I can't believe A) how much time I wasted on this (which is, admittedly, woefully simple) and B) how difficult it is to find the conference totals for points scored and opponents scored for each team for each season*, which I didn't and that kills some of the thunder. Anyway, using
basketball pythag to get an idea for total points needed next season. Syracuse scored 1,370 points in
conference last season and gave up 1,357. This gives them an expected win-loss record of .533. They finished 10-8 for winning % of ... .555. They probably could have a lost one more, finishing 9-9, but they pulled a couple of late minute comebacks off. Close enough. That was okay enough for a top-7 finish tied with three other teams and 1 loss away from finishing 10th.
Let's say Brooky is right and the defense is just killing it next season. We'll say that they improve by 10% (or 130 fewer total points allowed), which puts them slightly better than the defense of the previous two seasons (15-16 and 14-15)**. Anyway, in order to be a top-5 team, they'll need say 11 wins, 12 would be better, but generally 11 wins gets you top-5 in the ACC. Using Basketball pythag, that means that with a defense that allows around 1220 points they need to score around 1,262 points. Or, given 18 games, about 70 points per game.
Here were the top-7 who accounted for 99.7% of Syracuse conference points last season (~75.2 ppg):
1) Andrew White III 20.1
2 )Tyler Lydon 13.8
3) John Gillon 12.5
4) Tyus Battle 12.4
5) Taurean Thompson 8.8
6) Tyler Roberson 5.3
7) Franklin Howard 2.8
In order to meet their goals of 11 wins, SU needs to play good-to-great defense and average around 67.7 ppg with the following crew of misfit toys:
1) Tyus Battle (SG)
18 ppg?
2) Taurean Thompson
14 ppg
3) Franklin Howard (PG)
9.1 (LOL, but that's similar to a Junior Scoop and it would be a huge jump and one that probably hasn't happened before or often)
4) Matt Moyer (PF)
6.1
6) Brissett (SF/PF)
4.8
5) Sidibe (C)
5.0 (better than a frosh Etan Thomas?)
7) Chukwu (C)
2.5 in limited minutes
That gets the team to around 59.5 ppg or about 150 points shy of their goal. They'd need only another 8.3 ppg from two additional players not yet named, but at least one should have the ability to jump in and score. I could see it, but the defense needs to be stellar and I can't remember a lot of great freshman defenders. I'd rather do this with total points, but it's a step in the right direction. It depends a ton on Howard being a competent player for a good chunk of minutes, which is something that he hasn't been shown at all.
*I really wanted to adjust total points based on conference totals, but alas, I can't (e.g, SU's defense was xx% better than the average ACC team, etc). So these are unadjusted.
** Given that scoring has increased throughout basketball and team totals are generally up, I don't think we'll see an SU team hold opponents to less than 1,150 conference points anytime soon.
