Welcome, friends. This is the alternate reality. Syracuse is now a football school.

The Syracuse Orange traveled to Knoxville for the SEC/ACC challenge. The No. 3 Tennessee Volunteers started off shooting slowly, but a convincing and dominating second half put the game to bed quickly. Tennessee eased its way to a 96-70 victory, dropping Syracuse to a 4-3 record to start the season.

Here’s our three takeaways from Syracuse’s biggest loss of the season so far:

What is the basketball equivalent of “If you’re a goaltender, TEND THE GOAL!”?

I imagine it goes along the lines of, “If you’re a basketball player, take care of the basketball!”

You cannot give Tennessee the ball so freely like Syracuse did. And it wasn’t as if Tennessee was playing other-worldly defense. The Vols simply took advantage of lazy and simple mistakes that Syracuse had on the offensive end. The Orange could have been leading at the end of the first half, given the Tennessee shooting performance. But the lack of ball security started the Tennessee snowball and gave the Volunteers a comfortable cushion to explode into during the second half.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome

I was excited when the first looks at Jaquan Carlos were revealed. He seemed like the type of point guard that Syracuse has been missing for quite some time. The play making and distribution was something Orange teams in the past and present needed to feed the score-first players on the roster.

However, seven games now into the season, and it’s getting increasingly harder to justify his time on the court. If Adrian Autry wants to use Carlos like 2015-16 DaJuan Coleman and initially start him for games, that’s fine. But there is no reason why Carlos should have played the 37 minutes that he did against Tennessee.

James made a good point in our Nunes chat – Carlos isn’t the reason Syracuse lost this game. However, while he statically had one of his better offensive games in an Orange uniform, he hasn’t been the consistent play maker and table setter for Syracuse yet. Add to that the defensive struggles he continues to show, and Carlos is not making a great case for himself to earn more playing time or a more increased role on this team.

GET TO THE CHOPPA

Has anyone told Arnold about Elijah Moore?

We’re seeing a young man really mold himself and get comfortable in the college game quickly. It started with the confidence against Cornell. That confidence oozed and bled over into the Tennessee game. Moore was Syracuse’s best player by far, scoring 24 points on 8-12 shooting and 3-6 three-point shooting.

Someone on Syracuse has to step up with J.J. Starling’s hand injury keeping him out for an indefinite period of time. While logic would dictate that Chris Bell would be that person, Moore provides the more well-rounded and all-around scoring ability that Starling brings. Even through the screen, you can feel that Moore is ready to take the reigns and command the attention of the ball. He looks ready to lead Syracuse’s offense, and that should be a welcome sign to Orange fans.