner afraid of them and they are beatable. Syracuse was and still is overrated.

*Stats used from nightly-updated ESPN pages