After a four-day wait following a loss to Pittsburgh in the ACC tournament Wednesday, the NCAA Selection Committee picked Syracuse as a 10 seed in the Midwest region.

The Orange (19-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) will face seventh-seeded Dayton (25-7, 14-4 Atlantic 10) in St. Louis on Friday. SU’s last NCAA Tournament game — before a self-imposed ban kept it out last season — was a loss to the Flyers in the Round of 32 in 2014.

Now Syracuse has a chance at revenge, and here’s a few immediate thoughts on how Dayton and the Orange match up.

The essentials

Dayton

Final RPI numbers: No. 21 in final RPI rankings, 0-3 against teams in RPI top 25, 3-2 against against RPI teams 26–50, 6-0 against RPI teams 51–100

Best wins: 82-77 win over Iowa on Nov. 26, 72-67 win over then-No. 21 Vanderbilt on Dec. 9, 85-79 win at St. Bonaventure on Jan. 19, 68-67 overtime win over Virginia Commonwealth on March 5

Worst losses: 61-57 loss at La Salle on Jan. 9, 75-66 loss versus Rhode Island on Feb. 27

Last game: Lost 82-79 to St. Joseph’s in the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament on Saturday.

 

Daily Orange File Photo

Syracuse

Final RPI numbers: No. 71 in final RPI rankings, 2-5 against teams in RPI top 25, 3-1 against RPI teams 26–50, 3-4 against RPI teams 51–100

Best wins: 79-76 over then-No. 18 Connecticut (eventual American Athletic champions) on Nov. 26, 74-67 win over then-No. 25 Texas A&M on Nov. 27, 64-62 win at then-No. 20 Duke on Jan. 18, 81-66 win over then-No. 25 Notre Dame on Jan. 28

Worst losses: 79-72 loss at Georgetown on Dec. 5, 84-72 loss at St. John’s on Dec. 13, 74-73 overtime loss to Clemson Jan. 5

Last game: Lost 72-71 to Pittsburgh (third loss to the Panthers on the season) in the second round of the ACC tournament on Wednesday

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Three immediate thoughts

1. Charles Cooke versus the Syracuse zone

Cooke leads Dayton in scoring, averaging 15.7 point per game, and shoots an efficient 41 percent from 3. That means Cooke has the potential to stretch out the Orange zone, and he can also go off the dribble and create scoring opportunities going to the rim. And if the SU defense focuses too much on Cooke, Flyers guard Scoochie Smith (averaging 11.7 points per game) shoots a respectable 37.3 percent from 3 and can assume the role of zone buster. How Dayton matches up against the zone starts with Cooke, but it certainly doesn’t end there.

2. Trouble with the Orange’s (contingency) plan

From the start of the season, Syracuse has been labeled — and often labeled itself — as a team that lives and dies by the 3. It hasn’t been particularly consistent during a 1-5 skid to end the season, and the backup plan, unsurprisingly, has been to go off the dribble and work the ball inside. That is very hard to do against the Flyers, which ranks 21st in the country in defending 2-point shots, according to Kenpom.com. Dayton’s tough interior defense is led by 6-foot-11 redshirt freshman Steve McElvene, whose block percentage of 10.8 ranks 14th in the country, according to Kenpom. The Flyers rank an average 182 out of 351 Division I teams in defending 3-pointers, but the Orange is prone to go cold regardless of the defense in front of it. Not being able to comfortably score inside against Dayton could be a big storyline come Friday.

3. Who will control the tempo, and what will it be?

According to Kenpom, teams use an average 19.2 seconds per possession against Syracuse, which is the highest in the country. Opposing teams don’t play much faster against the Flyers’ man-to-man defense, using 18 seconds per possession (ranking as the 305th slowest in the country). But unlike the Orange, Dayton plays at a relatively quick pace at 16.6 seconds per possession (96th fastest in the nation). It would seem, at the onset of this matchup, that an all-around slower tempo favors an SU team that is used to playing at an average-to-slow speed and is considered to be more offensively efficient than the Flyers. The numbers tell us that this will be a slow game, but it could be a savvy coaching move for Dayton head coach Archie Miller to try and prove those numbers wrong.

Published on March 13, 2016 at 7:14 pm