Syracuse opened its 2024-25 season on Monday night with a shaky performance against Le Moyne, but ended up hanging on for a 86-82 win. To get more perspective on the game and also take a look at the rest of the season, we discussed the matchup on today's Juice on the Cuse Podcast, presented by Rivals and Bleav, with Syracuse.com's Mike Waters.

"I think there’s areas of real concern here," Waters said. "In the two exhibition games, Adrian Autry talked about the defense. It wasn’t great. And you kind of figured they’d turn it up a notch in the opener. And they didn’t. Is it fixable? I would think so. If you look around at the team, they’re athletic enough, they’re big enough. But they have to play with more intensity."

There are several key games on the non-conference slate (Texas, Tennessee, Maryland) that represent resume building opportunities for the Orange, but Waters is taking a more myopic view of schedule after the initial game.

"I think we might have learned in the opener against Le Moyne, we can't approach the season that way (of looking too far ahead in the schedule)," Waters said. "After watching them against Le Moyne, the most important game Colgate. You can't take anything for granted. If you lost that game against Le Moyne last night, that would've dashed their NCAA hopes. They need to approach Colgate with a lot more intensity than they did Le Moyne."

Among other topics we discuss include who will be Syracuse's go-to player in the clutch, how the offense will gel, and we also discuss Gerry McNamara's first win as a head coach at Siena.

You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Juice on the Cuse Podcast,” a Syracuse Orange podcast presented by Rivals.com, by subscribing to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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