Syracuse men’s basketball: the Orange’s full 25-26 schedule by the numbers

A new Syracuse Orange men’s basketball season sits one step closer to tipping off, and with the upcoming year looming, the 2025-26 schedule continues to be the talk of town.

With the Orange’s ACC portion of the schedule officially set, the fans now know the path that lies ahead from middle of fall to spring (sans one game…). It’s time to put some numbers and context for the whole slate, from start to finish. Here are some figures to digest as the new men’s basketball season inches closer.

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(Writer’s note: this exercise will not include the game versus St. Joseph’s given the recent uncertainty with if that will happen. Just know St. Joe’s is No. 100 in Bart Torvik, and that for Syracuse, the game would drop to Q3 level if this gets rescheduled as a home game for the Orange. It would be a high Q3/borderline Q2 if it stays as a neutral-site.)

Merging our previous analysis of the non-con schedule with Syracuse’s ACC schedule, let’s begin with the projections from Bart Torvik. Here is what that looks like:

To crunch all that down, the Bart Torvik projections break down as follows:

• Seven of Syracuse’s opponents rank in the top-25. Four of them are in the ACC: Duke (road), Louisville (road) and North Carolina (x2).

• Another three ACC schools Syracuse will play — Virginia, NC State and SMU — rank in the top-50.

• The majority of Syracuse’s ACC schedule sees the team playing opponents that are this gigantic, middle-of-the-pack in the rankings. For context, Bart Torvik is ranking the Orange at No. 63. Over half (10) of Syracuse’s 18 opponents sit between No. 52 and No. 87, according to Bart Torvik.

• Just one opponent — Boston College — sits outside the top-100.

Using just Bart Torvik, there’s a couple pieces of the ACC schedule that will really define just how good the Orange are in 2025-26. One key stretch is the first seven in-conference games Syracuse is set to play. On paper, Syracuse’s toughest opponent is Clemson (No. 52). The Orange then get five straight opponents who rank No. 73 or lower (including three that are No. 85 and lower) before wrapping up this portion of the schedule versus Miami. That’s two fringe bracketology teams (Clemson and Miami) sandwiched between a handful of teams who are in that big pack in the middle of the conference.

The other is probably the last five ACC games heading into the conference tournament. Three of Syracuse’s top-25 Bart Torvik opponents are in this stretch. Two of those games (Duke and Louisville) are on the road. The other pair of opponents is a road game versus Wake Forest (doable, but “trap game” potential written all over it) and Pittsburgh at home (away from the Pitt of Doom… but still, it’s Pitt).

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Switching over to specifically on bracketology, it’s a similar trend there as well. Syracuse will play 12 of its 29 games (41%) against teams ESPN’s latest bracketology update has projected to make the NCAA Tournament (or at least close to doing so) — Houston (one-seed), Duke (one-seed), Tennessee (three-seed), Louisville (five-seed), Kansas (six-seed), North Carolina (six-seed), NC State (seven-seed), Miami (Last Four In), SMU (Last Four In), Clemson (Next Four Out) and Virginia (Next Four Out).

Using the quadrant system paired with the Bart Torvik numbers, Syracuse’s full schedule (again, not factoring in the St. Joe’s game or the third TBD opponent in Vegas) ultimately breaks down to this:

The final tally for the Orange:

• Ten Q1 games (seven versus the ACC): six on the road, two neutral-site and two at home

• Eight Q2 games (all versus the ACC): six at home, two on the road

• Three Q3 games (all versus the ACC): two at home, one on the road

• Eight Q4 games (none versus the ACC): seven at home, one on the road

Now it’s your turn: what stands out from the schedule the most to you?