SWC75
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Earlier I did a post called “The Ides of March” to see if any other school that had been to 3 Final Fours in the Boeheim Era had had a roadblock on the way there comparable to our 5-11 record in the Sweet 16. I couldn’t find one. Jim Boeheim, on his show, suggested that a lot of those losses may have been upsets and that you’ve got to look at the match-ups each game entailed. A poster wanted to know how many times we were facing a high seed in that round. There’s also a theory that in the Sweet 16 we are facing a good team that has a week to prepare for the zone defense and thus does better than the poorer teams in the first weekend or the Elite 8 teams, which have only two days to prepare. Of course, we are 3-0 in the National Semi Finals, when an even better team also has a week to prepare and 1-2 in the finals, when an even better team has two days to prepare.
I don’t have all the answers, (our Sweet 16 record could just be a fluke, as rare as it is), but I thought I’d look at our Sweet 16 losses in some detail to see if any trends can be detected. I’m not trying to be a negative Nellie by just looking at the losses: I’m trying to see if there’s any kind of pattern to them that could be related to the Sweet 16 as opposed to another round of the tournament. I’ve re-read the Post Standard/Herald Journal articles, (From the Post Standard Archives at Newspaper.com), on these games and had a look at the box scores to combine with my own memories of them.
March 17, 1977
Syracuse was riding high at 26-3 and ranked #6 in the country. We’d just been to the Final Four two years before with a Cinderella team that wasn’t able to handle the size, talent and depth of the teams there. Now we were on our way back with the Louie and Bouie show, Marty Byrnes, Dale Schackleford, Jim Williams and Larry Kelley. We shocked Tennessee’s Ernie and Bernie show, 93-88 in overtime in Baton Rouge in the Round of 32, (there was no Round of 64 yet). Our next opponent was unranked, (there were no seedings yet) UNC-Charlotte, whose star was someone called “Cornbread” Maxwell, a 6-8 center who would have to go up against 6-10 Rosie Bouie. They obviously had no chance. We could look ahead to the regional finals, where we’d likely face #1 Michigan, who was playing Detroit in the other regional semi. Detroit’s mouthy coach, Dick Vitale, said that Syracuse and UNC-Charlotte might as well go home because his team’s game with Michigan would determine who would go on to the Final Four. We laughed. If Michigan didn’t shut Vitale up, Syracuse would.
This was the game where I found out that height matters not just in the frontcourt but the backcourt as well. We had an Achilles heel no one had been able to exploit. Jim Williams, (who hated being called “bug”), was lightning quick but only 5-9. Larry Kelley, (brother of later Connecticut star Earl Kelley), was 5-11. The 49ers, (named for the state highway that passes by the campus) had 6-3 Melvin Watkins and 6-4 Chad Kinch. Watkins and Kinch could shoot and pass, (12 for 16 with 12 assists), over Williams and Kelley at will but Williams and Kelley could not do the same with them, (2 for 15 with 4 assists). Maxwell got the ball in favorable position over and over again and got the line 11 times, making every shot from there and scoring 19 points. We fell behind 38-43 at the half and the score just continued to mount until it reached a numbing 59-81 at the final. A blow-out upset. It crushed our new-found self-image as a powerhouse. The 49ers then upset Michigan 75-68 in the regional final and only lost to eventual national champions Marquette49-51 on a lay-up at the buzzer by Jerome Whitehead.
Two things were involved here: a highly under-rated mid-major, much like the ones we’ve seen in recent years, (Gonzaga, George Mason, Butler, VCU and now maybe Florida Gulf Coast), and a match-up problem, this one in the backcourt. Jim Boeheim also credited their zone defense: “We thought all year we would have trouble against zone defenses but no one’s beaten us with it until now. Actually, we’ve been fortunate to get by this far. With the exception of Larry Kelley, none of our guards are really good shooters”. Of course, zone defenses are made for tall defenders
I had hopes that the 2012-13 Orangemen could be like that Charlotte team but 6-5 Michael Carter-Williams and 6-4 Brandon Triche have not been able to use their height against smaller defenders as I had hoped, (and sometimes get out-quicked on the perimeter by them). Also our big men do not remind anyone of Cornbread Maxwell, who went onto a lengthy NBA career with the Celtics.
March 16, 1979
After the frustrating ending to the second year of the Louie and Bouie Show in 1978, (one-point losses to St. Bonaventure in the ECAC playoffs and the Western Kentucky in the Round of 32), we made it back to the Sweet 16 in 1979. The door to another Final Four seemed open because the #1 seed in the East Region, (this was the first year they seeded teams), had been upset by Ivy champ Pennsylvania, 72-71. The Quakers were pretty good, 23-5, ranked #14 and seeded #9, but most underdogs have just the one upset in them. The Orange was 26-3, ranked #8 and seeded #4 just had to take care of business, as they had just done by beating Connecticut in the Round of 32 after a bye in the Round of 64.
Again, the problem was in the back-court but it was a different problem. Penn had a pair of really quick guards, Boonie Salters and Bobby Willis. We had “Fast” Eddie Moss who was hobbled by an injury and Marty Headd, a jump-shot specialist who lacked speed. They couldn’t keep up with Salters and Willis and Penn blew to a 37-50 half-time lead. We mounted a comeback but fell short, 76-84. A bad run like the one we just had against Louisville was the key but it came in the first half. SU was leading 19-14 when Penn switched to a 2-3 zone and collapsed in on Bouie and Louie whenever they got the ball. 15 first half turnovers, (similar to the Butler game, below), fueled what became a 10-32 run that gave the Quakers a 29-46 lead. We never got within 5. They made their free throws down the stretch, scoring 13 of their last 15 from the line, including 11 of 12 from substitute Ken Hall. I suspect Hall, in the grand tradition, was the guy on the floor with the worst free throw percentage. We kept fouling him and he had a career game at the line, (similar to Jeff Bullis of Georgetown, a 35% shooter coming into the game, who made 13 of 15 against us in the ECAC playoffs two weeks before).
Like UNC Charlotte, Penn went to the Final Four, beating 10th seeded St. John’s, who had also pulled off a series of upsets in the regional final. But they turned into a pumpkin in the Final Four, getting hosed by Michigan State 67-101. Two nights late the Spartans won the title in the Magic-Bird confrontation.
March 14, 1980
On the night of February 9, 1980, fate seemed to smile on the Syracuse Orange. We were blowing out St. Bonaventure, our biggest rival at the time, 105-80 in the penultimate game at Manley Field House to go 21-1 on the year. We were ranked #2 in the country. #1 ranked, undefeated DePaul, (this was the old days), was well behind Dayton. It seemed we would be the defacto #1 team in the nation by the time we went to bed, something we’d never been before. In the stands was Sam Perkins, a 6-9 center from Albany who was one of the top recruits in the country. It was thought he’d be coming to Syracuse the next year and he was joking and laughing with the fans, obviously enjoying himself and hopefully imagining himself playing in the game.
When we woke up in the morning DePaul had rallied to win. We were still #2. Our next game was the last at Manley, against Georgetown, which we lost 50-52 after leading almost wire-to wire. It took almost a decade to finally get to the #1 ranking. And Sam Perkins went to North Carolina and won a national title there with Michael Jordan. I doubt he spent any time imagining himself in orange. We lost the Hoyas again in the finals of the first Big East Tournament, 81-87.
Still, we were ranked #6 in both polls and seeded #1 in the East region. We got a bye in the Round of 64 and beat Rollie Massimino’s Villanova team , (which was not yet in the Big East), 97-83 in the Round of 32. Our next opponent was Iowa, who tied for 4th in the Big Ten, unranked and seeded #5. They’d beaten VCU 86-72 in the first round, then upset 4th seeded North Carolina State 77-64 in the second round. This was the finale of the Louie and Bouie show and the door seemed open for another confrontation with the Hoyas, who were seeded 3rd, in the regional finals. Maybe that was the problem.
My memory of this game is that it was a back-and-forth struggle all the way until SU appeared to be getting the upper hand midway through the second. I seem to remember a seven point lead. And then Jim Boeheim did something he never does any more and maybe this game is why. Coming out of a time-out, he slapped on a press to surprise the Hawkeyes, obviously trying to extend the lead so as to take control of the game down the stretch. But Jim’s press at that time was poorly conceived: it was all about trapping the first guy to get the ball. 2-3 players would surround him. There was another guy under the basket at the far end, (Bouie). That left one guy to cover the middle of the court. Iowa, (and other teams), would simply loop the ball to midcourt where they out-numbered SU. They’d get the ball and get fast-break after fast-break. That seven point lead turned into a shocking 77-88 defeat than closed down the Louie and Bouie Show. I remember wondering if Syracuse would ever again be as good. I also remember a guy calling the post game show and simply saying “FIRE BOWHEEM!” and hanging up. Still, Jim became the first coach to win 100 games, (100-18) in his first four years. But could he keep winning without Louie and Bouie? I wondered if we would ever have such a powerful team again.
Reading the PS article on the game, SU’s biggest lead was actually 57-51 with 8:25 left. A charging foul on Eric Santifer and a loose-ball foul on Tony Bruin produced something else that Boeheim rarely does anymore: a technical foul. When the smoke cleared, Iowa had scored 9 in a row to take a 57-60 lead. Boeheim claimed after the game that he wasn’t even talking to the refs when the technical was called. He was yelling at Bruin. Rosie Bouie fouled out with 5 minutes left in the game, having scored 18 points. JB: “It certainly hurt our ballclub. We felt we had to take advantage inside. We felt if anything, they had an advantage in the backcourt. Meanwhile, Marty head, our top outside shooter, was 0 for 7. Louie Orr tried to save us with 25 points and 16 rebounds but it wasn’t enough. “ In the end, Iowa beat the Orange the same way Georgetown had twice this season: with a physical inside game.” Iowa was 30 for 39 from the foul line in this game, Syracuse 19 of 23. That’s the margin of victory: 11 points. I found no mention of a press. I suspect my memory is faulty: That it was not proactive but reactive but ineffective in any case.
Iowa, like UNC Charlotte and Pennsylvania, went on to the Final Four, upsetting Georgetown 81-80 in the regional final. Unlike Penn, they gave a good account of themselves in the Final Four, losing to eventual champion Louisville, 72-80 in the semi-finals.
