Special Seasons (updated)

[SWC75]

I first posted this six years ago, after we'd won the Big East Tournament for the second straight year and lost in the first round of the NCAAs for the second straight year. We have had such a great year so far and yet seem to be scraping by game after game the thought that our great season could have a sudden and disappointing ending is inescapeable, (but not inevitable). I've always believed in having multiple goals for a season. It's so easy to get beat in a single elimination tournament at the end of the year, the season shouldn't be wadded up and thrown in the recycle bin just because of a disappointing ending. Anyway here is what I wrote 6 years ago, followed by an update and some re-thinking of the subject:

SPECIAL SEASONS

I don't accept the view that the only thing that means anything is the NCAA tournament. That's too limiting. The blood, sweat and tears that went into winning the BET mattered. Texas A&M can't wipe away victories over Cincinnati, Connecticut, Georgetown and Pittsburgh.

To me the season has four sections. The first is what I call the preseason: The exhibitions games, the early tournaments and the games against the "December" teams. The main point of this period is to find out what kind of a team we have. JB gets to play everybody and see who his best combinations are. The players are auditioning for playing time in the more important games to come. The games vs. the good teams in a tourney like the preseason NIT give the team a chance to test itself against top teams and see what they've got to work on. If we beat Florida, great. If they pull it out in the end, it's not all that critical. (Unlike in football where national title dreams can go down the drain in August.)

Then comes the Big East regular season, which is actually the best test of how good your team is. One bad game doesn't knock you out. But if you don't have a good team, you'll get worn down and the losses will pile up. If you can get through the season with no more or fewer conference losses than any other team in a conference like the Big East, you have a heck of a team.

Then comes the conference tournament. It's not just a second chance for teams that are on- or even not on- the bubble to have a shot at the "big dance" or a battle for seeding. It's a battle between the finished teams, no longer a work in progress, going up against multiple rivals. It features the best basketball games you will see all year.

Then comes the NCAA tournament and chance for real glory. I just hope that when it's over we have the feeling that we went as far as we could go. It doesn't usually work out that way. Losses usually are games where you feel the team could have played better. If you can get a memorable run or even win the thing, fine.

Any season where we can win the Big East regular season title or the BET is a "special" season. Looking at NCAA results, I think the cut off for a “special” season should be not the national championship or the Final Four but the Elite 8. That allows us to honor the 1966 team with Dave Bing and Jim Boeheim that averaged 99 points a game and really put SU basketball on the map. It also allows us to honor the beat team before that, (in the NCAA tournament era, anyway), the 1957 team that lost to undefeated national champion North Carolina in the Eastern Regional title game. I’d also like to honor the Louie and Bouie teams that were not in the Big East until their Final year but had three top ten teams, so I’m going to include any team that finished in the final top ten rankings of either the writers or coach’s polls. Finally, let’s reach back and include the two Helms National championship teams, teams chosen as the best in the country prior to the creation of the NCAA tournament, (even if they were selected by a committee many years later), and our only undefeated team.

So, these have been the "special" seasons in Syracuse University basketball history:
1912-13: SU went 12-0 under Coach Edmund Dollard, led by our first All-American, Lew Castle
1917-18: 16-1 Helms National Champions. Dollard was still the coach and Joe Schwartzer was the All-American.
1925-26 19-1 Helms National Champions. Lew Andreas was the coach and Hall of Famer Vic Hanson was the star.
(SU had many good teams in the next 30 years, including the “Reindeer Five” that went 18-2 in 1929-30 and the Bill Gabor team of 1945-46 that went 23-4 only to be upset in the first round of the NIT by none other than Muhlenberg, coached by “Bud” Barker, who was an assistant coach on Ben Schwartzwalder’s football team and would follow Ben to SU. But these teams didn’t accomplish quite enough to be historically remembered.)
1956-57: 18-7 Lost to UNC’s 32-0 national champions, 58-67 in the Eastern Regional Finals. SU’s first ever NCAA team. Imagine if they’d had Jim Brown who quit the team because Coach Marc Guley wouldn’t put three blacks in his starting line-up. Vinnie Cohen was the star. He’s still got the third best scoring averages for a season for an SU player, 24.2. I wonder what his “net points” were.
1965-66: 22-6 This team had our greatest ever player, Dave Bing, scoring 28.6PPG as the team set a (since broken) NCAA record with a 99 point per game average. They lost to Duke in the Eastern Regional Finals, 81-91.
1974-75: 23-9 Our first Final Four team, they also finished with a #6 national ranking in the polls.
1976-77: 26-4 The Louie and Bouie show debuts. The season ended with a disappointing loss to North Carolina Charlotte in the Sweet 16 but also with a #6 national ranking.
1978-79: 26-4. After losing to St. Bonaventure and Western Kentucky to knock themselves out of the top ten the previous year, this team returned to the top ten with a final #8 ranking, even though they lost to Penn in the Sweet 16.
1980: 26-4 Regular Season Co-champions in the Big East’s first season, they finished #6 national ranking but again lost in the Sweet 16 to Iowa. The Hawkeyes, like the 49ers, Quakers, went on to the Final Four.
1981 BET champions
1986 Regular Season Co-champions
1987 Regular Season Co-champions, Made it to the NCAA Title Game
1988 BET champions
1989 Maybe our strongest team. Won 30 games but didn’t win the BE regular season or tournament. But we made it to the Elite 8
1990 Regular Season Co-champions
1991 Regular Season Champions
1992 BET Champions
1996 Made it to NCAA Title Game
1998 Regular Season Co-Champions
2000 Regular Season Co-Champions
2003 Regular Season Co-Champions, NCAA champions
2005 BET Champions
2006 BET Champions.

