Syracuse basketball fans tend to feel it is better to be 'off the radar' and unranked when a season starts, rather than highly ranked. The consensus seems to be that Boeheim's underrated teams over perform, while his highlly rated teams under perform. How relevant is that feeling?
In Boeheim’s career, the Orangemen have started the season ranked 26 times, not including this year.
18 times in his career the team underachieved per the rankings; seven times by 10 or more ranking positions. This gets a little distorted because if you start in the top 5 it is tough to move up; the Orange have started in the top 5 four times (and in once case overacheived, 2011-2012 where they started at 5 and ended at 3).
17 times in his career the team has overachieved per the rankings. Again, seven times by 10 or more ranking positions
9 times a team started the season unranked, and finished the year ranked in the top 25. In 2009-2010 they started unranked and finished at #3. In his first season, 1976-1977, they started unranked and finished at #6.
8 times a team started the season ranked, and finished the year unranked in the top 25. The worst drop was in 1977-1978 where they started at #11 and finished unranked.
Really, it seems as if the number of over performing teams is equal to the under performing.
Boeheim’s Final Four teams:
1986-1987 started at #15
1995-1996 started unranked
2002-2003 started unranked
2012-2013 started at #9
2015-2016 started unranked
The Final Four trend is the most interesting to me. Three of those five teams started the year unranked. Only the 2012-2013 team had a reasonable expectation to make it.
The Orange start 2016-2017 as the #19 team in the country. Not highly ranked, nor totally off the radar.
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