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Syracuse landed their second graduate transfer for the 2016 season yesterday in Andrew White.

Will his signing bolster Syracuse in pre-season rankings and ACC predictions?

To Coach Boeheim, Coach Gerry McNamara, and Coach Hopkins they could care less.

They’re use to it. McNamara’s freshman year in 2003 featured a Syracuse team unranked that went on to win the NCAA title.

In 2009, Syracuse sparked by transfer Wes Johnson went from unranked to top ten in a span of a week with upsets over North Carolina and California.

Johnson keyed the start of Jim Boeheim’s adaptability in the current latter stage of his coaching career.

At the time Boeheim despised accepting transfers. Overall, Johnson was the fifth transfer Boeheim had accepted to the program in thirty-two years at Syracuse.

Two years later in 2011 the Syracuse basketball program was under heat with an 878 APR score, which was the second worst in division one men’s basketball.

Boeheim didn’t budge in his recruiting tactics, instead he has added more walk ons that in turn have kept Syracuse in good standing academically.

The controversy only continued for Syracuse after the dust settled on the Bernie Fine investigation.

Overall Syracuse faced a one-year post-season ban and a reduction of athletic scholarships.

This has forced Boeheim and his staff to have fewer leniencies with players. In 2015, Syracuse lost Ron Patterson and BJ Johnson as transfers.

Two players left again this past off-season as Kaleb Joseph and Chinoso Obokoh transferred from the program.

In my opinion player’s transferring out of the program is not a coincidence.

Joseph and Obokoh transferring combined with the graduations of Trevor Cooney, Michael Gbinje, and Malachi Richardson left Syracuse with five slots to fill via scholarship.
As Boeheim has adapted Syracuse has enjoyed an Elite Eight and two Final Four appearances in the last five years.

Expect that to continue in 2016.