during the slide when did you first start to think...

[CorduroyG]

holy c.rap, this isnt just a little shooting slump, this is really who we are (which is not very good) and we could easily get bounced in the 1st weekend?

for me it was the nc state game in acc tourny. i was able to make excuses for every loss. BC? egh, pressure of being undefeated got to them, they were bound for a stinker. duke? bs charge call, should have won. virginia? yea we got blitzed in 2nd half but were winning at halftime and was a 1 pt game with 12 minutes left. and no grant in 2nd half, final score wasnt as bad as it looked. ga tech? ok at this point i started really worrying but still no grant, at full strength we'll be fine. and the fsu game really restored my faith in the team, grant and bmk were back, we played well, scored above 70, we're gonna get our 2nd wind at the right time...then the nc st game happened and that convinced me we just arent that good. there were zero excuses that game. well rested, full strength, mediocre opponent, first acc tourny game in our history, coming off a big win where we seemed to get back on track, and we're gonna play like that? had low expectations for a deep tourny run after that game.

 

[PauliePeppas]

Ga Tech game

 

[Chris02M]

tech at home

 

[orangefan13]

Probably the duke loss for me. fair 3-15 a few games late, jerami losing his midpost dribble drive, and cooney not getting his shot off late in the year.

I felt gbinije(maybe the most athletic guy on syracuse), ennis, and rak were making good strides late in the season though. We had potential.

 

[SoBeCuse]

NC St. at home. They had some crazy travel scenario and flew in a few hours before the game. Barely won that game and that was the third game in a row scoring in the 50s. Those were the 'bad' wins and there obviously is such a thing.

 

[Timonen]

The Miami wins. The BC road win. The nc state win. I enjoyed every second of the streak but didn't think we could maintain it.

 

[Oakland]

About the 5 games into the ACC season.

holy c.rap, this isnt just a little shooting slump, this is really who we are (which is not very good) and we could easily get bounced in the 1st weekend?

for me it was the nc state game in acc tourny. i was able to make excuses for every loss. BC? egh, pressure of being undefeated got to them, they were bound for a stinker. duke? bs charge call, should have won. virginia? yea we got blitzed in 2nd half but were winning at halftime and was a 1 pt game with 12 minutes left. and no grant in 2nd half, final score wasnt as bad as it looked. ga tech? ok at this point i started really worrying but still no grant, at full strength we'll be fine. and the fsu game really restored my faith in the team, grant and bmk were back, we played well, scored above 70, we're gonna get our 2nd wind at the right time...then the nc st game happened and that convinced me we just arent that good. there were zero excuses that game. well rested, full strength, mediocre opponent, first acc tourny game in our history, coming off a big win where we seemed to get back on track, and we're gonna play like that? had low expectations for a deep tourny run after that game.

 

[cuseattle]

Never. I thought we could make the final four and even win it all with some luck. Always thought all the guys might get hot at the same time.

 

[Brooky03]

GT

 

[SoBeCuse]

Never. I thought we could make the final four and even win it all with some luck. Always thought all the guys might get hot at the same time.

Wow! You tell 'em...

 

[AlaskaSU]

About the 5 games into the ACC season.

Me to; all the close games without one blowout of a good team told me that we had problems such that it was very improbable that we would be NC, but I did not think that we would not respond after our traditional mid Feb. swoon.

 

[cto]

St Francis game. That was the beginning of a string of really lucky wins. People would say to me: "Wow, Syracuse is undefeated and Number 1." And I would reply that we weren't as good as our record might suggest. Seriously, I had no delusions about the team all season. The flaws were so apparent.

 

[PoppyHart]

St. Francis. Good teams don't struggle like that at home.

 

[OrangeYaGladi]

Dayton game, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it)

 

[two3zone]

St Francis game. That was the beginning of a string of really lucky wins. People would say to me: "Wow, Syracuse is undefeated and Number 1." And I would reply that we weren't as good as our record might suggest. Seriously, I had no delusions about the team all season. The flaws were so apparent.

This is the exact moment for me as well, don't think I ever left the dome disappointed about a W until that day.

 

[Briancuse]

The nc state game. Coming off a huge win, Nc state playing terrible at the time, and with all the travel issues they had, the fact that they pretty much outplayed us, raised a lot of red flags.