March 22, 1984
This is a forgotten game that has always bothered me because of all three teams that have beaten us in the Big Dance, Virginia was the one that played the lousiest game. We were just worse. The Cavs were in the first year of the post Ralph Sampson Era. They came into the tournament unranked at 17-11 and 6-8 in the ACC, a 7 seed. We were in the first year of the Pearl Washington Era and had just carried eventual champion Georgetown into overtime in the BET finals. We were ranked #18 by the writers and #16 by the coaches and seeded #3 with a first round bye. Virginia beat Iona by a point and Arkansas by 2 points while we handled VCU 78-63. If we won this one, we’d get another shot at Michael Jordan’s North Carolina team, who had whipped us in the Dome earlier that year, (and in Carolina the year before). All we had to do is get by Virginia.
“Syracuse picked the worst time of the year to play its worst basketball game. The Orange simply could not recover from 27.6 first half shooting and a 28-15 first half rebounding deficit.” Terry Holland, the Virginia coach: “Obviously, Syracuse did not have a good shooting night. I thought we rebounded well and played good defense, especially in the second half. We went into the game thinking that we would use the zone about 50% of the time but it was so good we decided to stay with it. Once we stayed with it and got into a good rhythm, the tempo was in our favor.” There’s that word again: zone. Another factor that crops up in these losses: Virginia went to the line 36 times to Syracuse’s 12. They shot a terrible percentage, (19 makes to our 9) but it was enough to account for our margin of defeat. Our backcourt, (Pearl Washington, Gene Waldron) and forwards, (Wendell Alexis and Rafael Addison) all fouled out. We shot 38% to their 49% but still scored one more basket from the field. The halftime score was a scintillating 16-26. JB: We had our chances to get back in it. We forced a couple of turnovers but we couldn’t do anything offensively. That was a big part of the game. We had to foul the last 10 minutes just to get back in it.” That accounts, to some extent in the foul disparity. “Virginia is a very tough team to play from behind against. They do an excellent job in the half- court offense and they handle the ball really well and really control the tempo. “ There’s another word: tempo.
Virginia, like its predecessors, had one more upset in them. Indiana, with a freshman named Steve Alford out-scoring the mighty MJ 27-13, had beaten UNC, 72-68. But they couldn’t handle this Virginia also-ran, either, going down 48-50. Then the Cavs, continuing the trend, lost in the national semi-finals to Houston but almost knocked them off, too, losing 47-49. (The semis that year were two horrible games: Georgetown whipped Kentucky 53-40, holding them to 11 points in the second half. The Hoyas won the finals in a more palatable 84-75.)
March 23, 1990
It was the Finale of the Coleman-Thompson recruiting class, (Matt Roe, Keith Hughes and Earl Duncan had left for greener pastures. We could have used them in this game.) The Orange started out the season ranked #3 by the writers and #2 by the coaches. But UNLV and LSU quickly lost and we were Ranked #1 on November 27. We won our first 10 games and were still #1 when we suffered a shocking 74-93 home loss to Villanova on 1/6/90. It would take 20 years to get back to the #1 ranking. We also lost to Connecticut, Providence, (the first ever Big East loss to the Friars, where Richard Manning had a chance to win it but flubbed a lay-up, earning him the nickname “Mr. Kluttz”), Villanova again and Notre Dame, (on Elmer Bennett’s 35 footer). We then lost to Jim Calhoun’s first really good Connecticut team in BET finals. We were still ranked #6 at 24-6 and seeded #2. We beat Coppin State 70-48 in the Round of 64 and got some revenge against Virginia, 63-61 in the round of 32. Minnesota was 20-8, ranked #20 and seeded #6. They beat UTEP 64-61 in overtime and Northern Iowa 81-78 to reach the Sweet 16.
The keys to the game were Minnesota’s two guards, 6-4 Melvin Newbern and 6-6 Kevin Lynch. “…the pair penetrated and scored with regularity, taking advantage of SU’s 5-11 Michael Edwards…Lynch saw the advantage he had over Edwards and said he wanted to capitalize on it. ‘I figured with him guarding me I would be able to shoot over him pretty easily.’… When Syracuse played man-to-man defense, Newbern used his size and strength and power his way into the basket. When Syracuse was forced into a zone, Lynch got hot from outside. ‘Whenever we changed defenses, they had the answers’, Boeheim said. ‘Lynch hit a couple of three pointers against our zone that hurt us….We wanted to play more man-to-man but when we played zone, they made everything. They made a lot of good decision against the zone. It wasn’t a very effective way to go. The game wasn’t best suited for Michael Edwards, that’s for sure.” Again, backcourt match-ups- and size- were a key here.
A Syracuse weakness was an unpredictable outside game. Their main outside threat was 6-8 Tony Scott, who hit only 2 of 11 three pointers and 3 of 16 overall. One of his misses was a 22 footer early in the shot clock with37 left. Minnesota rebounded, got fouled and made two free throws to make it 73-78. “All of Syracuse’s weapons fizzled down the stretch”. I seem to remember a bad turnover by Tony as well and was left with the impression that he had basically lost the game for us by pissing away our only chances in the last minute. (He then left the program, apparently at Rob Johnson’s urging before the next season.) But the box score reveals that Derrick Coleman closed out his career with a 5 for 13 performance and Stevie Thompson did the same with 5 turnovers, so Tony had help.
We out-rebounded the Gophers 43-32, actually had one less turnover, (13-14) and went to the line one more time, (20 to 19). We also got off 13 more shots, (69-56). But we shot 50% from two point range, 30% from three point range and a pathetic 40% from the free throw line. Minnesota made 60% of their two pointers, half their three pointers and 68.4% of the free throws. If we’d shot what they did, we’d have won 108-64. Willie Burton, their star, had only 12 points but Newbern had 20, Lynch 18 and two other Gophers were in double figures. Owens had 18 points, Thompson 16, Coleman 15 and Scott 10 for the Orange. Syracuse led 39-35 at the half. Minnesota had shot just 14 for 32 in the first half. They were 19 for 24 in the second, (79%) to win 75-82. When you’re hot, you’re hot…..
The Gophers went on to lose to Georgia Tech, (with former Orange recruit Kenny Anderson, who we could also have used in this game), 91-93.
March 24, 1994
I was in Hawaii at the time. My brother and I went hiking through some volcanos, having set the VCR to record the Missouri game. When we got back, his wife had turned off the machine, not knowing why we’d left it on. So I never saw this game, which became known for Adrian Autry’s famous shot from the floor the refs refused to count.
Syracuse, coming back from its one year probation, was 21-6 and ranked #13. Missouri had perhaps its best team ever, going 25-3 and earning a #5 national ranking. They got a #1 seed in the West while Syracuse was #4. The Tigers whipped Navy 76-53 and Wisconsin 109-96, (Dick Bennett hadn’t shown up in Madison yet). The Orange beat, ironically, Hawaii 92-78 and Wisconsin Green-Bay, (that’s where Bennett was in 1994) 64-59. The teams met in LA for what turned out to be a classic.
Syracuse managed to hang with the Tigers in the first half despite a lousy performance by Autry, who went scoreless, turned the ball over 5 times and committed 3 fouls. After halftime, Autry and his teammate, Lawrence Moten put on a tremendous second half show. Autry scored 31 points and Moten 29, accounting for 60 of SU’s 88 points. They scored 46 of SU’s last 52 points in the second half and overtime, including the last 29 by themselves. But the refs disallowed Autry’s shot from his knees with a minute to go that might have allowed us to win in regulation:
(It’s amazing how young JB looks: he turned 50 later that year.)
Even without that, Autry scored 8 points in the last 69 seconds of regulation to get us to overtime. We ran out of gas there but, but, as Moten said “We went out playing hard”. Norm Stewart, the Missouri coach, said: “Listen, coming in that’s all we worked on – Moten and Autry. We watched their games. We didn’t want them to dribble us into the lane and shoot the ball on us. But they did. They dribbled within 12 feet and shot. And that was it.”
Missouri pulled away in overtime to win 88-98. SU got only 33 of 225 minutes and 4 points scored from their bench. Was fatigue a factor? “Substituting is something you almost don’t have to do any more”, said Jim Boeheim. “You used to have to give players some two minute rests. But now they get them every five minutes for the TV time-outs.” Playing in LA probably wasn’t a factor as the sub-regionals were in Utah, the (news paper articles confirm that the team went directly to LA from there).
The problem, of course is that Autry and Moten didn’t get enough help. John Wallace had a terrible game, going 2 for 8 and scoring 6 points. Lucious Jackson was 0 for 4 from three point range and scored 8 points. Otis Hill managed 10 points. And we didn’t have a brilliant defensive game, giving 24 points each to Melvin Booker and Kelly Thomas. Rebounds were even at 43-43 but we had 19 turnovers to 10 for the Tigers. The Tigers got to the line 44 times to 21 for Syracuse, even though we had only four more fouls called against us, (24-20). They didn’t shoot all that well from the line, (29 of 44, .659 to 15 of 21 for us .714) but they still got 14 more points from the stripe. We were 26 of 52 from two point range and 7 for 21 from three. They were 27 of 49 and 5 of 19. Our turnovers and their getting to the line more really decided the game.
Missouri may have run out gas, too. They got beat by Arizona 72-82 in the regional finals.
March 20, 1998
Have you ever shared an elevator with several people who were taller than you were? Syracuse is normally the more heralded team in a Sweet 16 game but in 1998, we were the junior partner in a regional that included some of the most storied programs of all time. We’d had a nice comeback season from the 19-13 NIT disaster of the previous year, going 24-8 and 12-6 in the conference. We lost in the BET finals 64-69 to 29-4 Connecticut, ranked #6 by the writers and #5 by the coaches. SU was #21/#19. We almost went down in the first round vs. Iona but Marius Janulus saved us, 63-61. Then we handled New Mexico, 56-46. We then stepped into the elevator with Duke, UCLA and Kentucky in the Sweet 16. Even then, that was 19 national championships, (going on 23 compared with none, (going on one) for us). We were paired with the Blue Devils, who were 29-3, ranked #3 and seeded #1. We were seeded 5th.
