Back when Syracuse first joined the ACC, it had a lot of success in mid-season tournaments. Those events helped pave the way for even more successful post-seasons. After the Orange won the 2013 Maui Invitational, they ascended to number one in the AP Poll later that season.
After they won the 2015 Battle 4 Atlantis, they went to the Final Four. After that run in the Bahamas, Jim Boeheim and Trevor Cooney spoke about the hardships of playing three games in three days but admitted it served a larger purpose.
“I think obviously good competition three days in a row, there’s going to be different styles, different types of teams, really good teams, tournament teams, it’s going to help us,” Boeheim said.
“It’s obviously a very tough thing to do,” Cooney explained. “You just have to focus on the first game and you move on from there. Your legs will be there, you just gotta keep playing hard.”
But, since that run in Atlantis in the Orange’s third year in the conference, it’s been a rough go of it, both in and out of the league. And there’s only one reason why according to Syracuse.com’s Mike Waters.
“Syracuse’s program was just on a better footing when they first joined the ACC.,” Waters said. “You’re talking about the 2014 season, their first year in the league, they’re going to win their first 25 games that year.”
Syracuse has never finished with more than 10 wins in the ACC since that inaugural season, and its results in mid-season tournaments haven’t been any better.
Last season’s win over Arizona State in the Bahamas is Syracuse’s only victory in a mid-season tournament since its Battle 4 Atlantis title in 2015, and Waters says that’s to be expected.
“It's kind of what you’re looking at with some of the teams Syracuse has put on the floor the last few years.,” Waters explained. “You don’t expect teams that are going to have just so/so regular seasons to go win these types of tournaments. Teams that finish 8th and 9th in the ACC don’t win early season tournaments.”
The Orange have not finished better than 6th in the ACC since 2014, and there’s a big reason why that is.
“You look at some of the rosters that Syracuse has had the past few years when they haven’t done well,” Waters said about SU’s recent teams. “They haven’t been upset in any of these early season tournaments, they lost to teams that were better than them at the time.”