Now you could take a more restrictive view. Maybe 1987, 1996 and 2003 are the only "special" seasons. Maybe only 2003 qualifies. To me that seems the road to constant frustration, one in which we can't enjoy our success any more than, say Rutgers, does. If they hope to win 20 games and do, it's a huge season for them. They rarely do. If we deny the above list of accomplishments, we are having no more fun than Rutgers. Ultimately, you can’t win the Big East in December, the BET in January or February or the NCAAs in New York. You can only concentrate on what is in front of you: building the team, winning the conference, winning the BET, making an NCAA run, when it’s time to do those things. Each accomplishment ought to matter.
　
　
Update: 2009-2010 was also a special season: we won the Big East title outright, we ranked #1 for a time and wound up with a Final ranking of #8. We are likely to win the Big East outright again this year, (we are up two games on Marquette with three to go for us and four for them.) So that's two more "special seasons".

Rethinking it a bit, I feel that there a few too many "special" seasons on the above list. At the time I'd made it, we'd won the Big East regular season outright only once so I included our 7 co-championships. We seem about to get out third outright BE regular season title and that's a good enough total I feel we can set the co-championships aside at this point. Also, I wanted the Elite 8 in there primarily to incldued out 1966 and 1989 teams. But is the Elite 8 really that "special"? Or being in the Top ten? Remember we are judging Syracuse, not Colgate. Also, you numerical record can be a product of your schedule, so maybe where you were ranked matters more than an undefeated record. Two Helms National champions, three outright Big East regular season titles, five BET championships and four Final Fours seem like enough "special" season to celebrate and keep them truly special. I now think our "special" seasons are:

1918 Helms National Champion
1926 Helms Naitonal Champion
1975 Final Four
1981 Big East Tournament Champion
1987 Final Four (title game)
1988 Big East Tournament Champion
1991 Big East Regular season (outright)
1992 Big East Tournament Championship
1996 Final Four
2003 Final Four- National Champion
2005 Big East Tournament Champion
2006 Big East Tournament Champion
2010 Big East Regular Season Champion (outright)

That seems to me a tighter, strong list. There are some fine teams that didn't make it and some seasons that had some great moments in them that aren't there but those are our "special seasons". Our magic number ot add to it is "2".
　

 

[pfister1]

Have we ever won an Outright Big East Regular Season and Big East Tournament Championship in the same season?

After a quick look at Orangehoops.org, I think the only time we've won multiple championships in the same season was '03 when we won the Big East regular season and National Championship.

 

[SWC75]

Have we ever won an Outright Big East Regular Season and Big East Tournament Championship in the same season?

After a quick look at Orangehoops.org, I think the only time we've won multiple championships in the same season was '03 when we won the Big East regular season and National Championship.

We tied for the Big East West title title that year with Pittsburgh at 13-3. Both records were better than anyone in the East. We do have a habit of winning different things in different years, (which makes one wonder what mgiht happen in the post seoasn this year). But it gives us a lot of memorable years.

 

[skurey]

I have a strong feeling we won't win the BET this year, and I'm never wrong so lock it up.