This game produced another furious rally followed by a counter run that won the game for the other team. But this one didn’t go to overtime. The game also featured a great second half by a departing Syracuse senior. Todd Burgan scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half, including 12 of SU’s first 15 points as they came back from a 30-40 halftime deficit to tie at 49 all with 12:29 left. But it was an illusion. SU couldn’t score a field goal for the next seven minutes while Duke went on a 3-19 run to clinch the game.
Burgan and Ryan Blackwell played 37 minutes, (the latter despite a twisted ankle with 7 minutes to go). Jason Hart played 36 minutes and Etan Thomas 32. Trajan Langdon played 36 for Duke but everyone else was 29 minutes or less. We got out-rebounded 35-46. Turnovers were about even, 16-15. We committed three more fouls, (18-15) but actually went to the line more than the Devils did, 21-18. Despite the rebounding margin, There was little difference in scoring attempts, as Syracuse put up one less two pointer, (42-43) and one less three pointer, (21-22). Both teams shot poorly at the line, SU getting two more points, 13-11. Duke made one more trey, 6-7. The game was decided on two point shooting, SU getting 18 vs. 24 for the Devils. Langdon was only 2 for 13 but Elton brand was 10 for 14 and scored 20 points with 14 rebounds. I remember Etan Thomas, who was not exactly skinny, looking like he was trying to ride a brahma bull when he was guarding Brand. He got 9 points and 6 rebounds. A freshman named Shane Battier hit 6 of 7 shots for 14 points.
David Ramsey wrote “In the end, wisdom and grit and a hassling zone defense failed to deliver the needed fuel for Syracuse University to defeat the Blue Devils of Duke. The Orangemen needed offense. They needed imagination and explosiveness to go with the muscle and hustle….Yes, SU’s zone collapsed into chaos during Duke’s run. But if the Orangemen had found a way to score 10 points instead of three, they would have remained in sight. They would have retained a chance….’Their zone is tough. Their players are tougher.’”
Duke lost 84-86 to Kentucky in the regional finals and the Wildcats went on to win their second title in three years.
March 23, 2000
This was one of Syracuse’s best teams, a crew that started 19-0, (taking them 6 games in the Big East season, so it wasn’t just the pre-season schedule). We were the last undefeated team and rose to a #4 national ranking. Included was a joyous 88-74 triumph over the defending national champion Connecticut Huskies in the Dome. Great days…
Then we got upset at home by Seton Hall 67-69, and had to go on the road to take on Louisville, (not yet a conference member), where we got beat again, 69-82. Later St. John’s nipped us 75-76 and UCONN got revenge 54-69 at their place. We got upset by old rival Georgetown in the BET first round, 72-76. Our ranking was down to #16/#14 and we were seeded #4 in the Midwest Regional. It put us in the Sweet 16 bracket with #2 Michigan State and the regionals were played in their back yard at Auburn Hills, Michigan. We beat Samford 79-72 and Kentucky, 52-50 on a Preston Shumpert jump shot to get there.
The good times returned as Syracuse played a near-perfect game to cruise to a 34-24 half-time lead. We opened the second half with a 6-2 run to push it to 40-26. The Spartan fans were glum and SU fans were dreaming of a national title. One sour note was that Shumpert has been hit upside the head and had to leave the game, taking our perimeter game with him. But so what? We were up 14! Tom Izzo: “They out-ran us, they out-rebounded us, they out-defended us, the out-scored us. I don’t think there’s much left.” Unfortunately, there was.
“We made a couple of big plays and it seemed like the roof just caved in on them“, said Izzo. The Spartans began chipping away at the lead until they wrested it from the orange at 56-58. Jason Hart made a twisting lay-up to tie it at 58 with 5:55 left and everybody braced for a great ending. At this point the Syracuse offense completely shut down and the Spartans closed the game on a 0-17 run. SU’s last eight possessions resulted in 5 missed shots and 3 turnovers.
The game, on the surface, resembled the Louisville game in the 2013 BET. In that one, we were ahead 45-29 with 15:54 left and got out-scored 16-49 the rest of the way. In the 2000 Michigan State game it was 40-26 with 18 ½ minutes to go, then 18-49. The Spartans didn’t have Louisville’s withering press but they did have Izzo’s aggressive man-to man defense. And they cracked Syracuse’s zone, scoring almost at will in the half-court set.
Tony Bland: “They made some big shots and banged us all game. We were able to respond for 30 minutes of the game but once we got down they just banged us and banged us and it was hard to hit answer shots.” Etan Thomas was double-teamed the whole game. “The Spartans bodied up on Thomas the entire game, bumping him and locking arms with the Syracuse big man. On several occasions, Michigan State’s Andre Hudson had a chunk of Thomas’ jersey firmly in his grasp. The strategy worked. Thomas took just three shots, went to the foul line on only one occasion and turned the ball over three times.” Hudson had knocked Shumpert out of the game: “Shumpert’s arms got tangled up with Hudson and he immediately fell to the floor on the baseline when Hudson’s elbow hit his eye.” Preston tried to come back into the game several minutes later after a cut was treated but he could barely see due to a swollen eye and had double-vision.
Bud Poliquin reported that “The crowd of 21,214 at The Palace at Auburn Hills almost brought the roof down as the Spartans roared from behind.”. Shumpert said “Any other place we would have beat them. South, West, Any other place, we beat them.”
You still have to beat the players. Michigan State was 9 for 15 from the three point line in the second half, 5 by Morris Peterson, who scored 21 points. “The Orangemen would score a conventional two-point bucket and Michigan State would respond with another three.” Jim Boeheim: Once they got going in the second half, we’d move out and they’d move out farther. “ Jason Hart: “I think we played well in the first half. We got some easy buckets in transition. At halftime, they adjusted. That’s the hard thing about the game. It doesn’t stay the same throughout the game.”
Syracuse only got out-rebounded 27-30 and had one more turnover, 11-10. We got off three more shots, 52-49. The fouls were 19-13. The Spartans got to the line ten more times, 9-19. That’s not unusual in a 17 point defeat. We had one fewer field goal and 8 fewer free throws. The big stat was that they hit 11 of 23 three pointers while we went 4 for 12. The Spartans shot 68% in the second half, 9 for 15 from the arc and 8 for 10 inside it. Physical defense, (with only 13 fouls called against them) and hot shooting by the Spartans beat us. That and the fact that the Spartans could make adjustments and we couldn’t. Having the crowd go crazy while this was happening just made it all the more unpleasant for Syracuse fans. Spartan fans kept cheering all the way to the national title.
March 25, 2004
In the wake of winning the national championship, I thought our program would be a higher plane than it had been. It wasn’t just about recruiting. It was about having been there and done that. Even though we’d lost Carmelo Anthony, we had so many guys coming back from the youngest team ever to win a national champion ship, I felt it was a cinch that those players would at least play on another Final Four team in their career here and, in turn the younger players on that team would know what it takes. The result would be a chain reaction of success in future NCAA tournaments. Our NCAA record in recent seasons had actually been pretty good. The only NCAA upset we had suffered since the 1991 Richmond game was the 8-9 game vs. Oklahoma State in 1999. And we’d made it to another national title game and played competitively. But still, I felt that, over the next few years, we’d win an extra game or two just because of the knowledge and confidence that had been gained by winning it all. It didn’t happen.
We lost right off the bat to our old pals from ’77, now just Charlotte. We then ripped of 13 wins in a row before losing at Seton Hall and getting crushed 45-66 in Pittsburgh. It was the start of a 3-5 stretch. We rallied for five more wins to close out the regular season but lost to Boston College in the first round of the BET. That left us with a 21-7 record, a #20 national ranking and #5 seed, a disappointing follow-up to a magical season.
We had our hands full with BYU the first game but Gerry McNamara had his career game with 43 points and we survived, 80-75. That set up a rare match-up of the previous two national champions in the Round of 32. We won that, 72-70 over Maryland. Our Sweet 16 opponent was a school known more for its football team, Alabama, who had stumbled through the regular season at 17-12 and 8-8 in the SEC. Somehow that got them into the tournament with an 8 seed. They beat Southern Illinois 65-64 and then pulled off a huge upset, beating #1 ranked and seeded Stanford, (who had been 30-1), 67-70, in the Round of 32. We seemed to be in good position: the Tide had pulled off the one upset most underdogs get in the Big Dance and we had them in the next game. Beating them would get us a rematch with Connecticut, who had embarrassed us, 56-84 in their own place. We’d gained revenge in the Dome, 67-56, in the final game of the regular season. This would be the rubber match, with the winner going to the Final Four.
The Tide hit 8 of 15 first half three pointers to take a 36-38 halftime lead. That’s OK: they’ll cool off. And they did, going 1 for 7 in the second half. Gerry McNamara had another one of those big second halves SU players have had in these games, scoring 20 of his 24 points after halftime. So how did we lose, 71-80? Committing twice as many turnovers as the opposition, (18-9) didn’t help. Hakim Warrick had scored 15 in the first half but the Tide made some adjustments and held him to 6 in the second half. But the killer was a 5 minute stretch without field goals during which Alabama out-scored the ‘Cuse 5-19 after the game had been tied at 57.
The Orange tried to come back but, as GMAC said: “It’s kind of tough when you use all your energy to come back and the next thing you know you’re down four and you’re making stupid turnovers. You’re down six and the same thing over again. It takes a lot out of a team when that happens. “
Syracuse won the battle of the boards, 35-27 but negated that with the turnovers. Fouls were 20-17 and they got three more free throw attempts, (20-23). They made five more (14-19). We got off three more field goal attempts, 55-52. The real difference in the game was the shooting. They were 8 for 15 from three in the first half. We were 1 for 4. We were close at halftime because we hit 14 of 23 two point shots. In the second half that decreased to 7 of 18 due to the adjustments Alabama made and the turnovers we made. Meanwhile those long range bombs the Tide made in the first half extended our zone defense so they could make 13 of 16 two pointers in the second half.
Connecticut ended the Tide’s run 87-71 in the regional finals and went on to win their second national championship.
