Coming off a Final Four run, the Orange enter the season ranked no. 7 in the country—but that doesn’t mean there are unanswered questions. Three of the top four scorers from last season are gone. Five freshmen enter, including Tyler Ennis, who will be the starting point guard.
1.  Where will the scoring come from without Brandon Triche, James Southerland, and Michael Carter-Williams? 
- C.J. Fair will likely score more points than the team-leading 14.5 a game he totaled last season, but that won’t be enough to make up for the losses.
- Trevor Cooney, who was the only guard off the bench last season, is going to need to step up as he moves into the starting lineup. With James Southerland gone, Cooney will likely be relied on as the three-point option this year. Michael Gbinije will slide into Cooney’s role of guard off the bench.
- After sitting out all of last year after his transfer from Duke, Gbinije says he has an itch to get back on the court. Gbinije spent his transfer year working with Gerry McNamara on ball handling and learning to run an offense.
- Rakeem Christmas will get his chance again to prove he can be a force down low.
- Jerami Grant needs to carry over his success into an increased role.
- Freshman B.J. Johnson will have some impact. The 6-foot-7 forward has nice shooting form and moves across the court extremely athletically.
2. How will Tyler Ennis do running the offense as a freshman? If Ennis is feeling any pressure coming in and replacing the 11th pick in the 2013 NBA draft as a freshman, he isn’t showing it. At media day, Ennis told the Fizz he hopes to “make it to that point where Michael led the team last year, but hopefully we can win two more games.” Ennis clearly has high expectations, and the coaches seem to believe that he can run the offense well. Coach Boeheim said he is wise beyond his years, and doesn’t have the presence of a freshman on the court.
3. How does Boeheim manage the frontcourt? 
- The frontcourt this year is stacked with players. Christmas, Keita, Coleman and Grant all fit into the 4-5 role on the team, and Fair could even slide into the 4-spot if Boeheim goes small for a stretch.
- Then there are the freshmen B.J. Johnson, Tyler Roberson and Chinonso Obokoh who undoubtedly came to Syracuse with intentions of playing. With the way Boeheim has had the tendency to deal with freshman in the past, one or two of the freshman may get big minutes, and the rest will be kept on the bench developing for next year.
- ACC Preseason Player of the Year C.J. Fair, who comes into the year with high expectations after being the Orange’s best player last season, will likely be asked to play nearly the entire game every night.
- Christmas and Keita will likely play in offense-defense situations like last year.
- Grant and Coleman will probably also play off each other depending on the situation, with Grant playing more minutes than Coleman.
4. How will C.J. Fair deal with the pressure of being named preseason ACC Player of the Year? Is Fair feeling some pressure? Although he was the leading scorer and rebounder on the Orange’s Final Four squad last year, everything Fair did last year went by quietly. This year, nothing C.J. Fair does will come as a surprise. Not to fans, and not to opponents. Fair may go through a stretch of games where he struggles because he is not used to this kind of attention (look for it around the Indiana-St. John’s-Villanova lineup through three weeks in December). But after that, he will likely bounce back and learn how to deal with the added attention of being the man on the team.
5. How does the transition to the ACC change the team? The ACC is a different league than the Big East. The Big East was the only league that really played a slow game with big men playing a big presence down low. Now, moving to the ACC, the Orange will play teams that like to run more frequently up and down the court. Syracuse showed last year that it could run when it wanted to, but doing that more often could mean less minutes for DaJuan Coleman, unless he is better conditioned coming into the year. This could mean playing time for B.J. Johnson.
Of course, the conference schedule is different and new, but as Boeheim said at media day, “We moved from one really, really good conference to another really, really good conference.”
But while Boeheim might think that the ACC conference schedule is of equal strength to the Big East conference schedule, this move changes the non-conference schedule. Now, as a part of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge, Syracuse plays preseason no. 24 Indiana in early December. Then, wanting to keep Big East rivalries—and a presence in Philly and New York—the Orange will play Villanova and St. John’s. This is a significant upgrade over previous non-conference opponents, and that is likely where the schedule becomes more difficult.
So just wait until the Georgetown games return.