 

[pearl31]

St. Francis. Good teams don't struggle like that at home.

Nah, they just crush Villanova and score 91 on Duke instead.

 

[pearl31]

Here's the thing…
I was all ready to throw in the towel after GT but then @ Fla St happened - the team made shots, scored int he 70s, Jerami was back healthy-ish, the team easily handled a desperate bubble team on the road.
I honestly thought we had regained our footing at that point.

 

[manleyzoo]

holy c.rap, this isnt just a little shooting slump, this is really who we are (which is not very good) and we could easily get bounced in the 1st weekend?

for me it was the nc state game in acc tourny. i was able to make excuses for every loss. BC? egh, pressure of being undefeated got to them, they were bound for a stinker. duke? bs charge call, should have won. virginia? yea we got blitzed in 2nd half but were winning at halftime and was a 1 pt game with 12 minutes left. and no grant in 2nd half, final score wasnt as bad as it looked. ga tech? ok at this point i started really worrying but still no grant, at full strength we'll be fine. and the fsu game really restored my faith in the team, grant and bmk were back, we played well, scored above 70, we're gonna get our 2nd wind at the right time...then the nc st game happened and that convinced me we just arent that good. there were zero excuses that game. well rested, full strength, mediocre opponent, first acc tourny game in our history, coming off a big win where we seemed to get back on track, and we're gonna play like that? had low expectations for a deep tourny run after that game.

Cornell. (Not really, only kidding). No offense but anyone who says they knew from the St. Francis game is full of it. Every good team has a game like that at least once early in a season, there was no way to tell anything from that game and no way to believe it was an omen of doom, especially considering right afterwards we beat a bunch of good to pretty good teams--Minnesota, Cal, Baylor, Indiana, St John's, Villanova--all of which likely would have killed St. Francis.

The game that made me go hmmmm... was the first BC game when we couldn't defend the 3 and had no way to score, and the reason I noticed that game was because it was a league game. If BC can give us trouble, we can lose to anyone I thought.

Frankly, I never thought this was one of JB's better coaching jobs. It's one thing to believe in what you're doing not to want to change it up, but when Coleman went down and Baye got hurt, the coaches should have had a plan B in place but they didn't. This team could have used a plan B. It might have maximized what they had rather than shrunk them like plan A did.

 

[dollarbill44]

It had to be the LeMoyne game. No way does a top program lose to LeMoyne at home. I don't care that it was an exhibition game, I knew right then that we would struggle in this year's NCAA tourney.

 

[SoBristol]

JB said (several times, in the midst of the streak) that the team could have lost 5 or so of those mid-season games to unranked teams. Big clue there. Did you think he was blowing smoke?

We saw vs. St John's that this team could struggle for long periods against mediocre teams. No scoring off the bench; not much inside scoring other than Grant; Cooney could be shut down; no other 3 point shooter. Starting to look vulnerable, but saved by elevated play from Ennis & Fair in the final 5 minutes of games.

Close wins against bad teams (BC stands out) made me a skeptic.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Here's the thing…
I was all ready to throw in the towel after GT but then @ Fla St happened - the team made shots, scored int he 70s, Jerami was back healthy-ish, the team easily handled a desperate bubble team on the road.
I honestly thought we had regained our footing at that point.

Many here thought the BC, Ga Tech, etc games were flukes. In reality, the FL St was the fluke.

 

[NineOneSeven]

I was aware of it from the St Francis game, but definitely after the first half of the BC game (if you recall, I made a thread about it mid-game).

"It doesn't matter how you win". My least favorite phrase of all-time (sports-related).

 

[igor]

next year we'll do good early on, but we'll plateau and become helpless twenty odd games into the season. that is when a good man team exposes us as in we have no offense other than one on one

 

[TinyManInside]

Honestly the game against ND was the first one that really scared me. The whole team was completely flat other than Cooney, who put on an heroic show. It just felt like the offense bottomed-out in that game and it never got back on track. Cooney going into the tank after that really hurt the team. The BC win backed up those feelings to me. I've never been a big believer in the 'a win is a win' mantra, at least not when you're stringing them together one after another.