March 27, 2009
The post championship years had been kind of rough for SU. The Alabama loss was followed by first round bow-outs the next two year s and then NIT bids the two years after that. We showed signs of pulling out of the slump early in the 2008-09, ripping through the pre-Big East schedule with a single defeat to Cleveland State on a 70 foot shot. Included were wins over the schools that played for the national championship the previous spring, (Kansas and Memphis and the school that had won the last two national titles before that, Florida, (but we just play cupcakes). We also won our first three Big East games before enduring a 3-7 stretch that reminded people of the frustrations of the previous years. Then we started playing fanatical defense and blew out St. John’s by 29, Cincinnati by 24 and Rutgers by 30. After an overtime win over Marquette we went to New York. We beat Seton Hall by 15 and then played and one the greatest game of all time, the 127-117 win over Connecticut, who had beaten us 49-63 during the bad streak. We won another OT game vs. West Virginia and took a 12 point lead over Louisville in the BET final before, (as in 2013), we succumbed to their press and physical exhaustion.
We went into the NCAAs with the same record we have as I write this, 26-9, a #13/#15 national ranking and a #3 NCAA seed. We brushed aside Stephen F. Austin, 59-44 and dominated Arizona State and their strangely passive star, James Harden. That put us in the Sweet 16 with still another school known more for football, Oklahoma. The Sooners had been highly ranked all season and were presently #7/#8 and the #2 seed. They had an authentic superstar in 6-10 250lb Blake Griffin, a muscular, explosive forward who’d averaged 23 points and 14 rebounds a game on his way to being a consensus All-American.
Jonny Flynn: “Tonight, Oklahoma was just better than we were. They deserved to win.” Blake Griffin, whom Bud Poliquin called “the best big man in college basketball since Tim Duncan” had 30 points, 14 rebounds . The memorable image was of Griffin slamming in the face of our star, Flynn. That’s what the Sooners did to the Orange that day. Tony Crocker added a career high 28 points, including 6 three pointers.
Syracuse didn’t help its case with its shooting. Flynn, Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf were 0 for 10 from beyond the arc as SU scored only 26 points in the first half while the Sooners had 39. “You know, we have to make shots to win”, said Jim Boeheim. Rautins blamed himself. “As a shooter, that’s my job. I was getting the looks I wanted. I just wasn’t knocking them down.”
Oklahoma dominated the first half, playing a physical style that seemed to out-Big East the Orange….Syracuse appeared tight from the opening tap. The Orange made only one of its first six shots while turning the ball over four times to fall behind 10-2 in less than five minutes.” At one point the Sooners led by 27 points. Jonny Flynn summed it up: “They deserved to win. They were the better team.”
We got out-rebounded 29-36. The turnovers were even at 18. The referees let the players play, whistling only 24 fouls, 14 against the winners. Somehow they got to the foul mine four more times but only made one more free throw. We got off one more field goal attempt. It was all in the shooting. We missed 20 of 31 first half shots and goose-egged ten treys. The Sooners were over 50% in both halves and scored 5 more field goals, including 2 more treys. Even that’s deceivingly close as SU rallied in garbage time to make it “respectable”.
A great North Carolina team turned the tables on Mr. Griffin and his friends, 72-60 in the regional finals on their way to the national title. We’d gone about as far as we could go.
March, 25, 2010
The next year, we were the great team. We had two of everything. We had two inside scorers, Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson. We had two outside scorers, Wes Johnson and Andy Rautins. We had two good point guards, Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine. We had two productive guys coming off the bench, Jardine and Kris Joseph. We had multiple guys who could drive to the basket and score. We were a strong defensive team. Onuaku was a fine positonal defender in the paint and we also had two shot-blockers in Jackson and Johnson. We out-shot the opposition 57%-46% inside the arc, 39%-30% outside of it and 68%-64% from the line. We pulled down 212 more rebounds and forced 15 more turnovers. Actually there’s an Achilles heel there: we had 532 turnovers that year vs. 433 the next and 389 last year.
But this was a heck of a team, one that blew defending national champion North Carolina out of Madison Square Garden, 87-71, while winning our first 14 games. Our old nemesis, Pittsburgh ended the string in the Dome, 72-82, but we started another run that went to 11 straight and a #2 national ranking before another nemesis, Rick Pitino’s Louisville team, beat us 60-66, also in the Dome. We won four more in a row and became the #1 team for the first time in 20 years before Louisville did it again in the season finale, 68-78, (thank you, Kyle Kuric!).
Then came the BET and a frustrating 84-91 loss to another old rival, Georgetown. But the big story was that Arinze Onauku had hit the floor heavily trying to prevent a lay-up. He was clearly hurt badly and, in fact, his career here was over. This reduced us to one good inside threat: Rick Jackson. We were still a potent team, but things were not the same. Our guards had had two inside players they could pass to. And those players could pass to each other or back out for open shots. Now our guards had only one inside target.
It didn’t seem to matter the first week. We were still ranked #3 in the country and got a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament for the first time in 30 years. It was great fun getting revenge on Vermont in the first game 79-56. Then we shot the lights out to beat Gonzaga 87-65. Up ahead were Butler and maybe after that, Xavier. It looked like the Bonfire of the Mid-Majors. Meanwhile the one team that had been considered our equal or superior over the course of the season, Kansas, went down 67-69 to Northern Iowa in the round of 64. The road to a second national championship seemed open.
But Butler was a formidable team. They were 27-4, ranked #12 and a #5 seed. They were also one of the best defensive teams in the nation. One thing they lacked was big-time shot blocker in the middle. Teams tried to beat them by getting the ball inside. They took advantage of that by tightening the passing lanes. It was a big help for them that we had only the one target inside. They were also superb at guarding the backcourt aggressively.
People remember what a horrible game Rick Jackson had in this game. I would describe it as a horrible time for Rick. He was charged with only 3 turnovers but we had a total of 8 turnovers trying to get the ball to him. Overall, Syracuse had 18 turnovers to 7 for the Bulldogs. And that was the difference in the game. We out-rebounded the Bulldogs 38-28. They got off four more shots, (52-48) but we had the same number of field goals, (21), and one more three pointer, (7-6). We committed one more foul, (16-15) but they got to the line 21 times to our 14 and scored five more free throws, (15-10).
SU was down 25-35 at the half because of all the turnovers. We then had a 15-4 run to open the second half and take the lead at 40-39. But we couldn’t sustain it. Still, SU had a 54-50 lead with under four minutes left. It all collapsed in an 0-11 run, keyed by a stolen inbounds pass by Willie Veasley that led to a basket. Andy Rautins was trying to get it to Wes Johnson. Veasley also had a three-pointer that “rolled around the rim, bounced way up the backboard and then dropped through the net to give Butler a 58-54 lead.” Ronald Nored, (NORAD?), made a three at the shot clock buzzer. He was 17% form the arc on the season. I also recall a controversial out-of-bounds play but didn’t see it described in the newspaper. But it wasn’t meant to be. The final was 59-63.
Brad Stevens: “I don’t want to take anything away from ourselves but Onukau in the middle of that zone is a difference-maker. “ Andy Rautins: “They play like Pittsburgh and like West Virginia- just being physical, really fronting and switching a lot. They gave us a lot of different looks. It just came down to us not turning the ball over. “ Which we did.
Butler then beat Kansas State, who had beaten Xavier, in the regional final, 63-56. They even out-toughed Michigan State 52-50 in the national semi-final and almost beat Duke for the national championship but Gordon Heyward’s half-court shot just rimmed out. If it had gone in, you’d have seen a movie about it. When the Bulldogs returned to the national title game the next year, our loss to them didn’t look so bad. But it still hurt. That was one of the best teams we ever had.
Summary and Conclusions (if any)
So, what does all of this tell us? Four of the defeats were to higher seeded or higher ranked teams. They weren’t upsets. If you add in our five Sweet 16 wins, (Florida in ’87, Missouri in ’89, Georgia in ’96, Auburn ’03 and Wisconsin in ’12) the upsets we’ve endured are a minority of our Sweet 16 appearances. But 7 is in 16 games is way too many and a 5-7 record as a favorite, (as we were in all of our wins: if we beat Indiana it will be the first time we’ve pulled off a Sweet 16 upset), is a poor one.
I made a list of the factors that seemed to be key to our 11 defeats. I found four games where turnovers mattered and the same number where the other team was ”hot”. A couple more were noted for our cold shooting, especially in the first half, which created deficits we were not able to overcome.. Three games were notable for teams “breaking” our zone. Two of those were highly ranked teams: Duke in ’98 and Michigan State in 2000, supporting the notion that really good teams can figure out how to attack the zone. But Alabama did it too and they were not on the same level. Another factor that came up a couple of times was adjustments- offensive and defensive, that the other team did better than we did. There were probably more than two but it was mentioned a couple of times. (But we probably made good adjustments in the games we won).
The narrative in several of the early losses makes it clear we were not always a zone only team. That’s basically a development of the 90’s. So the “they have a week to prepare for the zone” idea doesn’t necessarily apply there. Ironically, in several of the early losses our playing against a zone seemed to have been a big problem. Maybe that’s why we became a zone team.
Match-ups are always a factor in these games but the match-up problem that comes up the most is in the backcourt. In the Charlotte and Minnesota games we had a distinct high disadvantage that allowed the other team to shoot and pass over our guys and prevented the latter, (an advantage which we would see m to have in our favor in 2013). Against Pennsylvania, it was the quickness of the other team’s guards we couldn’t deal with, (which has worked against us at times this year).
We always grouse about the refs. There were three games where there was a significant difference in the number of free throws attempted, (this year’s team with the emphasis on driving to the basket seems to have that in their favor so far: we’ve taken 40 more free throws than the opposition in the first two games). There’s also that Pennsylvania game where we kept fouling a guy late in the game to try to get the ball back and he kept making the shots.
There’s been only a couple of games where we got out-rebounded by a significant margin. Our defense was bad vs. Missouri. A couple of teams, Michigan State and Butler roughed us up on defense and got away with it. The Michigan State game was notable as a “home” game for the other team, which the NCAA supposedly wants to avoid. The tempo of the game was only mentioned once but one weakness of Syracuse over the years was the Orange’s willingness to play at the tempo the other team wants instead of imposing their will on the opposition with defensive pressure.
