The Syracuse Orange open the 2017-18 preseason tonight with the first of a pair of exhibition games. Southern New Hampshire University, which shocked John in being a college that physically exists, enters as one of the better Division II basketball programs for a 7 p.m. tip-off at the Carrier Dome tonight.
But the opponent and lower expectations, combined with Orange football competing with top-10 teams, gives Syracuse basketball something they haven’t had in a long time: a low-key entrance.
Jim Boeheim and the team have 27 days to sort through lineups, plays and get into their defensive movements at game speed before the first significant opponent, Maryland, comes to the Carrier Dome.