The past week for Syracuse basketball has been, well rather awful. Brycen Goodine, Jalen Carey, Howard Washington and even Brendan Paul all announced they are leaving the program. The reasons for leaving seem pretty obvious as all four players are looking for playing time elsewhere. So the roster for the 2020-2021 season is going to look pretty different. There is still the question of if Elijah Hughes will return to Syracuse, but let’s just say he leaves for the NBA. This is what the team could look like next season.
PG: Joe Girard
SG: Buddy Boeheim, Kadary Richmond
SF: Robert Braswell
PF: Marek Dolezaj, Quincy Guerrier, Woody Newton
C: Bourama Sidibe, Jesse Edwards, John Bol Ajak
The biggest concern right away is the lack of guards. Even if Hughes returns next season, the only guards for next season are Girard, Boeheim and Richmond. The biggest updates when it comes to Syracuse recruiting is the Orange are in on Harvard graduate transfer Seth Towns and Columbia graduate transfer Patrick Tape. Seth Towns will reportedly make his decision at the end of the week. The only problem is that these two players are both forwards. Not saying the Orange can’t use more help down low, but if the Orange are looking for depth, they need to address the guard positions.
What’s worse for the Orange is that recruiting for the most part has come to a stop with the country and world dealing with the coronavirus. People are told to stay at home and not travel anywhere. So it makes it pretty difficult to convince a player to come to Syracuse via phone call or Skype vs an in home or even campus visit. Every program is dealing with this problem so it isn’t unique to Syracuse. But the Orange still need help this offseason so reaching out to players and trying to gauge what players are interested in your program becomes more difficult.
The good news in all of this is that I mean we are still in March. There is still a lot of time between now and October when the season starts. There are plenty of names in the transfer portal so even if the Orange miss out on Seth Towns or Patrick Tape, there are hundreds of other players out their to recruit. But let’s make no mistake about it. The Orange have a lot of work to do this offseason. They have lost a lot of depth. They could lose the ACC leading scorer. If the Orange want to be even somewhat competitive next season they need to being in multiple players to the program. This is the time where Jim Boeheim and his coaching staff need to get to work. If they fail to bring in any transfers, the Orange could be looking at a rough 2020-2021 season.
