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The season wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Bowed heads. Fidgeting. Players stuffing game-worn gear into school-brand duffle bags and handing sneakers to team managers.

Reporter questions searching for first-hand analysis on pivotal game trends drew further displays of disappointment. Lengthy sighs. Furrowed brows.

But those painful inquiries are considered the underhand tosses, the softballs. Because following Syracuse’s 83-65 second round exit to NC State in its only Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament game, unanswerable questions surfaced.

What now? What next?

“I’m not answering those questions right now,” sophomore forward Chris Bell said when asked about his future with SU. “I love it here. This is home. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

No decisive responses from anyone. Though Quadir Copeland let slip a seemingly sarcastic verdict about playing under first-year head coach Adrian Autry.

“It was cool,” he said, lacking his usual effervescence. “It was fun. I enjoyed it.”

The suffocating air of the unknown thickened around SU’s locker room at Capital One Arena. Now, 21 days removed, it’s been an eventful offseason. Just not in the way most expected.

Syracuse, largely deemed realistic competitors for the National Invite Tournament crown given its 20-win campaign, rejected a bid on March 17. The reason? A puzzlingly narrow-minded approach that the program’s “only postseason goal was to play in the NCAA Tournament.”

When the transfer portal opened hours later, SU lost guards Copeland and Justin Taylor — two key contributors. They joined former highly-touted, four-star forward Benny Williams, who was dismissed earlier this season due to undisclosed reasons. Backup center Peter Carey announced his departure, too. On Monday, All-ACC Defensive Team selection Maliq Brown followed suit.

Then there’s star point guard Judah Mintz. He returned to Syracuse for his sophomore season to boost his NBA Draft stock after flirting with the professional game last summer. This year, he averaged 18.8 points, 4.4 assists and clinched Second-Team All-ACC honors before the conference tournament — a distinction he was outwardly dissatisfied about — and is expected to test combine waters again come May.

Losses: five (potentially six). Additions: one. Colorado transfer Eddie Lampkin committed to SU after taking his official visit Tuesday night.

And that’s OK.

Because reconstructing a roster — and succeeding — isn’t a foreign concept for Autry. Less than a year ago, he inherited a promising young squad from Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim and retained eight players.

Autry returned every member of Boeheim’s coveted six-man recruiting class in 2022, which ranked 21st nationally, according to 247Sports. And in the portal, he brought in four high-profile transfers — J.J. Starling (Notre Dame), Naheem McLeod (Florida State), Kyle Cuffe Jr. (Kansas) and Chance Westry (Auburn) — to complete an impressive new-look side. It was a practically perfect offseason for the new head coach.

Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry paces down the sideline during Syracuse’s Feb. 7 home win over Louisville. Aidan Groeling | Staff Photographer

The results? Well, barring a few uncontrollable season-ending injuries to McLeod and Westry: SU’s most conference wins (11) in a single season since 2013-14. First victory against an AP top-10 team — SU beat then-No. 7 ranked North Carolina 86-79 on Feb. 13 — since 2019. Regular season sweeps over Pittsburgh and now-Final Four team NC State.

Autry was asked to evaluate his inaugural year at the helm after Syracuse’s ACC Tournament defeat:

“On this journey, when you get your opportunity as a head coach, you learn a lot,” he said. “I was proud to have this team, I was lucky to have this team.”

And an assessment of his players’ growth throughout this past season?

“This was a team that I needed. I thought we were all good for each other, but to put everything into context right now is a little difficult for me to do,” Autry said. “I love this team. I love their fight. I love everything about this team. I love the coaches on this team. That’s one thing I can say.”

It’s a love that’s likely tested, though. And it’s easily noticeable when tuning in to most SU games. Constant on-court bickering. Poor body language. A pile-up of embarrassing 20-plus point losses to Virginia, Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest and plenty more forgettable defeats.

Syracuse’s season-ending loss was more of the same. Archaic outlet passes careening out of bounds. Self-inflicted miscommunication leading to wasted transition opportunities. Careless turnovers gave way to 30 fast break points for NC State. Looks of bewilderment shared between Mintz and Autry eliciting animated disagreements on play calls.

Beaten by the eventual bid-stealing champions? OK. You can live with that.

But surrendering a 21-2 second-half run and resorting to childish intra-squad squabble as the game clock dwindled? That marks the resurfacing of a now-unsalvageable issue. One that must be acted on in the offseason.

“Togetherness. As a whole. Especially when things get rough on the court,” Starling said when asked about what went wrong versus NC State. “A lot of things can happen over the course of a game and it’s easy to lose yourself in that. And that’s what we kind of did today…”

“I guess you can attribute that to maturity.”

So, concern amid the excess of Syracuse’s departures — and the lack of incoming talent — should be tempered. Autry’s learning what works. The impatient sophomore core he led for year one had its highs but lacked discipline and consistency.

There’s been a concerted effort in the portal to mend these issues. SU has shown interest in Mount St. Mary’s guard Dakota Leffew, UNC Greensboro forward Mikeal Brown-Jones and Hofstra guard-forward tandem Jaquan Carlos and Darlinstone Dubar — all junior transfers and older.

Lampkin — a fourth-year player — became the Orange’s first commit out of the portal. A welcome quality shared between most of these targets? Hungry, hard-nosed, experienced mid-major players fit to plug the errors of this season’s personnel.

But they’ll be responsible for teaching SU’s newest recruiting class too. McDonald’s All-American Donnie Freeman is a freakishly athletic 6-foot-9 wing and the program’s highest-ranked incoming freshman since DaJuan Coleman in 2012. Consensus four-star guard Elijah Moore recently scored an unfathomable 67 points in a high school game and is considered one of the best shooters in the country.

In terms of those already in Autry’s system, Starling quietly blossomed into a steady double-digit scorer and Bell cemented himself as one of the nation’s premier outside shooters. Cuffe Jr. fought for solid rotation minutes and offered reliable stretches on the defensive end. Westry, a 6-foot-6 combo guard and former four-star prospect, shoulders lofty expectations.

Most signs lead to a pretty quality SU squad.

Autry’s trial run was a fun one to follow. Only now, his early offseason actions have shown that he isn’t shy from doing things his way. It’s been a long-vocalized want since his infamous apology to Syracuse University after losing 99-70 at Wake Forest on Feb. 3.

“We’re gonna work. We’re gonna work, and we’ll keep working,” Autry said postgame. “We’re gonna work to my standards.”

It’s not to say that the season wasn’t an accomplishment, nor should we deflect blame on the players and their performance. Once 2024-25 beckons, SU’s roster will be unrecognizable.

But Syracuse will be OK because a lot clicked this year. Master recruiting yielded high-profile newcomers. There was the implementation of an exciting high-paced offense and optimistic-looking man-to-man defense.

Autry understandably said the future was “hard to even think about right now” following the Orange’s loss to NC State. Now, things are trending in a different, yet correct, direction — Autry’s direction — even if it may not look encouraging.

So, in terms of what’s next? Well, buckle up and believe.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that Judah Mintz made Third-Team All-ACC honors. Mintz made Second-Team All-ACC honors. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Tyler Schiff is a Senior Staff Writer at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at trschiff@syr.edu or on X @theTylerSchiff.

Published on April 4, 2024 at 12:00 am