With the NCAA Tournament selection show just hours away, Syracuse (19-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) waits for its postseason destination still to be determined. The Orange was eliminated from the ACC tournament on Wednesday and is listed on the bubble in most bracketology projections. The selection show is at 5:30 p.m. on CBS.

Beat writers Sam Blum, Jesse Dougherty and Matt Schneidman predict whether SU will make the field, sneak in for a play-in game in Dayton, Ohio or miss the Tournament altogether.

Sam Blum
11 seed in Dayton
Dayton Dancing

Syracuse will get into the NCAA Tournament this evening and it certainly deserves the nod. The other teams on the bubble don’t have the pedigree of wins, except maybe Oregon State. St. Mary’s chose not to schedule hard to its own detriment. Monmouth scheduled hard but its wins have lost value. Valparaiso has one good home win. Syracuse owns the head to head over St. Bonaventure. There’s definitely a spot for a Syracuse team that passes every eye test of a Tournament caliber program.

Jesse Dougherty
11 seed in Dayton
New life

There are so many variables at play here, and even the people who are paid to predict the NCAA Tournament bracket are almost evenly split on whether or not Syracuse will make the tournament. But when it comes down to it, Trevor Cooney laid it out pretty plainly after the Orange’s loss to Pittsburgh on Wednesday: SU hasn’t been blown out this year, and has been in every game it’s played in. When you consider that Syracuse played a fairly difficult nonconference schedule, lost its head coach for nine games in the middle of the season and then went head first into ACC play, I’d say just that factor alone makes it worthy of the chance to play into the Tournament in Dayton this week.

Matt Schneidman
11 seed in Dayton
Gimme an O(hio)

The Orange deserves to just sneak in and it will. Yes, it has a god-awful loss to St. John’s but its five wins against RPI top 50 teams put it in a better spot than some of the other teams sharing that ever-growing bubble. South Carolina, Vanderbilt and San Diego State took terrible losses in their conference tournaments that could’ve solidified bids, but instead it opened the door for an SU team that I believe will draw either Monmouth, Michigan or Temple in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.

Published on March 13, 2016 at 1:43 pm