But seriously, for matter of perception it goes NCAA > BE season > BE tournament

It stinks that your team is typically rated by their performance in a high pressured one and done format. But that's what also makes college basketball and the tournament the greatest sporting event ever.

As for excitement I'd say NCAA > BE tournament > BE season

The night games starting with the quarters are the closest thing to rival the NCAA tournament. MSG is truly a special place.

 

[HoustonCuse]

Interesting. You've identified 13 historic or special seasons. Lets just assume that this will be #14, knock on wood. Then 5 of them will have occurred in the past 9 years. That's 36% of our great seasons in a span that represents just 11% of the program's history. Quite an amazing run that we are in the midst of (even if we are only like 2 - 8 against Looevil during the same period!!)

 

[pfister1]

Interesting. You've identified 13 historic or special seasons. Lets just assume that this will be #14, knock on wood. Then 5 of them will have occurred in the past 9 years. That's 36% of our great seasons in a span that represents just 11% of the program's history. Quite an amazing run that we are in the midst of (even if we are only like 2 - 8 against Looevil during the same period!!)

I guess it goes to show that beating Louisville isn't all that special.

 

[moqui]

2006 was a "special" season all right, but not in a positive way . . . 7-9 in conference to end what was the nation's longest streak of 25 consecutive seasons of .500 or better in conference play. One of only 7 squads in Boeheim's 36 seasons to lose 12 or more games

2006 marked a special week at MSG, but the season as a whole was a turd that does not deserve to be on that list.

 

[SWC75]

2006 was a "special" season all right, but not in a positive way . . . 7-9 in conference to end what was the nation's longest streak of 25 consecutive seasons of .500 or better in conference play. One of only 7 squads in Boeheim's 36 seasons to lose 12 or more games

2006 marked a special week at MSG, but the season as a whole was a turd that does not deserve to be on that list.

Was last seaosn a "special" season for Connecticut after they finsihed 9th in the Big East? Was the 1975 season when we unranked going into the tournament after some disappointing regular season losses? I think a season can be redeemed and made "special" byu a post season achievement.

 

[moqui]

Was last seaosn a "special" season for Connecticut after they finsihed 9th in the Big East? Was the 1975 season when we unranked going into the tournament after some disappointing regular season losses? I think a season can be redeemed and made "special" byu a post season achievement.

UConn's season was special because they won a national title . . . had they lost their first game after winning the BET, it would not be remembered as one of their "special years." Same if the 75 team had lost in the first round rather than going to the Final Four.

The 2006 team stunk all year, pulled off a miracle 4 games, then stunk again in the NCAAT.

If you are going to call a team that finishes below .500 and loses in the first round of the NCAAT "special," then you have lowered your standards so much as to make the list pointless.

It was a special week, even doubly so for the thousands of McNamaniacs, but it was most definitely not a special season.

 

[SWC75]

UConn's season was special because they won a national title . . . had they lost their first game after winning the BET, it would not be remembered as one of their "special years." Same if the 75 team had lost in the first round rather than going to the Final Four.

The 2006 team stunk all year, pulled off a miracle 4 games, then stunk again in the NCAAT.

If you are going to call a team that finishes below .500 and loses in the first round of the NCAAT "special," then you have lowered your standards so much as to make the list pointless.

It was a special week, even doubly so for the thousands of McNamaniacs, but it was most definitely not a special season.

The team wasn't special but the season was, at least by the critieria I estalbished. If you have a different set of criteria, please share them with us. Mine was based on certian accomplishements. If they were accomplished by a team that "stunk", they were still accomplished.

 

[CorduroyG]

I think you need 2 of the 3 to make it a special season (ill give 2010 a pass cuz of the ao injury, that was definitely a special season up to that point). I dont consider the 2005 season a special season either. Pretty sure they underachieved during the regular season, werent they ranked preseason top 5? And i recall that team losing almost every big game they had in the regular season. They beat all the teams they should beat, but lost to all the top tier teams until beating uconn in the BET. Then of course the vermont debacle.

 

[moqui]

If you have a different set of criteria, please share them with us.

I guess it is all semantics, but to me, the word "special" means, well, special. You have defined it down to have occurred slightly more than once every 4 seasons in the JB era.

For me, special means a very high achieving team - one that spends most of the season very highly ranked or one that excels in the NCAA tournament.

The BET and the NIT aren't worth a warm bucket of spit, IMO.

There are plenty of memorable squads, but few truly special ones.