FanHouse NCAA Hoops BlogPoll: No. 25, Syracuse Orange

This week, FanHouse is taking a look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.

Syracuse basketball has had a rough time, the last couple of years. Not nearly as bad as the football side, but it's been disappointing. No one has been better at chronicling the events of Syracuse athletics than Sean of the recently relocated Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician. He offers his perspective on Syracuse basketball for FanHouse.

Have you heard, Syracuse hasn't made the NCAA Tournament in the last two years. And no one on the current roster has won a NCAA Tourney game.

Syracuse fans have heard. Rest assured, so has the team. And all of us are pretty confident that the trend ends this season.

The word of the year last season was ACL. I guess that's actually three words but the point is, we had not one but two devastating ACL injuries to deal with. Starting guard and floor leader Eric Devendorf and three-point specialist Andy Rautins were both lost early on. The bench, which was already thin, was decimated and the lack of depth was obvious. As good as the players left were, too many of them had limited experience and it showed.

It's easy to point to the loss of Donte Greene as a devastating one, he was after all the team's leading scorer and most explosive player. But Donte was also a huge defensive liability (as in, he didn't play any). And with the return of Devo and Rautins, his scoring will be accounted for and then some.

Jimmy B is nothing if not resilient. Amid concerns over his lack of success in the mid-90's, he silenced critics with a run to the '96 Finals. As doubts began to creep back in about his tenure at the turn of the century he led the Orange to the 2003 National Championship. Now, as basketball fans are beginning to once again question Boeheim's relevance, you just get the feeling that he's about to prove himself one more time.

Why they should be ranked here:

On paper, this is an extremely solid basketball team. They have Jonny Flynn on point. Outside scoring threats in Devo and Rautins. A strong inside presence with Arinze Onuaku, Kristof Ongenaut and Paul Harris. The strongest bench it's had in years. Freshman players who are going to make an impact and contribute in Mookie Jones and Kris Joseph. This team has experience, depth and a serious chip on its shoulder...a dangerous combination. All they need to do now is learn how to play together.

Why they should be ranked higher:

Jonny Flynn. He's the best point guard in the country. If you don't know that now, you will by the end of the season. While the Orange have plenty of offensive firepower and different ways to use them, it's the improvements on the defensive side of the ball that make this team so much better than it's predecessors. Gone is Greene's defensive liabilities and instead you have an experienced backcourt alongside a much-improved frontcourt. Say what you will about the zone but there's a reason Jimmy B keeps employing it...when done right, it works.

Why they shouldn't be ranked:

Have you seen the Big East? Sweet sassy molassy that's-a spicy conference. By the time they get into Big East play the Orange will be playing a ranked team two out of every three games. Even really good teams are going to finish conference play with 8-8 records...or worse.

Plus, their out-of-conference schedule is no daisy either. Gone is the much-maligned cupcake schedule that Syracuse has become known for as the Orange will face powerhouses Florida and Memphis as well as pesky Cornell and Cleveland State. It's hard to guarantee that the Orange can make it to the end of the season with a single-digit in the loss column.

This was just a small taste as to why Sean is the best in the Big East blogosphere. You can read much, much more of Sean's fine work at Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician.