At the time Syracuse went to the ACC, the Big East was going through a period of poor management and the football teams were looking for a bigger payday. Syracuse moved to the ACC, Maryland moved to the Big 10 and the Big East went through some ugly growing pains with Louisville, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh getting snatched up by the ACC. Big East recovered after a long while with some quality teams staying, some new teams entering and one or two old schools returning. They are rebounding (with the exception of Georgetown).
Syracuse football went flat and Syracuse basketball followed with the Cuse not getting/ recruiting the type of players they were used to. The NCAA penalties went a big way to harm Syracuse.basketball and no team has been affected as bad as unfairly Since. Recruiting got harder against NC and Duke more so. Seem like Duke would leave Syracuse in the dust on players Syracuse needed and Duke were ambivalent on.
Even with former rivals Pitt, BC, Louisville, and to a lesser degree Notre Dame, Miami and VA Tech in the ACC, Syracuse misses the Villanova, St. John’s., Seton Hall, UConn, etc rivalries From the Big East. Syracuse really has not established any true rivalries with any of the older ACC teams.
‘’Summary: financially Syracuse benefited in the move to ACC but was hurt in football recruiting to the point they are considered ACC never was’es or underdogs but ACC football overall degraded. with respect to Syracuse basketball, recruiting is where they were not considered a shining light and the coaching once a gem actually got stale and ineffective.
Personally, I wished that Syracuse and the later Big East teams that moved to the ACC stayed in the Big East and rode out the bad times. Hindsight, however is just that looking back and wishing for the best which takes too long to materialize and drastic moves are necessary.