The thing is, these are reasons why we or any other teams can lose almost any game. I could analyze our other 17 NCAA losses of the JB Era and find the same factors were present. It’s hard to say that these things happened because it was the Sweet 16, rather than another round of the tournament. Five of the losses have been y single digits and another by overtime. Three of the others were to favored teams. Maybe we are just 5-11 in the Sweet 16 because we just got beat 11 times.
I don’t have all the answers, (our Sweet 16 record could just be a fluke, as rare as it is), but I thought I’d look at our Sweet 16 losses in some detail to see if any trends can be detected. I’m not trying to be a negative Nellie by just looking at the losses: I’m trying to see if there’s any kind of pattern to them that could be related to the Sweet 16 as opposed to another round of the tournament. I’ve re-read the Post Standard/Herald Journal articles, (From the Post Standard Archives at Newspaper.com), on these games and had a look at the box scores to combine with my own memories of them.
March 17, 1977
Syracuse was riding high at 26-3 and ranked #6 in the country. We’d just been to the Final Four two years before with a Cinderella team that wasn’t able to handle the size, talent and depth of the teams there. Now we were on our way back with the Louie and Bouie show, Marty Byrnes, Dale Schackleford, Jim Williams and Larry Kelley. We shocked Tennessee’s Ernie and Bernie show, 93-88 in overtime in Baton Rouge in the Round of 32, (there was no Round of 64 yet). Our next opponent was unranked, (there were no seedings yet) UNC-Charlotte, whose star was someone called “Cornbread” Maxwell, a 6-8 center who would have to go up against 6-10 Rosie Bouie. They obviously had no chance. We could look ahead to the regional finals, where we’d likely face #1 Michigan, who was playing Detroit in the other regional semi. Detroit’s mouthy coach, Dick Vitale, said that Syracuse and UNC-Charlotte might as well go home because his team’s game with Michigan would determine who would go on to the Final Four. We laughed. If Michigan didn’t shut Vitale up, Syracuse would.
This was the game where I found out that height matters not just in the frontcourt but the backcourt as well. We had an Achilles heel no one had been able to exploit. Jim Williams, (who hated being called “bug”), was lightning quick but only 5-9. Larry Kelley, (brother of later Connecticut star Earl Kelley), was 5-11. The 49ers, (named for the state highway that passes by the campus) had 6-3 Melvin Watkins and 6-4 Chad Kinch. Watkins and Kinch could shoot and pass, (12 for 16 with 12 assists), over Williams and Kelley at will but Williams and Kelley could not do the same with them, (2 for 15 with 4 assists). Maxwell got the ball in favorable position over and over again and got the line 11 times, making every shot from there and scoring 19 points. We fell behind 38-43 at the half and the score just continued to mount until it reached a numbing 59-81 at the final. A blow-out upset. It crushed our new-found self-image as a powerhouse. The 49ers then upset Michigan 75-68 in the regional final and only lost to eventual national champions Marquette49-51 on a lay-up at the buzzer by Jerome Whitehead.
Two things were involved here: a highly under-rated mid-major, much like the ones we’ve seen in recent years, (Gonzaga, George Mason, Butler, VCU and now maybe Florida Gulf Coast), and a match-up problem, this one in the backcourt. Jim Boeheim also credited their zone defense: “We thought all year we would have trouble against zone defenses but no one’s beaten us with it until now. Actually, we’ve been fortunate to get by this far. With the exception of Larry Kelley, none of our guards are really good shooters”. Of course, zone defenses are made for tall defenders
I had hopes that the 2012-13 Orangemen could be like that Charlotte team but 6-5 Michael Carter-Williams and 6-4 Brandon Triche have not been able to use their height against smaller defenders as I had hoped, (and sometimes get out-quicked on the perimeter by them). Also our big men do not remind anyone of Cornbread Maxwell, who went onto a lengthy NBA career with the Celtics.
March 16, 1979
After the frustrating ending to the second year of the Louie and Bouie Show in 1978, (one-point losses to St. Bonaventure in the ECAC playoffs and the Western Kentucky in the Round of 32), we made it back to the Sweet 16 in 1979. The door to another Final Four seemed open because the #1 seed in the East Region, (this was the first year they seeded teams), had been upset by Ivy champ Pennsylvania, 72-71. The Quakers were pretty good, 23-5, ranked #14 and seeded #9, but most underdogs have just the one upset in them. The Orange was 26-3, ranked #8 and seeded #4 just had to take care of business, as they had just done by beating Connecticut in the Round of 32 after a bye in the Round of 64.
Again, the problem was in the back-court but it was a different problem. Penn had a pair of really quick guards, Boonie Salters and Bobby Willis. We had “Fast” Eddie Moss who was hobbled by an injury and Marty Headd, a jump-shot specialist who lacked speed. They couldn’t keep up with Salters and Willis and Penn blew to a 37-50 half-time lead. We mounted a comeback but fell short, 76-84. A bad run like the one we just had against Louisville was the key but it came in the first half. SU was leading 19-14 when Penn switched to a 2-3 zone and collapsed in on Bouie and Louie whenever they got the ball. 15 first half turnovers, (similar to the Butler game, below), fueled what became a 10-32 run that gave the Quakers a 29-46 lead. We never got within 5. They made their free throws down the stretch, scoring 13 of their last 15 from the line, including 11 of 12 from substitute Ken Hall. I suspect Hall, in the grand tradition, was the guy on the floor with the worst free throw percentage. We kept fouling him and he had a career game at the line, (similar to Jeff Bullis of Georgetown, a 35% shooter coming into the game, who made 13 of 15 against us in the ECAC playoffs two weeks before).
Like UNC Charlotte, Penn went to the Final Four, beating 10th seeded St. John’s, who had also pulled off a series of upsets in the regional final. But they turned into a pumpkin in the Final Four, getting hosed by Michigan State 67-101. Two nights late the Spartans won the title in the Magic-Bird confrontation.
March 14, 1980
On the night of February 9, 1980, fate seemed to smile on the Syracuse Orange. We were blowing out St. Bonaventure, our biggest rival at the time, 105-80 in the penultimate game at Manley Field House to go 21-1 on the year. We were ranked #2 in the country. #1 ranked, undefeated DePaul, (this was the old days), was well behind Dayton. It seemed we would be the defacto #1 team in the nation by the time we went to bed, something we’d never been before. In the stands was Sam Perkins, a 6-9 center from Albany who was one of the top recruits in the country. It was thought he’d be coming to Syracuse the next year and he was joking and laughing with the fans, obviously enjoying himself and hopefully imagining himself playing in the game.
When we woke up in the morning DePaul had rallied to win. We were still #2. Our next game was the last at Manley, against Georgetown, which we lost 50-52 after leading almost wire-to wire. It took almost a decade to finally get to the #1 ranking. And Sam Perkins went to North Carolina and won a national title there with Michael Jordan. I doubt he spent any time imagining himself in orange. We lost the Hoyas again in the finals of the first Big East Tournament, 81-87.
Still, we were ranked #6 in both polls and seeded #1 in the East region. We got a bye in the Round of 64 and beat Rollie Massimino’s Villanova team , (which was not yet in the Big East), 97-83 in the Round of 32. Our next opponent was Iowa, who tied for 4th in the Big Ten, unranked and seeded #5. They’d beaten VCU 86-72 in the first round, then upset 4th seeded North Carolina State 77-64 in the second round. This was the finale of the Louie and Bouie show and the door seemed open for another confrontation with the Hoyas, who were seeded 3rd, in the regional finals. Maybe that was the problem.
My memory of this game is that it was a back-and-forth struggle all the way until SU appeared to be getting the upper hand midway through the second. I seem to remember a seven point lead. And then Jim Boeheim did something he never does any more and maybe this game is why. Coming out of a time-out, he slapped on a press to surprise the Hawkeyes, obviously trying to extend the lead so as to take control of the game down the stretch. But Jim’s press at that time was poorly conceived: it was all about trapping the first guy to get the ball. 2-3 players would surround him. There was another guy under the basket at the far end, (Bouie). That left one guy to cover the middle of the court. Iowa, (and other teams), would simply loop the ball to midcourt where they out-numbered SU. They’d get the ball and get fast-break after fast-break. That seven point lead turned into a shocking 77-88 defeat than closed down the Louie and Bouie Show. I remember wondering if Syracuse would ever again be as good. I also remember a guy calling the post game show and simply saying “FIRE BOWHEEM!” and hanging up. Still, Jim became the first coach to win 100 games, (100-18) in his first four years. But could he keep winning without Louie and Bouie? I wondered if we would ever have such a powerful team again.
Reading the PS article on the game, SU’s biggest lead was actually 57-51 with 8:25 left. A charging foul on Eric Santifer and a loose-ball foul on Tony Bruin produced something else that Boeheim rarely does anymore: a technical foul. When the smoke cleared, Iowa had scored 9 in a row to take a 57-60 lead. Boeheim claimed after the game that he wasn’t even talking to the refs when the technical was called. He was yelling at Bruin. Rosie Bouie fouled out with 5 minutes left in the game, having scored 18 points. JB: “It certainly hurt our ballclub. We felt we had to take advantage inside. We felt if anything, they had an advantage in the backcourt. Meanwhile, Marty head, our top outside shooter, was 0 for 7. Louie Orr tried to save us with 25 points and 16 rebounds but it wasn’t enough. “ In the end, Iowa beat the Orange the same way Georgetown had twice this season: with a physical inside game.” Iowa was 30 for 39 from the foul line in this game, Syracuse 19 of 23. That’s the margin of victory: 11 points. I found no mention of a press. I suspect my memory is faulty: That it was not proactive but reactive but ineffective in any case.
Iowa, like UNC Charlotte and Pennsylvania, went on to the Final Four, upsetting Georgetown 81-80 in the regional final. Unlike Penn, they gave a good account of themselves in the Final Four, losing to eventual champion Louisville, 72-80 in the semi-finals.
