The college basketball season is fast approaching in central New York, which means the Syracuse Orange are about to take the court.
College basketball will be fueling New York sportsbooks on the national front, but you can't bet legally on Syracuse and other college programs in the state.
Few programs have featured as rich a tapestry of success and tradition as the Orange over the past four decades. They have reached three Final Fours and four Elite Eights this century, along with capturing the program’s lone national title in 2003.
The Orange also happen to have the current leader in career coaching wins in Jim Boeheim, who enters his 46th season after going 16-17 and missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years a season ago.
Entering the 2022-23 season, Boeheim’s bunch find themselves listed at +20000 on BetMGM Sportsbook New York to bring home the program’s second national title, ranking in a tie with programs like BYU, Iowa State, Arizona State and LSU.
Ranking the Elite
Syracuse, for all its success on the JMA Wireless Dome hardwood, came up short when EmpireStakes.com broke down its list of current college basketball “blue bloods,” thanks in large part to its lack of title game appearances over the past decade.
Using 2012 as a starting point, we looked at various categories of college basketball success to determine the threshold a program must reach to be considered for “blue blood” status.
Points were awarded to each program in the following areas: championship wins (10 per win), championship appearances (5 per appearance), Final Four appearances (4 per appearance), NCAA Tournament appearances (1 per appearance) and Top 25 recruiting classes (1 for each).
A program needed 35 points over the span of 2012 to 2022 to be considered a college basketball blue blood.
College Basketball’s Current Breed of Elite
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Orange On Outside Looking In
The Orange finished with 19 points in our rankings, outside our list of blue bloods, but still comfortably successful and ahead of teams like Ohio State and Arizona.
The main hang-up for Syracuse was the fact everyone above it had more NCAA title game appearances and championships — with Villanova scoring the most points of any team in the latter category (20), thanks to its two recent titles. North Carolina scored the highest title game points (15), thanks to making it three times between 2012 and 2022.
Kansas’ ability to hoist the 2022 title and make it to two title games (2012 and 2022) bolstered its total, while Duke’s ability to score well across all five of our metrics allowed it to breeze into the fifth spot.
The final “blue blood” program by our metrics (Louisville) did so, thanks to its 2012 national title and pair of Final Four appearances (2012 and 2013).
Syracuse, meanwhile, couldn’t make up enough ground to catch up, as its two Final Four appearances in 2013 and 2016 gave it eight points, but the zeroes in the title game appearances and championships categories held the program back.
Boeheim and company also weren’t helped by missing the Big Dance three times in the course of the past 10 events.
Luckily for Syracuse fans, the Orange return to the hardwood on Nov. 7 against Lehigh, kicking off what should be another anticipated season of basketball in the region.
