Dominant Freeman, underwhelming bench define Syracuse’s 12-6 start
Syracuse men’s basketball is on track to miss a fifth straight NCAA Tournament, despite Donnie Freeman’s strong sophomore campaign. Leonardo Eriman | Senior Staff Photographer
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A once-proud Syracuse basketball program is doing its best to disappoint … for the fifth straight season.
Through 18 games, Adrian Autry’s squad is 4-6 against Quad 1-3 opponents and 8-0 versus Quad 4s — aka, the worst of the worst. A quarter of the way into Atlantic Coast Conference play, SU has significant ground to make up. The Orange are 74th in the NET Rankings, 69th on KenPom and 60th on EvanMiya. Their reprehensible loss to Boston College over the weekend could be an inflection point for an inspiring turnaround, or another NCAA Tournament-less year.
Here are a few other numbers defining Syracuse’s (12-6, 3-2 ACC) 2025-26 campaign thus far.
Freeman’s 5.63 BPR
To start with a positive, star forward Donnie Freeman is tearing up the ACC in his sophomore season. If you look beyond his 20.2 points per game, 7.3 boards per game and slight improvement from 3-point range, Freeman’s advanced numbers also rank among some of the best in the ACC.
EvanMiya assesses players based on its Bayesian Performance Rating statistic, or BPR, which measures an individual’s overall on-court offensive and defensive value. Freeman’s 5.62 BPR — a well above-average figure — is the highest of anyone on Syracuse.
His offensive (OBPR) and defensive (DBPR) performance ratings of 3.10 and 2.52, respectively, also pace the Orange’s entire roster.
Freeman’s excellence is especially impressive considering he missed nine games due to a right foot injury before returning on Dec. 31.
0.45 average bench player BPR
Autry is adamant Syracuse possesses top-tier depth. The numbers say otherwise.
According to EvanMiya’s BPR, the Orange’s five most-played bench players — Tyler Betsey, Kiyan Anthony, Sadiq White, Akir Souare and Bryce Zephir — average an overall performance rating of 0.45. If you take out Zephir, who averages 5.6 minutes in 13 appearances, SU’s average bench player performance rating would still be a lowly 0.64.
Betsey’s 1.54 BPR is the best of the bench. Anthony’s -0.55 BPR is the team’s lowest total.
Betsey, though, is a huge minus defensively, owning Syracuse’s worst DBPR (-0.35) and its only defensive rating in the negatives. The metric indicates most of its bench regulars are struggling offensively: White (-0.51), Anthony (-0.70) and Souare (-1.08) all have OBPRs below zero.
It makes it all the more puzzling why Autry rotated to his bench earlier than expected in a majority of Syracuse’s contests this season. After its damaging loss to BC — where the Orange turned to reserves early despite taking a sizable lead that soon evaporated — Autry said he has to rely on his bench for his team-building philosophy to take full shape.
“This team is good, and this team is going to be good because of our depth,” Autry said after Saturday’s game. “I’m not going to stop playing guys, alright?”
The two rookies SU expected a lot from this season, Anthony and White, are coming off a game where they combined for two points and zero made field goals.
“I know that they’re frustrated,” Autry said on Monday’s ACC Coaches Call. “As a freshman, this is something different, different territory. But (I’m) just really kind of talking them through that and challenging them every day.”
68.0 adjusted tempo
Autry wants the Orange to play fast. Though things have improved since Freeman got back in the mix, Syracuse is still a middle-of-the-pack team when it concerns pace.
Per KenPom, SU’s adjusted tempo (AdjT) of 68.0 ranks as the No. 160 fastest pace in the nation. Last year, a season in which Autry documented inconsistent tempo as a problem Syracuse needed to fix for 2025-26, the Orange’s 68.4 AdjT finished 124th in Division I.
It’s gotten worse.
When SU’s offense does try to play fast, it often struggles and carelessly coughs up the ball. The Orange have a 17% turnover rate and their transfer point guard Naithan George commits the second-most turnovers per game (3.38) among all Power Four players.
You can’t play fast if the ball is in the opposition’s hands.
45.7% effective field goal percentage allowed
SU’s saving grace is its defense. Thus far, it’s held opposing teams to a 45.7% effective field goal percentage, per KenPom, which is good for the 13th-best shooting defense in the country.
It makes plenty of sense, considering Syracuse’s frontcourt of Freeman and center William Kyle III is among the country’s most menacing. Kyle’s 2.9 blocks per game is tied for second in the nation, while Freeman’s presence has contributed largely to the Orange’s opponents shooting 44.8% from 2-point range, the country’s No. 11 inside the arc shot defense.
Add J.J. Starling’s steady defensive improvement and George’s reliability, particularly with swiping the ball away, Syracuse has a defense it can hang its hat on.
27.3% 3-point scoring distribution
A key area the Orange needed to improve upon from their last two years under Autry was 3-point shooting. But roster changes such as bringing in Oregon State transfer Nate Kingz and Betsey — a Cincinnati transfer — aren’t resulting in better production beyond the arc.
Syracuse scores 27.3% of its points on 3-pointers, one of the more uneven 2-point versus 3-point scoring distributions in D-I. The nation’s average is 31.4%.
It doesn’t get offense off 3s as often, because it isn’t super efficient at shooting them. SU’s 33.2% 3-point clip ranks 218th in the nation.
Betsey (40.0%), Kingz (34.4%) and Freeman (34.4%) have been solid from downtown, though, and Kingz’s 5-for-6 day on triples against Boston College was a major step in the right direction.
62.8% free-throw rate
Of course, it would be impossible not to include Syracuse’s downright abysmal free-throw shooting. Its 62.8% free-throw percentage is the second-lowest rate in D-I, per KenPom, ranking 364th out of 365 teams. The ghastly figure is also the worst free-throw rate in the ACC.
Zoey Grimes | Design Editor
The Orange have lost multiple games directly because of this near-team-wide epidemic. On Nov. 24 against then-No. 3 Houston in Las Vegas, Syracuse missed 17 free throws in an eventual four-point overtime loss. What could’ve been SU’s biggest win since the Jim Boeheim era became a crushing hypothetical.
This past Saturday in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, Syracuse went 14-for-22 from the free-throw line in its 81-73 loss to Boston College. Eight missed free throws; eight points separating SU from BC.
