Syracuse basketball still has a narrow path to the postseason

The 'Big 3' of Syracuse athletics has plenty of news this week, with the basketball team heading to play Virginia on Saturday, the lacrosse team hosting Saint Joseph's at the JMA Wireless Dome at the same time, and the football team having just completed two weekends of Junior Days.

We break it all down in the latest edition of The Juice on the Cuse, presented by Bleav and On SI.

SU hoops' narrow path to the postseason

Though the basketball team currently sits at 13-10 and completely outside of NCAA Tournament discussion, there is a narrow path for the Orange to get back in the conversation. And that starts with picking up quality wins on the remaining Quad 1 games on their schedule.

"If Syracuse takes care of business in home matchups against Cal, SMU and Pitt, and then win one on the road against Wake Forest, that would put them at 17 wins, and Wake Forest is inside the top 75 of NET, so that would be a Quad 1 win on the road at the moment. That leaves Q1 games against Virginia on Saturday on the road, at Duke, hosting UNC and at Louisville.

"They’ll need to split probably two of those four games to get to 19-12 heading into the ACC Tournament. Our colleague Martin McCarthy wrote about this earlier today, and I would put the chances of this at around 5 percent, but that is the path Syracuse would need to walk to get back into the conversation for the NCAA Tournament bubble and the opportunity is there against Virginia tomorrow."

Football team heads toward spring practice with momentum

As for the football team, they've just finished two weekends of Junior Days and have received some commitments while the new staff members Fran Brown hired get settled in. That all bodes well heading into spring practice, which will run from mid-March into April.

"I really like the offseason additions from the coaching staff because I do think the talent obviously has been upgraded now in the three recruiting cycles in the Fran Brown era. But I think these players need to be properly coached and developed to make contributions to the program on the field.

"I hope some are not poached (offensive line coach Juan Castillo is rumored to be going to the Giants) before the NFL coaching carousel ends after the Super Bowl, of course. And then you hope for not a lot of injuries because the depth is build built, it's still not quite there to be in the upper echelon of the ACC. All eyes will be on, of course, the rehab of Steve Angeli."

Lacrosse has high aspirations and a tough schedule

Finally, the lacrosse team won its season opener and will play a final tune up against St. Joseph's before heading into one of the most difficult schedules in the history of the sport.

"If you look at the schedule, that is the last tune up this team is going to get because right after that, their next five games are at Maryland, Harvard, Princeton, Penn and Johns Hopkins. Gary Gait knew that this team was ready for it. The first major recruiting class he brought in headlined by Joey Spallina are all seniors now, and you have an elite defense with one of the best goalies in the business in Jimmy McCool between the pipes.

"So they’ll get in those extra reps in a live setting against St. Joseph’s, and then we’re really going to see what this team is made of and I think by the end of February, we’ll have a strong idea of if this team is the team that can get Syracuse the national championship they haven’t had since 2009."

SUPPORT THE JUICE ONLINE

You can find our podcast, The Juice on the Cuse, a Syracuse Orange podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever else you may listen!