A new Syracuse Orange men’s basketball season is inching closer to starting, and fans now know how one prominent ranking feels about the team heading into 2025-26.
Syracuse will start the upcoming year
ranked No. 68 overall in KenPom, including No. 49 overall in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 100 in adjusted defensive efficiency.
The Orange sit as the 10th-best team in the ACC, according to PenPom’s initial numbers. That’s just ahead of four other ACC teams — Georgia Tech (No. 70), Virginia Tech (No. 71), Miami (No. 76) and Notre Dame (No. 77) — and several spots behind Pittsburgh (No. 63) and Virginia (No. 59).
Duke, who is No. 7 overall, starts off the preseason as the first-ranked ACC team. The Blue Devils are followed by Louisville (No. 14), Clemson (No. 32), North Carolina (No. 33) and NC State (No. 38) in the top-five in the conference.
All 18 ACC teams rank top-100 in the metric, with Florida State at No. 96 rounding out the list.
Using KenPom’s new preseason numbers, here is what Syracuse’s full schedule for the 2025-26 looks like:
Syracuse’s non-conference schedule projects as expected with the KenPom rankings, with the team opening the year with four opponents ranked No. 205 or worse in the metric, including two ranked outside the top-320. After that comes the gauntlet stretch that includes three top-25 KenPom teams — No. 1 Houston, No. 21 Kansas and No. 9 Tennessee (with one Player’s Era Tournament TBD game between Kansas and Tennessee). The Orange then round out non-con with five more games, none against an opponent ranked inside the top-100 and two outside the top-300.
The conference schedule opens up with Clemson, who KenPom is very high on. After that, Syracuse has a stretch of six straight games in January where it plays conference opponents ranked between No. 63 and No. 96. Five of the Orange’s final six ACC games are against the higher ranked teams and definitely looks like a key stretch, playing No. 43 SMU, No. 7 Duke, No. 33 North Carolina, No. 49 Wake Forest and No. 14 Louisville before wrapping up with No. 63 Pittsburgh.
Last year, Syracuse finished No. 115 in KenPom, including No. 106 in offense and No. 152 in defense. According to the numbers, the 2025-26 Orange project as a much better offensive team with some improvement on defense, and now comes the question of will that translate onto the court.
Syracuse will play two exhibition games at the end of the month, then kick off the new year versus Binghamton on November 3 in the JMA Wireless Dome.
