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Monday against No. 8 Virginia, Syracuse’s 2-3 zone was picked apart by a Cavaliers team that clearly belongs in the top 10, Jim Boeheim said postgame. The Orange lost, 81-58, to the same Virginia offensive look that it used in the Carrier Dome two years prior. 

Sunday, Syracuse (9-5, 3-4 Atlantic Coast) returns home to face an unranked NC State (7-5, 3-4) team that’s without its leading scorer, Devon Daniels, who left the Wolfpack’s most recent game with a season-ending ACL injury. 

Here’s what our beat writers predict will happen as the Orange take on NC State on Sunday at 6 p.m.

Andrew Crane (10-4)
Ahead of the pack
Syracuse 80, NC State 69

Syracuse should win this game, and that would be true even if NC State hadn’t lost Devon Daniels, its top scorer, against Wake Forest. In the final nine minutes without him, WFU outscored the Wolfpack 28-19 and cut a 14-point deficit to five by the final buzzer. That may give the Orange’s defense a bit of a breather, especially since they struggled for nearly the entire game against Virginia with both interior and exterior defense.

As Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim reiterated on his Thursday night radio show, the Orange’s obvious strength this year is its offense, and their obvious weaknesses are rebounding and a sometimes-effective 2-3 zone. The past two games against Virginia Tech and UVA reflect that perfectly. But against a shorthanded Wolfpack, a strong offensive performance by SU should be enough, and it should make it difficult for NC State to keep pace with an offense now looking for a new top scorer. 

Expect NC State to struggle in its first full game without Daniels, and expect Syracuse to win for the third time in four games.

Anthony Dabbundo (11-3)
Different kind of pack
Syracuse 82, NC State 70

The Orange are looking more like last season’s iteration with each passing game. Good offense that’s sometimes great when the shots are falling. Bad rebounding, inconsistent defense and a low ceiling. But the Orange should still cruise here, not quite facing the Virginia pack-line defense anymore. They’ve started games well following each of their losses this season, and I expect the same on Sunday in the Carrier Dome. NC State rode one hot shooting night to beat rival North Carolina, but it’s been sliding badly since and no longer has Daniels.

There’s very much a profile of teams who will dominate this Syracuse defense — elite shooting or rebounding — and the Wolfpack have neither. Syracuse takes a double-digit lead into halftime and rolls back to .500 in Atlantic Coast Conference play in a game it badly needs. This won’t be seen as a good win but a necessary one at home.

Danny Emerman (10-4)
‘How ‘bout that ride in?’
Syracuse 80, NC State 64

This is a bad matchup for the Wolfpack. They’re a good shooting team, but they don’t take enough 3s. They have a 6-foot-11 center, but they don’t rebound particularly well. Those are the two ways to really punish this year’s zone, and NC State will also be without Daniels.

One slight concern for Syracuse is Manny Bates. The center is third in the nation in block percentage (14.1%), so some of the shots at the rim that seemed to come so easily against Virginia Tech could be tougher. Establishing an inside presence is key for an SU group that’s been inconsistent from 3-point land, but Bates stands in the way of that.

Published on January 30, 2021 at 6:01 pm