The 2026-27 Syracuse Orange men’s basketball season tips off in just over a month, so it’s time to look at the path ahead for the program in year one under new head coach Gerry McNamara.
To recap, after three exhibitions, Syracuse will play 32 total games this year: 14 non-conference opponents and 18 ACC games (not including the ACC Tournament). Of the non-con matchups, nine are at home, and five are away from the JMA Wireless Dome. The conference schedule is an even split between home and road games. The Orange will get 23 games against Power 5 opponents.
Syracuse enters the year without an NCAA Tournament bid since the 2020-21 season. On paper, the schedule does pose quite a few challenges.
One of them: the valuable non-con wins can only come outside of the 315.
Syracuse is set to play 10 of its 32 (just over 30%) games against teams currently projected to make the field, according to ESPN’s latest bracketology update. Given the current eligibility uncertainty for dozens of athletes (including Syracuse transfer Amarri Monroe), these estimations could ultimately change. Broadly speaking, these are the 10 most “valuable” opponents to boost a tournament resume.
Of the 10, four of them are non-con opponents: Providence, Indiana, Oklahoma, and St. John’s. All of them are true road or neutral-site games. Not only are those games valuable, but they come early in the year (before the start of conference play).
That means GMac and the Orange have to be ready and fast to attempt to pick up a few of these potentially valuable wins. As discussed during the initial release of EvanMiya’s rankings, the ACC ranks fifth in the metric among the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East. There’s way less upside in banking on beating conference opponents to boost the resume.
As for the ACC, seven teams are projected to make the field, according to ESPN’s bracketology. The Orange will play six of them: Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Virginia, Miami, and Clemson. The only one they avoid is NC State. Syracuse also gets another two teams, SMU and Virginia Tech, who are currently in “Next Four Out” status.
Out of the eight teams mentioned above, it’s a clean 4-4 split. Syracuse gets Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, and Virginia at home and plays Miami, Clemson, SMU, and Virginia Tech away from the Dome.
Syracuse does get the “tougher” ACC teams on its conference schedule at home, which is some positive news. It also could pick up valuable NET opportunities against SMU and Virginia Tech. Right now, it appears the magic number for the ACC and number of tournament bids is seven. Several rankings, including from Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports and Basket Under Review, currently have the Orange in that top-seven range.
The other challenge for GMac is making sure his team is fully prepared for early, but tough, tests against its best opponents. The teams Syracuse has to be competitive with to be in the 2027 Big Dance.
Indiana and St. John’s are the third and fourth games on the schedule. Two games into the ACC slate, the Orange get Duke, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Louisville all in a row. Syracuse can’t bank on making up ground. It has to be above it and give itself some wiggle room.
Using EvanMiya’s current numbers, here’s a breakdown of the number of projected top-100 opponents Syracuse has on its schedule this year (including all players, even the ones with eligibility limbo):
- Duke (No. 2), home
- St. John’s (No. 11), neutral-site
- Miami (No. 13), road
- Louisville (No. 15), home
- Virginia (No. 23), home
- Oklahoma (No. 32), road
- Clemson (No. 51), road
- Indiana (No. 52), neutral-site
- Providence (No. 53), neutral-site
- Virginia Tech (No. 54), road
- North Carolina (No. 55), home
- SMU (No. 59), road
- Florida State (No. 65), road
- Pittsburgh (No. 74), home and road
- Notre Dame (No. 83), road
- California (No. 87), road
- Rutgers (No. 92), neutral-site
- Wake Forest (No. 100), home
To simplify it even further, of the 32 games on the Orange’s schedule:
- 19 of them (almost 60%) are against top-100 EvanMiya opponents. Only six of them are in the Dome. The other 13 are either true road or neutral-site games.
- 5 of them are top-25 games
- 6 are in the top-50, meaning there are a lot more “winnable” games on paper for ‘Cuse, but with limited upside and potential damage in the event it loses
- Of the 19, 13 of them are between the top 51 and the top 100. Ten of the 13 are road or neutral-site games.
Coach McNamara and the Orange will officially begin the season on November 2 against New Haven.
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What do you think about the structure of the Orange schedule?