After three consecutive losses inside Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) play, the Syracuse University men's basketball team is now 12-8 overall and 3-4 inside the league. With losses against a bad Boston College team and an average Virginia Tech team, the Orange don't look like an NCAA Tournament team, and they appear destined to miss the dance for the fifth consecutive year - unless they can turn it around quickly.

So why should fans still believe in this talented, yet inconsistent group? Head coach Adrian Autry gave his rationale after Saturday's loss against Miami.

Well, I think the one thing is we've shown the ability to be able to play and to win. And also, I think this group will keep fighting, the coaching staff will keep fighting. There's a lot more opportunities out there. The season provides us this year with more opportunities than we've had in the past. So it's still a lot of basketball to be played.

And I think this team, and my coaching staff, we're going to keep working, and I think we can change this and turn this thing around. I know we can. Again, we've been close but it's just we haven't been able to get over the hump yet.

And I think this team has the ability to do it, and we will continue to work and push hard, but the season is far from over with, unlike, years in the past, you know, you would have to basically have to go and do something very hard. But we still got a lot of great opportunities, and this team has competed. We've come up short, so it's there. We just got to be able to do some little things just a little bit better.

The Orange lost 85-76 against the Hurricanes on Saturday. Miami improved to 16-4 overall. The Orange are back in action on Tuesday night at North Carolina State. The Wolfpack are 14-6 and 5-2 inside the league. The ESPN Matchup Predictor gives Syracuse just a 16.6 percent chance of winning the contest.

Tip-off is slated for 7:00 p.m. ET and the game will be aired on ESPN U.

The Syracuse women's basketball team will play the University of North Carolina on Sunday afternoon at 12 p.m. ET. The game was moved up two hours before the snowstorm that is barreling down on the East Coast. The Orange are 16-3 and 6-2 inside league play.

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