March 22, 1984
This is a forgotten game that has always bothered me because of all three teams that have beaten us in the Big Dance, Virginia was the one that played the lousiest game. We were just worse. The Cavs were in the first year of the post Ralph Sampson Era. They came into the tournament unranked at 17-11 and 6-8 in the ACC, a 7 seed. We were in the first year of the Pearl Washington Era and had just carried eventual champion Georgetown into overtime in the BET finals. We were ranked #18 by the writers and #16 by the coaches and seeded #3 with a first round bye. Virginia beat Iona by a point and Arkansas by 2 points while we handled VCU 78-63. If we won this one, we’d get another shot at Michael Jordan’s North Carolina team, who had whipped us in the Dome earlier that year, (and in Carolina the year before). All we had to do is get by Virginia.
“Syracuse picked the worst time of the year to play its worst basketball game. The Orange simply could not recover from 27.6 first half shooting and a 28-15 first half rebounding deficit.” Terry Holland, the Virginia coach: “Obviously, Syracuse did not have a good shooting night. I thought we rebounded well and played good defense, especially in the second half. We went into the game thinking that we would use the zone about 50% of the time but it was so good we decided to stay with it. Once we stayed with it and got into a good rhythm, the tempo was in our favor.” There’s that word again: zone. Another factor that crops up in these losses: Virginia went to the line 36 times to Syracuse’s 12. They shot a terrible percentage, (19 makes to our 9) but it was enough to account for our margin of defeat. Our backcourt, (Pearl Washington, Gene Waldron) and forwards, (Wendell Alexis and Rafael Addison) all fouled out. We shot 38% to their 49% but still scored one more basket from the field. The halftime score was a scintillating 16-26. JB: We had our chances to get back in it. We forced a couple of turnovers but we couldn’t do anything offensively. That was a big part of the game. We had to foul the last 10 minutes just to get back in it.” That accounts, to some extent in the foul disparity. “Virginia is a very tough team to play from behind against. They do an excellent job in the half- court offense and they handle the ball really well and really control the tempo. “ There’s another word: tempo.
Virginia, like its predecessors, had one more upset in them. Indiana, with a freshman named Steve Alford out-scoring the mighty MJ 27-13, had beaten UNC, 72-68. But they couldn’t handle this Virginia also-ran, either, going down 48-50. Then the Cavs, continuing the trend, lost in the national semi-finals to Houston but almost knocked them off, too, losing 47-49. (The semis that year were two horrible games: Georgetown whipped Kentucky 53-40, holding them to 11 points in the second half. The Hoyas won the finals in a more palatable 84-75.)
March 23, 1990
It was the Finale of the Coleman-Thompson recruiting class, (Matt Roe, Keith Hughes and Earl Duncan had left for greener pastures. We could have used them in this game.) The Orange started out the season ranked #3 by the writers and #2 by the coaches. But UNLV and LSU quickly lost and we were Ranked #1 on November 27. We won our first 10 games and were still #1 when we suffered a shocking 74-93 home loss to Villanova on 1/6/90. It would take 20 years to get back to the #1 ranking. We also lost to Connecticut, Providence, (the first ever Big East loss to the Friars, where Richard Manning had a chance to win it but flubbed a lay-up, earning him the nickname “Mr. Kluttz”), Villanova again and Notre Dame, (on Elmer Bennett’s 35 footer). We then lost to Jim Calhoun’s first really good Connecticut team in BET finals. We were still ranked #6 at 24-6 and seeded #2. We beat Coppin State 70-48 in the Round of 64 and got some revenge against Virginia, 63-61 in the round of 32. Minnesota was 20-8, ranked #20 and seeded #6. They beat UTEP 64-61 in overtime and Northern Iowa 81-78 to reach the Sweet 16.
The keys to the game were Minnesota’s two guards, 6-4 Melvin Newbern and 6-6 Kevin Lynch. “…the pair penetrated and scored with regularity, taking advantage of SU’s 5-11 Michael Edwards…Lynch saw the advantage he had over Edwards and said he wanted to capitalize on it. ‘I figured with him guarding me I would be able to shoot over him pretty easily.’… When Syracuse played man-to-man defense, Newbern used his size and strength and power his way into the basket. When Syracuse was forced into a zone, Lynch got hot from outside. ‘Whenever we changed defenses, they had the answers’, Boeheim said. ‘Lynch hit a couple of three pointers against our zone that hurt us….We wanted to play more man-to-man but when we played zone, they made everything. They made a lot of good decision against the zone. It wasn’t a very effective way to go. The game wasn’t best suited for Michael Edwards, that’s for sure.” Again, backcourt match-ups- and size- were a key here.
A Syracuse weakness was an unpredictable outside game. Their main outside threat was 6-8 Tony Scott, who hit only 2 of 11 three pointers and 3 of 16 overall. One of his misses was a 22 footer early in the shot clock with37 left. Minnesota rebounded, got fouled and made two free throws to make it 73-78. “All of Syracuse’s weapons fizzled down the stretch”. I seem to remember a bad turnover by Tony as well and was left with the impression that he had basically lost the game for us by pissing away our only chances in the last minute. (He then left the program, apparently at Rob Johnson’s urging before the next season.) But the box score reveals that Derrick Coleman closed out his career with a 5 for 13 performance and Stevie Thompson did the same with 5 turnovers, so Tony had help.
We out-rebounded the Gophers 43-32, actually had one less turnover, (13-14) and went to the line one more time, (20 to 19). We also got off 13 more shots, (69-56). But we shot 50% from two point range, 30% from three point range and a pathetic 40% from the free throw line. Minnesota made 60% of their two pointers, half their three pointers and 68.4% of the free throws. If we’d shot what they did, we’d have won 108-64. Willie Burton, their star, had only 12 points but Newbern had 20, Lynch 18 and two other Gophers were in double figures. Owens had 18 points, Thompson 16, Coleman 15 and Scott 10 for the Orange. Syracuse led 39-35 at the half. Minnesota had shot just 14 for 32 in the first half. They were 19 for 24 in the second, (79%) to win 75-82. When you’re hot, you’re hot…..
The Gophers went on to lose to Georgia Tech, (with former Orange recruit Kenny Anderson, who we could also have used in this game), 91-93.
March 24, 1994
I was in Hawaii at the time. My brother and I went hiking through some volcanos, having set the VCR to record the Missouri game. When we got back, his wife had turned off the machine, not knowing why we’d left it on. So I never saw this game, which became known for Adrian Autry’s famous shot from the floor the refs refused to count.
Syracuse, coming back from its one year probation, was 21-6 and ranked #13. Missouri had perhaps its best team ever, going 25-3 and earning a #5 national ranking. They got a #1 seed in the West while Syracuse was #4. The Tigers whipped Navy 76-53 and Wisconsin 109-96, (Dick Bennett hadn’t shown up in Madison yet). The Orange beat, ironically, Hawaii 92-78 and Wisconsin Green-Bay, (that’s where Bennett was in 1994) 64-59. The teams met in LA for what turned out to be a classic.
Syracuse managed to hang with the Tigers in the first half despite a lousy performance by Autry, who went scoreless, turned the ball over 5 times and committed 3 fouls. After halftime, Autry and his teammate, Lawrence Moten put on a tremendous second half show. Autry scored 31 points and Moten 29, accounting for 60 of SU’s 88 points. They scored 46 of SU’s last 52 points in the second half and overtime, including the last 29 by themselves. But the refs disallowed Autry’s shot from his knees with a minute to go that might have allowed us to win in regulation:
(It’s amazing how young JB looks: he turned 50 later that year.)
Even without that, Autry scored 8 points in the last 69 seconds of regulation to get us to overtime. We ran out of gas there but, but, as Moten said “We went out playing hard”. Norm Stewart, the Missouri coach, said: “Listen, coming in that’s all we worked on – Moten and Autry. We watched their games. We didn’t want them to dribble us into the lane and shoot the ball on us. But they did. They dribbled within 12 feet and shot. And that was it.”
Missouri pulled away in overtime to win 88-98. SU got only 33 of 225 minutes and 4 points scored from their bench. Was fatigue a factor? “Substituting is something you almost don’t have to do any more”, said Jim Boeheim. “You used to have to give players some two minute rests. But now they get them every five minutes for the TV time-outs.” Playing in LA probably wasn’t a factor as the sub-regionals were in Utah, the (news paper articles confirm that the team went directly to LA from there).
The problem, of course is that Autry and Moten didn’t get enough help. John Wallace had a terrible game, going 2 for 8 and scoring 6 points. Lucious Jackson was 0 for 4 from three point range and scored 8 points. Otis Hill managed 10 points. And we didn’t have a brilliant defensive game, giving 24 points each to Melvin Booker and Kelly Thomas. Rebounds were even at 43-43 but we had 19 turnovers to 10 for the Tigers. The Tigers got to the line 44 times to 21 for Syracuse, even though we had only four more fouls called against us, (24-20). They didn’t shoot all that well from the line, (29 of 44, .659 to 15 of 21 for us .714) but they still got 14 more points from the stripe. We were 26 of 52 from two point range and 7 for 21 from three. They were 27 of 49 and 5 of 19. Our turnovers and their getting to the line more really decided the game.
Missouri may have run out gas, too. They got beat by Arizona 72-82 in the regional finals.
March 20, 1998
Have you ever shared an elevator with several people who were taller than you were? Syracuse is normally the more heralded team in a Sweet 16 game but in 1998, we were the junior partner in a regional that included some of the most storied programs of all time. We’d had a nice comeback season from the 19-13 NIT disaster of the previous year, going 24-8 and 12-6 in the conference. We lost in the BET finals 64-69 to 29-4 Connecticut, ranked #6 by the writers and #5 by the coaches. SU was #21/#19. We almost went down in the first round vs. Iona but Marius Janulus saved us, 63-61. Then we handled New Mexico, 56-46. We then stepped into the elevator with Duke, UCLA and Kentucky in the Sweet 16. Even then, that was 19 national championships, (going on 23 compared with none, (going on one) for us). We were paired with the Blue Devils, who were 29-3, ranked #3 and seeded #1. We were seeded 5th.
This game produced another furious rally followed by a counter run that won the game for the other team. But this one didn’t go to overtime. The game also featured a great second half by a departing Syracuse senior. Todd Burgan scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half, including 12 of SU’s first 15 points as they came back from a 30-40 halftime deficit to tie at 49 all with 12:29 left. But it was an illusion. SU couldn’t score a field goal for the next seven minutes while Duke went on a 3-19 run to clinch the game.
