Jim Boeheim's 40th season as the head coach at Syracuse just might be his most difficult yet.
For a team that knew it would eventually need to spend a quarter of the 2015-16 season without its head coach, though, the Orange certainly hit the ground running.
After knocking off Connecticut and Texas A&M to win the Battle 4 Atlantis and open the year on a six-game winning streak, Syracuse entered the month of December ranked No. 14 in the AP Top 25. Outside of maybe Xavier, there wasn't a more unexpectedly impressive team in the country than the Orange.