How damaging is Syracuse’s loss vs. BC to its March Madness hopes?
Syracuse’s second Quad 3 loss of the season to Boston College Saturday moved its KenPom ranking from No. 58 to No. 68. Leonardo Eriman | Senior Staff Photographer
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CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Adrian Autry doesn’t care if it’s a Quad 4 or a (nonexistent) Quad 10 game. He’s frustrated after every loss.
“I know everyone is caught up in Quad 1, Quad 2. I’m caught up in wins and losses and how my team is playing and how we get better,” Autry said. “It’s very frustrating to lose a game, right? Quad 2, Quad 3, you know, we lost the game. We’re in conference play right now.”
But the reality — in today’s landscape, where the NCAA Tournament selection committee uses metrics to determine which teams make March Madness — is that not all losses are created equally. For example, a Quad 3 loss to Boston College (like the Orange suffered on Saturday) is not the same as a Quad 1 loss to Houston (like the Orange suffered in the Players Era Festival).
Quad 1 losses — which come in the most challenging matchups — are forgiving. On the other hand, Quad 3 losses — which come in weaker matchups — sting.
Heading into Conte Forum to face BC (8-10, 1-4 Atlantic Coast), Syracuse (12-6, 3-2 ACC) was ranked No. 58 by KenPom. Following an overtime upset loss, the Orange moved down to No. 68. Conversely, after losing in overtime to the Cougars in November, SU rose from No. 61 to No. 51 — despite losing.
“It’s tough to lose games like this, especially when you’re supposed to win,” Donnie Freeman, who scored 19 points but had seven turnovers, said postgame.
This is now the Orange’s second Quad 3 loss, as they were also upset by Hofstra — causing them, at the time, to go from No. 67 on KenPom to No. 75 — at home last month.
A second Quad 3 loss makes Syracuse’s margin for error down the stretch to shrink further in a potentially make-or-break year for Autry. Still, SU isn’t dead in the water.
Last season, ACC-foe North Carolina received the final NCAA Tournament bid. Despite going 1-12 in Quad 1 games, the Tar Heels went 21-1 in Quad 2, 3 and 4 games (with the one loss in Quad 3), getting their resume just across the finish line.
Across Quad 2, 3 and 4 games thus far, Syracuse is 11-2 — which looks good, but it’s already one more loss than UNC had last year. And that’s with SU still slated to play five Quad 2 games and another Quad 3 one.
To go by the Tar Heels’ playbook and sneak into March Madness, Autry’s squad would have to win all six of those matchups plus more, considering the added weight of another Quad 3 loss.
That would start by doing what North Carolina didn’t do: win more than one Quad 1 game. The chances are there for the Orange, who right now have seven such games remaining on their schedule. And while there were missed opportunities across the way en route to four such losses, SU already has a Quad 1 win against Tennessee.
“We got a lot of great opportunities, and that’s the thing that I told our guys,” Autry said.
Of course, as Autry should know well, with a 4-21 record in Quad 1 games in his three seasons as the Orange’s head coach, winning them is easier said than done. But for Syracuse to snap its five-year NCAA Tournament drought, which is the program’s longest drought in over five decades, it needs to.
For as bad as Quad 3 losses are, Quad 1 wins are how teams can overcome them. When SU defeated the Volunteers, its KenPom ranking rose from No. 71 to No. 62 — a similar margin to the one it lost against the Eagles.
Right now, it’s difficult to quantify the percentage chance — which as it stands would be highly unlikely — that the Orange will return to the NCAA Tournament. What can be said for sure, though, is that those odds decreased further from losing a Quad 3 game to Boston College when they were already on the outside looking in of the bubble.
Great opportunities await Syracuse going forward. If the Orange can pull out some key Quad 1 wins, they’ll have a chance.
But if Autry continues to struggle to win the big games, and even the Quad 2 ones, the losses to Quad 3 teams could be influential in a potential decision for his alma mater to look in another direction at head coach.
Only time will tell, but right now, SU has a lot of work to do to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021.