Posted by: Seth Goldberg
9 responses to “Fizz Five: Biggest Questions to Begin Syracuse’s Hoops Season”
@Seth Goldberg;
I think this years basketball schedule is the best it’s ever been. Looking forward to some really good games.
I’m glad that we’ve scheduled games with St Johns,I really don’t care for Villanova so much and Georgetown well for me that’s a has been team and really don’t care about playing them ever again. On the horizon we have teams like Duke,North Carolina,Virgina,NC State coming to play Syracuse. It’s only going to take one season of basketball for the old Big East to fade into being non-relevant and totaly forgotten by the fans.
By joining the ACC we went from a good league and helped transform the ACC into a “SUPER/GREAT” league,arguably the best ever to perform at the college level.
Georgetown and the rest of the Catholic Seven is getting exactly what they deserve”NOTHING.” We’re playing the best now,why play has-beens?
None of this makes any difference!! It only counts if SU makes it to March!! And really that’s all the NCAA CBB season is all about!!
I disagree with #5… If anything ‘Cuse the past few years has been an uptempo team which like to push the ball… If anything this is something we are used to and shouldn’t be much of an issue.
I’m more interested to see how games are called in the ACC. Both ‘Cuse and PITT have always played a more physical brand of basketball being from the BEast.
I think the schedule next year will be tougher when L’ville joins the ACC. I would love to see Georgetown year round.
#3. Couple problems. Chino is red shirting that’s already been said. Also BJ won’t be playing much at the wings. He’s just not built for it. I think he will play mostly at the top of the zone this season. He might be the second best shooter on the team behind Cooney. Think his handle will be strong enough to allow that to happen. Don’t think we see much of Patterson this season at all. Silent G an BJ playing at same time at the top of that zone would be nasty.
IMO Ennis is a step up from Cater-Williams (who scored only 2 points in last years final 4) and was noted as being Mr turnover. C-W was erratic and like Triche, was a very wild unpredictable player. As for Cooney, he could not hit a 3-pointer if his life depended upon it. I have seen high schoolers be more impressive. Hopefully, he will be more reliable from 3 point land, or bench him for the season. The big man should be JC Fair who should make quite a name for himself and go out in March with a SU degree and into a bucket of NBA money.
A step up from MCW??? lol, you might want to watch SportsCenter this morning.
Given the potential for limited outside scoring, I think DC is the key to the team’s success. I expect Cooney and Grant to be bigger outside threats. CJ will be CJ. He is a complete player that plays within himself.Ennis looks like his ‘stroke’ needs work. He is a nice player but no MCW on the top of that zone. Anyone who thinks 6-6 athletic PGs that play D and rebound come along every day have not watched enough basketball. That kid never took a play off and was a nightmare at the top of the zone. So to make up for that we need an inside presence to go inside out and that needs to be DC. He needs to be this team’s AO. 8-10 reebs a game and able to punish teams offensively inside when teams cheat away from him. I have lost hope of RK and I will be pleasantly shocked if Keita can be a reliable finisher on the offensive. We need to be a different team this year to overcome loss of MCW. We don’t look like we are going to shoot any better, and unless Grant turns into a lottery pick, we need more inside presence to take the pressure off our offensively limited guards. Even if Cooney turns into a Rautins type, we still need an inside threat to create opportunities and keep the Dukes of the world honest defensively.
What I don’t understand is how ppl don’t think Cooney going to be a better shooter. Did anyone watch MM? Also grant isn’t an outside shooter. If he’s taken anything longer then 12ft he will probably be quickly sent to the bench. BJ could end up being the best shooter but like I said Cooney I think will end up being the best. MCW was pretty dam good can’t hold 1 game against him. He was erratic at times but he also had wow games. I think Ennis will bring a overall steadier performance game to game but I don’t know if will get to many “wow” games if at all. He might not be as tall as MCW but he’s long an will create problems at the top more then ppl think.
I think that a question should be if Jimmy’s zone defense will be as effective in the ACC. These new coaches are far more talented than the Big East bench suits. They aren’t going to just fall into the kind of play that makes the zone somewhat effective. Sure the zone will be a useful defense for a short while but watch the opposition quickly adapt and change their attack. By the end of this season the whole strategy will change playing the Orange Jimmy will need to adjust or begin to lose those big games.