The Syracuse Orange have been staring something like an ACC Tournament 8-seed in the face for some time now. But then, Pitt pitted.
The Panthers lost to Virginia Tech Wednesday night and that creates a four-team 9-8 bottleneck in the middle of the ACC standings (SU, Pitt, VT and Clemson). That also means that while North Carolina, Miami, and Virginia are locked into the top three spots, Duke (11-6) and Notre Dame (10-7) are battling it out for the fourth double-bye.
As for what this means for the Orange, it means that the team can potentially work their way all the way up to the fifth-seed if they play their cards right.