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Syracuse’s 3-4 record is its worst through seven games since 2007. That season, Syracuse finished three games under .500, which was the last time the Orange missed an NCAA Tournament. 

Syracuse has seven games left to avoid that same fate. The Orange are currently the only unranked Atlantic Coast Conference team in Inside Lacrosse’s weekly poll, and six of their last seven games are against ranked opponents, with the exception being an April 7 matchup at UAlbany. 

Here are some of the numbers that have defined SU through its first seven games of the year: 

Tucker Dordevic leads the Orange

Dordevic scored a career-high six goals and added a career-high three assists during Saturday’s win over Stony Brook. He won ACC Co-Offensive Player of the Week for his efforts.

Dordevic’s performance, 7.71 Expected Goals Added (EGA), was the second-most in the nation last week, according to Lacrosse Reference. Halfway through Syracuse’s regular season, he ranks 10th in Lacrosse Reference’s Statistical Tewaaraton rankings for offensive players with a 31.9 EGA for the season. 

He’s been a key toward replacing sophomore Owen Hiltz, who had Syracuse’s most goals (29) and second-most points (48) last season. But before the start of the 2022 season, he suffered an upper-body injury in a scrimmage against Michigan and was ruled out for an indefinite amount of time. The Orange also lost leading point-scorer Stephen Rehfuss to graduation at the end of last season. 

Dordevic has stepped up. He’s become the top-assist man and the top scorer for Syracuse, and the offense tends to run through him. When he’s dodging successfully, that tends to open up better looks for others like Brendan Curry, Owen Seebold, Lucas Quinn and Mikey Berkman.

The value of Jakob Phaup

Jakob Phaup ranks fifth in Lacrosse Reference’s Statistical FOGO Tewaaraton, with a season EGA of 32.09. His faceoff win percentage (58.2%) is 18th best in the nation, and once he gets rolling, Syracuse tends to get into a rhythm. 

Saturday against Stony Brook, Phaup struggled in the first half, and SU didn’t lead by more than a goal. But in the second half, he won eight straight faceoffs, and Syracuse produced an 8-0 stretch to run away with the game.

Last year was the worst complete season of Phaup’s career (56.7% of faceoffs won), and this year he’s on pace for his second-worst. But when Phaup can get Syracuse the ball, and the offense can get rolling, the unit ranks 16th in offensive efficiency (34.7%), per Lacrosse Reference. He’s responsible for 23.6% of the Orange’s plays, close to three times more than Dordevic, the second player on the list.

Game control

According to Lacrosse Reference, Syracuse ranks 30th of 73 Division I teams in “game control,” a stat that measures how dominant a team has been. Specifically, it notes how much of game time a team had a win-percentage higher than 75%. Syracuse’s “game control” clip is just 26.5%, and that stat is also likely padded by a blowout win over Holy Cross in the season opener. For context, No. 1 Maryland had a game control rate of 68.1%. 

The bottom line is Syracuse hasn’t been in many comfortable positions this season. It’s rarely been in straightforward spots where a win was a given. Against the top-tier opponents like Maryland and Virginia, Syracuse never had more than a 50% chance of victory, according to Lacrosse Reference. 

Defensive efficiency is still low

At the end of the regular season last year, Syracuse’s defense ranked 67th. During the offseason, SU added defensive coordinator Dave Pietramala to its staff, widely regarded as the greatest lacrosse defender ever. 

For Pietramala’s unit, though, the results haven’t been instant. Syracuse ranks 66th in the nation in defensive efficiency, the 10th-worst in Division I. The change has been miniscule — its defensive efficiency has improved from 36.0% in 2021 to 34.5% in 2022, according to Lacrosse Reference.

Syracuse’s top defensive players have been redshirt freshman Nick Caccamo and Brett Kennedy, who have a defensive EGA of 4.12 and 2.72, respectively. Caccamo missed time early in the year while reportedly still recovering from an injury, but has started SU’s last four contests. After the Stony Brook game, he said the defensive unit is starting to gel together as they get more familiar playing alongside one another.

Struggles clearing the ball

Syracuse ranks 29th nationally in clearing percentage with a rate of 86.2%. That clip isn’t as low as it seems, but that’s because a lot of Syracuse’s clearing mistakes have come at the worst possible times. 

Against Army, there were multiple failed clears early on that contributed to a four-goal deficit. There were four failed clears against Virginia that were costly, too. In the first quarter, Tyler Cordes dropped a pass deep in Syracuse’s end that resulted in a quick, easy UVA goal. 

Syracuse has also gotten past the midfield line multiple times this season and then lost the ball immediately after. Those plays statistically count as clears, but the ball never made its way to the offensive unit. 

Can SU use “strength of schedule” to make an NCAA Tournament case?

The short answer is that it’s possible, if Syracuse can secure a few upset wins in the second half of its season. According to Lacrosse Reference, Syracuse has the second-highest strength of schedule in the nation, behind Notre Dame. The NCAA selection committee uses the stat as a key metric when determining bids and seeding. 

NCAA Tournament teams need to be at or above .500, something that Syracuse isn’t currently through seven games. But if Syracuse can pull out some difficult wins over higher-ranked teams, and can finish above the required .500, it might be able to get into the NCAA Tournament by citing its difficult nonconference schedule as well as a challenging conference one.

Published on March 22, 2022 at 10:05 pm

Contact Roshan: rferna04@syr.edu | @Roshan_f16