Looking to avoid a rare losing Syracuse basketball season

At 13-11 overall and tied for 11th place with Florida State and Stanford with 4-7 ACC records, and with seven regular season games left to play, the Orange are looking to avoid a third losing record over the last five seasons.

It is almost unthinkable when you take in the whole body of work for the program as it emerged from an obscure Eastern independent to national name, first 60 years ago when Dave Bing and Jim Boeheim helped lead SU to within a game of the Final Four in 1966 under Fred Lewis.

Since then, Syracuse has had only five non-winning seasons. Just five in 60 years.

Unfortunately, two of those five have occurred over the past five seasons, and with Duke, North Carolina, and Louisville still left among the seven games before this year's ACC Tournament, the time to win is the present to avoid another recent losing finish to a 'Cuse hoops season.

Longing for the days of 20 wins or better

Despite losing the final two games of the season, including one in the ACC Tournament, Adrian Autry impressively cracked the 20-win mark (20-12) in his rookie campaign of 2023-24 after succeeding Jim Boeheim, who won 26 games (26-4) in his first SU season as head coach in 1976-77.

But 20 win seasons have become scarce this decade, with only Autry's initial season topping the mark, and during Boeheim's final 10 seasons, all of which were in the ACC, SU won 20 or more in just four of the 10 campaigns.

The 'Cuse's initial ACC season of 2013-14 is still by far its best showing, and of course is an all-timer with the 25 game winning streak from November-February. The 28 victories overall and 14 in the ACC is tops of the current era, while the 16 Dome victories is the second most to the 17 wins in 2016-17.

Remember the days of 30 win seasons?

Obviously, to win 30 games in any season in the current era of power conference college hoops, a team has to most likely go far in postseason play to add on victories to a competitive regular season and coference slate.

Syracuse last won 30 or more games (30-10) in the 2012-13 Final Four run, playing a total of 40 games up to the national semifinal defeat against Michigan in Atlanta.

SU had a shot at 30 in the aforementioned initial ACC season in 2013-14, but after 25 straight wins dropped four of five to end the regular season, its opening ACC Tourney game against NC State, and then its second-round NCAA game to Dayton to fall two wins short.

Twice, Boeheim's teams went 30-5 including the amazing 2002-03 national championship squad, and the 2009-10 team upset by Butler in the Sweet 16 in Salt Lake City.

The two other Syracuse teams to win 30 or more games occurred in the 1980s. The great near- national championship squad of 1986-87 (31-7), and two seasons later the talented 1989-90 team (30-8) which had six future NBA players on the roster, but was upset by Minnesota in the Sweet 16 in New Orleans.

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