Burgan and Ryan Blackwell played 37 minutes, (the latter despite a twisted ankle with 7 minutes to go). Jason Hart played 36 minutes and Etan Thomas 32. Trajan Langdon played 36 for Duke but everyone else was 29 minutes or less. We got out-rebounded 35-46. Turnovers were about even, 16-15. We committed three more fouls, (18-15) but actually went to the line more than the Devils did, 21-18. Despite the rebounding margin, There was little difference in scoring attempts, as Syracuse put up one less two pointer, (42-43) and one less three pointer, (21-22). Both teams shot poorly at the line, SU getting two more points, 13-11. Duke made one more trey, 6-7. The game was decided on two point shooting, SU getting 18 vs. 24 for the Devils. Langdon was only 2 for 13 but Elton brand was 10 for 14 and scored 20 points with 14 rebounds. I remember Etan Thomas, who was not exactly skinny, looking like he was trying to ride a brahma bull when he was guarding Brand. He got 9 points and 6 rebounds. A freshman named Shane Battier hit 6 of 7 shots for 14 points.
David Ramsey wrote “In the end, wisdom and grit and a hassling zone defense failed to deliver the needed fuel for Syracuse University to defeat the Blue Devils of Duke. The Orangemen needed offense. They needed imagination and explosiveness to go with the muscle and hustle….Yes, SU’s zone collapsed into chaos during Duke’s run. But if the Orangemen had found a way to score 10 points instead of three, they would have remained in sight. They would have retained a chance….’Their zone is tough. Their players are tougher.’”
Duke lost 84-86 to Kentucky in the regional finals and the Wildcats went on to win their second title in three years.
March 23, 2000
This was one of Syracuse’s best teams, a crew that started 19-0, (taking them 6 games in the Big East season, so it wasn’t just the pre-season schedule). We were the last undefeated team and rose to a #4 national ranking. Included was a joyous 88-74 triumph over the defending national champion Connecticut Huskies in the Dome. Great days…
Then we got upset at home by Seton Hall 67-69, and had to go on the road to take on Louisville, (not yet a conference member), where we got beat again, 69-82. Later St. John’s nipped us 75-76 and UCONN got revenge 54-69 at their place. We got upset by old rival Georgetown in the BET first round, 72-76. Our ranking was down to #16/#14 and we were seeded #4 in the Midwest Regional. It put us in the Sweet 16 bracket with #2 Michigan State and the regionals were played in their back yard at Auburn Hills, Michigan. We beat Samford 79-72 and Kentucky, 52-50 on a Preston Shumpert jump shot to get there.
The good times returned as Syracuse played a near-perfect game to cruise to a 34-24 half-time lead. We opened the second half with a 6-2 run to push it to 40-26. The Spartan fans were glum and SU fans were dreaming of a national title. One sour note was that Shumpert has been hit upside the head and had to leave the game, taking our perimeter game with him. But so what? We were up 14! Tom Izzo: “They out-ran us, they out-rebounded us, they out-defended us, the out-scored us. I don’t think there’s much left.” Unfortunately, there was.
“We made a couple of big plays and it seemed like the roof just caved in on them“, said Izzo. The Spartans began chipping away at the lead until they wrested it from the orange at 56-58. Jason Hart made a twisting lay-up to tie it at 58 with 5:55 left and everybody braced for a great ending. At this point the Syracuse offense completely shut down and the Spartans closed the game on a 0-17 run. SU’s last eight possessions resulted in 5 missed shots and 3 turnovers.
The game, on the surface, resembled the Louisville game in the 2013 BET. In that one, we were ahead 45-29 with 15:54 left and got out-scored 16-49 the rest of the way. In the 2000 Michigan State game it was 40-26 with 18 ½ minutes to go, then 18-49. The Spartans didn’t have Louisville’s withering press but they did have Izzo’s aggressive man-to man defense. And they cracked Syracuse’s zone, scoring almost at will in the half-court set.
Tony Bland: “They made some big shots and banged us all game. We were able to respond for 30 minutes of the game but once we got down they just banged us and banged us and it was hard to hit answer shots.” Etan Thomas was double-teamed the whole game. “The Spartans bodied up on Thomas the entire game, bumping him and locking arms with the Syracuse big man. On several occasions, Michigan State’s Andre Hudson had a chunk of Thomas’ jersey firmly in his grasp. The strategy worked. Thomas took just three shots, went to the foul line on only one occasion and turned the ball over three times.” Hudson had knocked Shumpert out of the game: “Shumpert’s arms got tangled up with Hudson and he immediately fell to the floor on the baseline when Hudson’s elbow hit his eye.” Preston tried to come back into the game several minutes later after a cut was treated but he could barely see due to a swollen eye and had double-vision.
Bud Poliquin reported that “The crowd of 21,214 at The Palace at Auburn Hills almost brought the roof down as the Spartans roared from behind.”. Shumpert said “Any other place we would have beat them. South, West, Any other place, we beat them.”
You still have to beat the players. Michigan State was 9 for 15 from the three point line in the second half, 5 by Morris Peterson, who scored 21 points. “The Orangemen would score a conventional two-point bucket and Michigan State would respond with another three.” Jim Boeheim: Once they got going in the second half, we’d move out and they’d move out farther. “ Jason Hart: “I think we played well in the first half. We got some easy buckets in transition. At halftime, they adjusted. That’s the hard thing about the game. It doesn’t stay the same throughout the game.”
Syracuse only got out-rebounded 27-30 and had one more turnover, 11-10. We got off three more shots, 52-49. The fouls were 19-13. The Spartans got to the line ten more times, 9-19. That’s not unusual in a 17 point defeat. We had one fewer field goal and 8 fewer free throws. The big stat was that they hit 11 of 23 three pointers while we went 4 for 12. The Spartans shot 68% in the second half, 9 for 15 from the arc and 8 for 10 inside it. Physical defense, (with only 13 fouls called against them) and hot shooting by the Spartans beat us. That and the fact that the Spartans could make adjustments and we couldn’t. Having the crowd go crazy while this was happening just made it all the more unpleasant for Syracuse fans. Spartan fans kept cheering all the way to the national title.
March 25, 2004
In the wake of winning the national championship, I thought our program would be a higher plane than it had been. It wasn’t just about recruiting. It was about having been there and done that. Even though we’d lost Carmelo Anthony, we had so many guys coming back from the youngest team ever to win a national champion ship, I felt it was a cinch that those players would at least play on another Final Four team in their career here and, in turn the younger players on that team would know what it takes. The result would be a chain reaction of success in future NCAA tournaments. Our NCAA record in recent seasons had actually been pretty good. The only NCAA upset we had suffered since the 1991 Richmond game was the 8-9 game vs. Oklahoma State in 1999. And we’d made it to another national title game and played competitively. But still, I felt that, over the next few years, we’d win an extra game or two just because of the knowledge and confidence that had been gained by winning it all. It didn’t happen.
We lost right off the bat to our old pals from ’77, now just Charlotte. We then ripped of 13 wins in a row before losing at Seton Hall and getting crushed 45-66 in Pittsburgh. It was the start of a 3-5 stretch. We rallied for five more wins to close out the regular season but lost to Boston College in the first round of the BET. That left us with a 21-7 record, a #20 national ranking and #5 seed, a disappointing follow-up to a magical season.
We had our hands full with BYU the first game but Gerry McNamara had his career game with 43 points and we survived, 80-75. That set up a rare match-up of the previous two national champions in the Round of 32. We won that, 72-70 over Maryland. Our Sweet 16 opponent was a school known more for its football team, Alabama, who had stumbled through the regular season at 17-12 and 8-8 in the SEC. Somehow that got them into the tournament with an 8 seed. They beat Southern Illinois 65-64 and then pulled off a huge upset, beating #1 ranked and seeded Stanford, (who had been 30-1), 67-70, in the Round of 32. We seemed to be in good position: the Tide had pulled off the one upset most underdogs get in the Big Dance and we had them in the next game. Beating them would get us a rematch with Connecticut, who had embarrassed us, 56-84 in their own place. We’d gained revenge in the Dome, 67-56, in the final game of the regular season. This would be the rubber match, with the winner going to the Final Four.
The Tide hit 8 of 15 first half three pointers to take a 36-38 halftime lead. That’s OK: they’ll cool off. And they did, going 1 for 7 in the second half. Gerry McNamara had another one of those big second halves SU players have had in these games, scoring 20 of his 24 points after halftime. So how did we lose, 71-80? Committing twice as many turnovers as the opposition, (18-9) didn’t help. Hakim Warrick had scored 15 in the first half but the Tide made some adjustments and held him to 6 in the second half. But the killer was a 5 minute stretch without field goals during which Alabama out-scored the ‘Cuse 5-19 after the game had been tied at 57.
The Orange tried to come back but, as GMAC said: “It’s kind of tough when you use all your energy to come back and the next thing you know you’re down four and you’re making stupid turnovers. You’re down six and the same thing over again. It takes a lot out of a team when that happens. “
Syracuse won the battle of the boards, 35-27 but negated that with the turnovers. Fouls were 20-17 and they got three more free throw attempts, (20-23). They made five more (14-19). We got off three more field goal attempts, 55-52. The real difference in the game was the shooting. They were 8 for 15 from three in the first half. We were 1 for 4. We were close at halftime because we hit 14 of 23 two point shots. In the second half that decreased to 7 of 18 due to the adjustments Alabama made and the turnovers we made. Meanwhile those long range bombs the Tide made in the first half extended our zone defense so they could make 13 of 16 two pointers in the second half.
Connecticut ended the Tide’s run 87-71 in the regional finals and went on to win their second national championship.
