Syracuse (17-13, 9-8 Atlantic Coast) has just one regular season game left, on Saturday against Georgia Tech at home, and then will travel to Brooklyn for the ACC tournament. This will be the Orange’s last chance to improve its NCAA Tournament odds before Selection Sunday on March 12. SU has beaten three Top 10 teams but is 2-10 in games outside the Carrier Dome.

To get a read on where SU stands, we spoke with bracketologist Patrick Stevens. His projections appear in The Washington Post and, in 2014, he was the only bracketologist, out of 121, to correctly pick all 68 teams in the field.

The following conversation has been edited for clarity.

The Daily Orange: After Syracuse’s loss at Louisville on Sunday, where do you project the Orange?

Patrick Stevens: I have Syracuse as the first team just outside the Dance. You look at them and yeah, they’ve beaten some good teams: Florida State, Duke, Virginia, Miami. There are some really good wins. But they haven’t done anything away from home. And now they’re basically down to you better do something in Brooklyn if they are going to do anything of any substance away from home.

This is a weird year because the edge of the field is as weak as it is. We’re talking about play-in-type teams like Kansas State, Rhode Island, Providence and Marquette at this point. And if you size up the high-end victories, (Syracuse is) going to trump those teams. … When I look at Syracuse, when you’re really trying to parse those last few spots, you look for things that distinguish a team for good or for bad. The fact Syracuse hasn’t beaten anybody of substance away from home, it’s something that remains an outlier for them and not in a good way. I think getting to Brooklyn and doing something once they’re there is going to be a priority.

The D.O.: How much did Syracuse’s resume took a hit with Sunday’s loss at Louisville?

P.S.: It’s more a lost opportunity than a hit. If you said to anybody that Team A is going to Louisville and will lose, well, yeah, just about everybody’s going to go to Louisville and lose. I don’t consider it particularly insulting that they didn’t do that. The only team that’s won at Louisville has been Virginia. Syracuse’s problem is cumulative. Not only did it not win at Louisville, it didn’t win at Carolina, it didn’t win at Notre Dame, it didn’t beat South Carolina in Brooklyn, it didn’t win at Wisconsin, it didn’t win at Virginia Tech. You just had to get somebody. They just haven’t taken advantage of those chances. It’s not so much that they lost to Louisville, because Louisville is really good. It’s that that last true road opportunity slipped away and now they have to do something once they get to Brooklyn.

I do just want to double back and point out it’s a weird year and the edge of the field is really weak. While I think this road issue is going to bite them in the butt, it’s possible that enough crazy stuff happens over the next week and a half that it doesn’t. And that’s as befuddling as anything else. That a team could manage to actually not do anything of substance away from home, go, let’s say they ended up 19-14 or something like that, and still get in. That would be pretty incredible. In another year that probably wouldn’t happen. Right now, there’s some hope that it does.

The D.O.: What does Syracuse have to do to at least stay in the mix amid the fluid bubble situation?

P.S.: I don’t think they can go to Brooklyn and not win their opener. You’re not going to gain much value from beating Georgia Tech. Amazingly, that’s one of those situations where you might wind up knocking a team out of the top 100 by beating them. So you might diminish your victory if you get it over them but also diminish the loss or enhance the negative value of the loss that they had at Georgia Tech. But I do think a one-and-done situation, if they’re 18-14, it would require a lot of help, in my mind, to get in.

The D.O.: Have you seen any team in recent years have such dramatic home/road splits?

P.S.: Usually if you don’t win games away from home, you just can’t pile up enough victories to make a difference anyway. The amazing thing is this is kind of the issue for the UCLA team a few years ago (in 2014-15, UCLA went 2-8 on the road) that snuck in and then made the Sweet 16 that year anyway. And I remember thinking that was a bit of an odd inclusion. Truthfully, that was one of the least accomplished teams to get an at-large bid in recent past. So maybe that’s something Syracuse can take some hope from. Because this year’s Syracuse team has actually beaten good teams whereas that UCLA team hadn’t done a whole lot of anything.

Kansas State in 2014 did get into the NCAA Tournament with a 2-7 road record. Those road wins came at Texas Tech, which wasn’t very good and at TCU, which wasn’t very good. They also beat Gonzaga on a nominally neutral court in Wichita, Kansas. So they had at least done something away from home. … So there are some examples. But I keep coming back to the idea that that is a differentiator. If they could simply get something, even if it’s Virginia Tech in an 8-9 game (in ACC tournament) and they get that game, it could solve a lot of problems.

The D.O.: What else should Syracuse fans be aware of?

P.S.: The argument Syracuse has is going to be the argument Syracuse has right up until Selection Sunday. They beat all these really good teams. They beat Florida State, they beat Duke, they beat Virginia, they beat Miami. But the NCAA Tournament is not going to be played in the Carrier Dome. And it’s one of those things by the committee, they reward road performance and frankly tons of teams are just home court heroes and that’s exactly what Syracuse is right now until it proves it can win somewhere other than its own campus. … I think if they get in without doing anything in the ACC tournament, it’s going to be a reflection of quality, or lack thereof, of the edge of the field. And if they don’t get in, it’s going to be very clear as to why they don’t get in.

Published on February 27, 2017 at 5:31 pm

Contact Paul: pmschwed@syr.edu | @pschweds