Now that baseball season is finally over and football players are dropping like flies, we look towards an intriguing basketball season. We’ll start the annual preview with projected starters today and catch you up on the bench players on Monday along with a preview of the season opener against Albany.

After reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time in five years, the Orange lost its top three scorers in the offseason of 2009. Despite losing Jonny Flynn to the lottery and Paul Harris and Eric Devendorf to, well, let’s just call them “other basketball pursuits,” nearly every spot in the starting lineup for 2009-10 is spoken for. Right now, it’s hard to tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing – is it because there is a stable of talented players who are ready to lead the team, or is the quality of depth that makes for exciting competition within the roster just not there yet, or perhaps some combination of both? Whether the players are ready or not, they are tasked with the challenge of replacing over 55% of the team’s offensive production from 2008-09.

On the whole, expect to see a very long, efficient zone d and an offense dependent on scoring in transition and post play, in stark contrast to last year’s collection of slashing guard play and shoddy defense.

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The Orange finally get out of the Dome and hit the road to try and secure Marrone’s first signature victory against the Pitt Panthers.  It will be real interesting this week to see how the team responds to yet another spat of suspensions and the final exit of Mike Williams.  Read along with LVilleOrange and Reyes39 to know all you need for this Saturdays game.

When: November 7th, 2009 – 12:00 PM

Where: Pittsburgh, PA at Heinz Field

Capacity: 65,000

Television: ESPNU

Pittsburgh Reading Material (via pacusefan): Pittsburgh Reading Material

The Spread: The line opened at Pitt -18.0 but has quickly risen to Pitt -21.5

Rivalry info: This will be the sixty-fifth meeting between these schools.  Pittsburgh owns a 31-30-3 advantage in the series and has won the last four and last 6 out of 7 against the Orange.  Syracuse is 677-477-49 all time. Pittsburgh is 661-477-41 all time.

Coaches: Pittsburgh -Dave Wannstedt – 5th season at Pittsburgh (32-24 overall.) Syracuse- Doug Marrone – 1st season at Syracuse (3-5 overall.)

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By now, those who didn’t watch SU lose to the LeMoyne Dolphins Tuesday night have heard about it, whether they wanted to or not. Yes, it’s an exhibition game, maybe the team learns from the exposure of several of its flaws (including but not limited to inexperienced guard play, AO still isn’t near 100%, and in the interim, the team has no go-to scorer outside of Wesley Johnson), but teams as storied and tradition-rich as Syracuse don’t lose to Division II teams, even in a down year - at least, they have no business doing so.

There are some rumblings that Jim Boeheim coached this game differently than he would a regular season or postseason game. For instance, going with man-to-man defense for extended periods of time, and calling a timeout after making the go-ahead basket with 17 seconds left in the game, giving LeMoyne a chance to set up a final play. The theory is that in doing so, Boeheim challenged his players on defense, serving them a nice plate of humble pie and brought them back down to Earth. Time will tell if that lesson was effective, but generally, don’t teams wait until after the first 15 minutes or so of the game when it is a blowout with the outcome out of doubt to do things like that? 

For now, the front desk has made the wake-up call, but will the players answer the phone? Do they jump out of the bed and get ready for the day or do they hang up the phone as quickly as they pick it up and reach for the snooze button?

Just as soon as one Mike Williams leaves Syracuse, another is waiting in the wings. Monday morning, the SU faithful were awoken to a new commit, the Orange’s first of the recruiting class of 2011: combo guard Michael Carter-Williams of St. Andrew’s School in Barrington, Rhode Island. If that school is ringing a bell, it’s the alma mater of Demetris Nichols.

A relative unknown, at least compared to his 2011 counterparts Tony Wroten, Trevor Cooney and LaQuinton Ross, the book on Carter-Williams is that he is a guard who can score in a plethora of ways – pulling up, stepping back and launching the three. He doesn’t have Flynn-type quickness that allows him to explode through the lane or the build to withstand contact on the way, but he is very hard to defend when he’s on.

The elephant in the room is Carter-Williams’ lack of size, as he weighs in at 6’4″ and 155 pounds – picture Eric Devendorf  minus 20 pounds and you have a passable idea of his build.  With two years before he arrives on the hill, he has plenty of time to improve his physique.
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This picture should explain it all quite nicely…

Smooth move exlax, that sound you hear is your draft stock hitting rock bottom.

It was fitting that this last game versus Cincinnati fell on Halloween.  There were all sorts of ghosts, goblins and other assorted scary images that can easily be tied to this game.  I have a lot of tricks and treats in my bowl to hand out after this one, so let’s get right to it.

Bearcats spook Cuse (AP/Rivoli)

First off, I want to pass out some treats. I’ll start with Offensive Coordinator Steve Spence. Spence gets little mention around here, but I really liked his game plan. We had some really nice drives and the Orange was able to mix up the run and pass, keeping the Bearcats offbalance. I liked how we got some straight handoffs for Antwon Bailey as he did a nice job averaging nearly 5 yards per carry. Throw in solid 7-14 on third down it was a nice day for the OC. Give Spence a 100 Grand bar for the effort.

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