Coming off its second straight Atlantic Coast Conference championship, No. 5 Syracuse (10-4, 2-2 ACC) plays Colgate (4-9, 2-6 Patriot) in the Carrier Dome on Saturday at 1 p.m. Before the Orange matches up with the Red Raiders check out three questions facing SU.

1. How did Syracuse pull off this feat of winning the ACC championship after a relatively lackluster season?

Connor Grossman: There’s a better reason than Evan Molloy’s emergence in net, although his performance can’t possibly be understated against two of the country’s best offenses. Ben Williams has been SU’s rock at the X the past two seasons. He’s been one of the best in the country at his position. But there’s a glaring weakness. He knows it. He assumes opponents know it. His performance at the end of games has been dismal at times. In Syracuse’s overtime losses to Johns Hopkins and the Blue Devils, Williams folded in the fourth quarter and overtime. The game-changing faceoff has seemingly always been out of his reach. But in the ACC tournament, there was nothing he had to reach for. There were no late comebacks, largely because of his dominance late in the game that held opponents at bay. He combined to go 9-of-13 in the fourth quarter in the conference tournament to seal the Orange’s title. That’s as encouraging a sign as any from this past weekend.

Jon Mettus: Syracuse has always had the potential, it was just a matter of putting the pieces together. The Orange was ranked No. 4 prior to the year and started out 5-0 before hitting the rough stretch against Johns Hopkins, Duke, Notre Dame and Cornell that had people wondering if it was even an NCAA tournament team. Three of those developed from blown fourth-quarter leads into overtime losses. What you’re seeing now is a much improved defensed spurred by the emergence of Molloy in net. Without him, SU doesn’t win the ACC title, which is why he was voted MVP. SU has a spread out attack that’s hard to stop and Williams is back in his groove at the X.

Paul Schwedelson: I’m going to be the corny guy here, but every roundtable needs that guy anyway, right? Defense wins championships. And that’s what happened. Molloy played absolutely out of his mind with impressive save after impressive save. But then he also kickstarted Syracuse’s offense and directly contributed to at least two goals in the title game. His MVP honors are 100 percent deserved. And the Orange’s slide-and-recovery game really picked up. Deemer Class and Myles Jones, one of the best offensive midfielder duos in the nation, were held to just two goals and no assists. North Carolina’s Michael Tagliaferri and Luke Goldstock combined for no goals. All in all, it came down to SU’s defense.

2. Can Syracuse carry over its level of play from the ACC tournament to the NCAA tournament? Why?

C.G.: It’s hard to argue that it won’t, especially when Syracuse put it together against two elite teams in the span of three days. But the NCAA tournament is a different animal. Just ask last year’s SU team that shocked the college lacrosse world with a loss in the quarterfinals. Sure, a fortified defense and goalie situation probably gives the team more confidence than it had a month ago. But the NCAA tournament selection committee likes to avoid early-round rematches. SU’s best asset against Duke and UNC was familiarity. There’s only so much that can be extracted from two exciting ACC tournament wins and a sure-fire game against Colgate on Saturday. The unknown is what will stop Syracuse.

Courtesy of Michael J. Okoniewski | Syracuse Athletic Communications

J.M.: Syracuse is a wild card going into the NCAA tournament, as is UNC, which SU beat to get to the conference title game. This has been a weird season of lacrosse as a whole and the Orange kind of epitomizes that. You couldn’t watch the last seven minutes of the ACC championship on TV, but it was probably the best stretch of lacrosse for the Orange all season. Five unanswered goals to turn a one-score game into a near-blowout. A 4-for-5 performance at the X by Williams. SU is peaking right now and its ceiling is high. But one slip up would likely mean an early exit from the tournament. Ultimately, though, if Molloy continues to play lights out, the offense will find a way to score and the Orange will be a very tough team to beat.

P.S.: Absolutely. Syracuse’s downfall earlier in the year was never a lack in ability. It just hadn’t made key plays down the stretch of games. Against Duke in the ACC championship, Williams won 7-of-8 faceoffs in the fourth quarter. The Orange scored five straight goals after the weather delay to bury the Blue Devils. Things are coming together for SU at the right time of year and that’s what head coach John Desko had been preaching since January. Replacing five of its top six scorers from last year was a daunting task and it seems as though Syracuse is really clicking now.

3. What is Syracuse’s biggest weakness now that the goalie/defense situation seems to be settled?

C.G.: In a convoluted sort of way, the depth of the Orange offense might emerge as team’s biggest weakness in the NCAA tournament. As it looks on paper, the team boasts one of the most spread out offenses in the country. Usually a good thing when the whole operation isn’t a one-man band. But against a lockdown defense (Notre Dame and its 7.75 goals allowed per game, for example), can someone like Sergio Salcido or Tim Barber take the reins on offense? If primary attack threats Nick Mariano and Dylan Donahue are shut off, the reliability of SU’s secondary offensive pieces seems questionable. To spin the question a different way, this scenario is going to be the team’s greatest test heading into May. It might stand as the biggest weakness if SU’s not playing on Memorial Day weekend.

J.M.: I still think Syracuse’s biggest weakness is its defense — Molloy excluded — specifically, its man-down defense. Don’t get me wrong, the D is much improved from the one we saw blow multiple late leads in the middle of the season, but the Orange has allowed man-up goals on more than 47 percent of its opponents’ chances. That percentage ranks 62nd in the country. Four of North Carolina’s seven goals in the ACC semifinal game came on the man-up, which was the only reason the Tar Heels were still in the game. With SU averaging three penalties per contest, a poor man-down showing can easily spoil an entire game.

P.S.: I’m still interested to see how Syracuse’s offense will do against a top-tier defense. So far this season, the Orange has only played two teams ranked in the top 25 in goals allowed per game nationwide. That’s Notre Dame (seventh), which SU scored just seven goals against, and Army (sixth), which it scored nine goals against. In the NCAA tournament, it’s probably going to take 10 goals to win games. Syracuse’s balanced attack with Dylan Donahue running the show and feeding to dynamic midfielders like Salcido and Mariano has been pretty good. But I don’t know if it’s been spectacular. And based on seeding, there’s a chance the Orange will end up playing a team with a stellar defense like Notre Dame, Maryland (ranks tied for ninth), Navy (ranks first), Yale (ranks eight), Loyola (ranks tied for ninth) or Brown (ranks 14th).

Published on May 6, 2016 at 4:41 pm