Syracuse Men's Basketball Opted Out of NIT

Syracuse men's basketball has released a statement regarding the Orange not being included in the NIT field, stating it opted out prior to the field being selected. This statement was provided to All Syracuse from an SU Athletics spokesperson. 

"We respect the NIT but our only postseason goal was to play in the NCAA Tournament. Therefore, we communicated to the ACC we would not participate in the NIT."

It was a very up and down season for Syracuse, the first in the post Jim Boeheim era with head coach Adrian Autry leading the Orange. He navigated the team through a lot of adversity, including an injury to starting center Naheem McLeod, Chance Westry not being available all season, the dismissal of Benny Williams and being forced to play players out of position in order to field a team.

Syracuse started the year 3-0 before heading to the Maui Invitational. The Orange was blown out twice by highly ranked Tennessee and Gonzaga, but finished the rest of the non-conference slate without a loss. That included wins over LSU, at Georgetown and Oregon on a neutral floor.

The schedule then turned to conference play, where Syracuse appeared to be out of NCAA Tournament contention after losing four of six with the setbacks coming to Florida State, Boston College, Wake Forest and Clemson. Then the Orange picked up its biggest win of the season by knocking off then seventh ranked North Carolina in the JMA Wireless Dome.

That was followed by a disappointing loss at Georgia Tech before four straight wins would set up critical games at Clemson and in the ACC Tournament. Unfortunately, Syracuse would lose to the Tigers and against the Wolfpack in the ACC Tournament to spoil those hopes.

Still, it was the best regular season in a decade and there is a lot of positive to gleam from the first year of the Adrian Autry era. A critical offseason now awaits.