March 27, 2009
The post championship years had been kind of rough for SU. The Alabama loss was followed by first round bow-outs the next two year s and then NIT bids the two years after that. We showed signs of pulling out of the slump early in the 2008-09, ripping through the pre-Big East schedule with a single defeat to Cleveland State on a 70 foot shot. Included were wins over the schools that played for the national championship the previous spring, (Kansas and Memphis and the school that had won the last two national titles before that, Florida, (but we just play cupcakes). We also won our first three Big East games before enduring a 3-7 stretch that reminded people of the frustrations of the previous years. Then we started playing fanatical defense and blew out St. John’s by 29, Cincinnati by 24 and Rutgers by 30. After an overtime win over Marquette we went to New York. We beat Seton Hall by 15 and then played and one the greatest game of all time, the 127-117 win over Connecticut, who had beaten us 49-63 during the bad streak. We won another OT game vs. West Virginia and took a 12 point lead over Louisville in the BET final before, (as in 2013), we succumbed to their press and physical exhaustion.
We went into the NCAAs with the same record we have as I write this, 26-9, a #13/#15 national ranking and a #3 NCAA seed. We brushed aside Stephen F. Austin, 59-44 and dominated Arizona State and their strangely passive star, James Harden. That put us in the Sweet 16 with still another school known more for football, Oklahoma. The Sooners had been highly ranked all season and were presently #7/#8 and the #2 seed. They had an authentic superstar in 6-10 250lb Blake Griffin, a muscular, explosive forward who’d averaged 23 points and 14 rebounds a game on his way to being a consensus All-American.
Jonny Flynn: “Tonight, Oklahoma was just better than we were. They deserved to win.” Blake Griffin, whom Bud Poliquin called “the best big man in college basketball since Tim Duncan” had 30 points, 14 rebounds . The memorable image was of Griffin slamming in the face of our star, Flynn. That’s what the Sooners did to the Orange that day. Tony Crocker added a career high 28 points, including 6 three pointers.
Syracuse didn’t help its case with its shooting. Flynn, Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf were 0 for 10 from beyond the arc as SU scored only 26 points in the first half while the Sooners had 39. “You know, we have to make shots to win”, said Jim Boeheim. Rautins blamed himself. “As a shooter, that’s my job. I was getting the looks I wanted. I just wasn’t knocking them down.”
Oklahoma dominated the first half, playing a physical style that seemed to out-Big East the Orange….Syracuse appeared tight from the opening tap. The Orange made only one of its first six shots while turning the ball over four times to fall behind 10-2 in less than five minutes.” At one point the Sooners led by 27 points. Jonny Flynn summed it up: “They deserved to win. They were the better team.”
We got out-rebounded 29-36. The turnovers were even at 18. The referees let the players play, whistling only 24 fouls, 14 against the winners. Somehow they got to the foul mine four more times but only made one more free throw. We got off one more field goal attempt. It was all in the shooting. We missed 20 of 31 first half shots and goose-egged ten treys. The Sooners were over 50% in both halves and scored 5 more field goals, including 2 more treys. Even that’s deceivingly close as SU rallied in garbage time to make it “respectable”.
A great North Carolina team turned the tables on Mr. Griffin and his friends, 72-60 in the regional finals on their way to the national title. We’d gone about as far as we could go.
March, 25, 2010
The next year, we were the great team. We had two of everything. We had two inside scorers, Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson. We had two outside scorers, Wes Johnson and Andy Rautins. We had two good point guards, Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine. We had two productive guys coming off the bench, Jardine and Kris Joseph. We had multiple guys who could drive to the basket and score. We were a strong defensive team. Onuaku was a fine positonal defender in the paint and we also had two shot-blockers in Jackson and Johnson. We out-shot the opposition 57%-46% inside the arc, 39%-30% outside of it and 68%-64% from the line. We pulled down 212 more rebounds and forced 15 more turnovers. Actually there’s an Achilles heel there: we had 532 turnovers that year vs. 433 the next and 389 last year.
But this was a heck of a team, one that blew defending national champion North Carolina out of Madison Square Garden, 87-71, while winning our first 14 games. Our old nemesis, Pittsburgh ended the string in the Dome, 72-82, but we started another run that went to 11 straight and a #2 national ranking before another nemesis, Rick Pitino’s Louisville team, beat us 60-66, also in the Dome. We won four more in a row and became the #1 team for the first time in 20 years before Louisville did it again in the season finale, 68-78, (thank you, Kyle Kuric!).
Then came the BET and a frustrating 84-91 loss to another old rival, Georgetown. But the big story was that Arinze Onauku had hit the floor heavily trying to prevent a lay-up. He was clearly hurt badly and, in fact, his career here was over. This reduced us to one good inside threat: Rick Jackson. We were still a potent team, but things were not the same. Our guards had had two inside players they could pass to. And those players could pass to each other or back out for open shots. Now our guards had only one inside target.
It didn’t seem to matter the first week. We were still ranked #3 in the country and got a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament for the first time in 30 years. It was great fun getting revenge on Vermont in the first game 79-56. Then we shot the lights out to beat Gonzaga 87-65. Up ahead were Butler and maybe after that, Xavier. It looked like the Bonfire of the Mid-Majors. Meanwhile the one team that had been considered our equal or superior over the course of the season, Kansas, went down 67-69 to Northern Iowa in the round of 64. The road to a second national championship seemed open.
But Butler was a formidable team. They were 27-4, ranked #12 and a #5 seed. They were also one of the best defensive teams in the nation. One thing they lacked was big-time shot blocker in the middle. Teams tried to beat them by getting the ball inside. They took advantage of that by tightening the passing lanes. It was a big help for them that we had only the one target inside. They were also superb at guarding the backcourt aggressively.
People remember what a horrible game Rick Jackson had in this game. I would describe it as a horrible time for Rick. He was charged with only 3 turnovers but we had a total of 8 turnovers trying to get the ball to him. Overall, Syracuse had 18 turnovers to 7 for the Bulldogs. And that was the difference in the game. We out-rebounded the Bulldogs 38-28. They got off four more shots, (52-48) but we had the same number of field goals, (21), and one more three pointer, (7-6). We committed one more foul, (16-15) but they got to the line 21 times to our 14 and scored five more free throws, (15-10).
SU was down 25-35 at the half because of all the turnovers. We then had a 15-4 run to open the second half and take the lead at 40-39. But we couldn’t sustain it. Still, SU had a 54-50 lead with under four minutes left. It all collapsed in an 0-11 run, keyed by a stolen inbounds pass by Willie Veasley that led to a basket. Andy Rautins was trying to get it to Wes Johnson. Veasley also had a three-pointer that “rolled around the rim, bounced way up the backboard and then dropped through the net to give Butler a 58-54 lead.” Ronald Nored, (NORAD?), made a three at the shot clock buzzer. He was 17% form the arc on the season. I also recall a controversial out-of-bounds play but didn’t see it described in the newspaper. But it wasn’t meant to be. The final was 59-63.
Brad Stevens: “I don’t want to take anything away from ourselves but Onukau in the middle of that zone is a difference-maker. “ Andy Rautins: “They play like Pittsburgh and like West Virginia- just being physical, really fronting and switching a lot. They gave us a lot of different looks. It just came down to us not turning the ball over. “ Which we did.
Butler then beat Kansas State, who had beaten Xavier, in the regional final, 63-56. They even out-toughed Michigan State 52-50 in the national semi-final and almost beat Duke for the national championship but Gordon Heyward’s half-court shot just rimmed out. If it had gone in, you’d have seen a movie about it. When the Bulldogs returned to the national title game the next year, our loss to them didn’t look so bad. But it still hurt. That was one of the best teams we ever had.
Summary and Conclusions (if any)
So, what does all of this tell us? Four of the defeats were to higher seeded or higher ranked teams. They weren’t upsets. If you add in our five Sweet 16 wins, (Florida in ’87, Missouri in ’89, Georgia in ’96, Auburn ’03 and Wisconsin in ’12) the upsets we’ve endured are a minority of our Sweet 16 appearances. But 7 is in 16 games is way too many and a 5-7 record as a favorite, (as we were in all of our wins: if we beat Indiana it will be the first time we’ve pulled off a Sweet 16 upset), is a poor one.
I made a list of the factors that seemed to be key to our 11 defeats. I found four games where turnovers mattered and the same number where the other team was ”hot”. A couple more were noted for our cold shooting, especially in the first half, which created deficits we were not able to overcome.. Three games were notable for teams “breaking” our zone. Two of those were highly ranked teams: Duke in ’98 and Michigan State in 2000, supporting the notion that really good teams can figure out how to attack the zone. But Alabama did it too and they were not on the same level. Another factor that came up a couple of times was adjustments- offensive and defensive, that the other team did better than we did. There were probably more than two but it was mentioned a couple of times. (But we probably made good adjustments in the games we won).
The narrative in several of the early losses makes it clear we were not always a zone only team. That’s basically a development of the 90’s. So the “they have a week to prepare for the zone” idea doesn’t necessarily apply there. Ironically, in several of the early losses our playing against a zone seemed to have been a big problem. Maybe that’s why we became a zone team.
Match-ups are always a factor in these games but the match-up problem that comes up the most is in the backcourt. In the Charlotte and Minnesota games we had a distinct high disadvantage that allowed the other team to shoot and pass over our guys and prevented the latter, (an advantage which we would see m to have in our favor in 2013). Against Pennsylvania, it was the quickness of the other team’s guards we couldn’t deal with, (which has worked against us at times this year).
We always grouse about the refs. There were three games where there was a significant difference in the number of free throws attempted, (this year’s team with the emphasis on driving to the basket seems to have that in their favor so far: we’ve taken 40 more free throws than the opposition in the first two games). There’s also that Pennsylvania game where we kept fouling a guy late in the game to try to get the ball back and he kept making the shots.
There’s been only a couple of games where we got out-rebounded by a significant margin. Our defense was bad vs. Missouri. A couple of teams, Michigan State and Butler roughed us up on defense and got away with it. The Michigan State game was notable as a “home” game for the other team, which the NCAA supposedly wants to avoid. The tempo of the game was only mentioned once but one weakness of Syracuse over the years was the Orange’s willingness to play at the tempo the other team wants instead of imposing their will on the opposition with defensive pressure.
The thing is, these are reasons why we or any other teams can lose almost any game. I could analyze our other 17 NCAA losses of the JB Era and find the same factors were present. It’s hard to say that these things happened because it was the Sweet 16, rather than another round of the tournament. Five of the losses have been y single digits and another by overtime. Three of the others were to favored teams. Maybe we are just 5-11 in the Sweet 16 because we just got beat 11 times.
