When are we going to be Syracuse again | Page 2 | Syracusefan.com

When are we going to be Syracuse again

I miss the days when we started the season 18-0, and lost a game to Pitt, and it wasn't the end of the world. The days when are biggest concern going into selection sunday was 3 or 4 seed. I don't recognize what I am watching right now, we have become Seton Hall the past couple of years, I long for the good old days, maybe I am spoiled by our past success, but this year hurts.
Man do you like to exaggerate! First off, SU is no longer in the BE. The ACC is a little bit different. Also, you seem to be forgetting that the NCAA sanctions really did hurt in recruiting. Limited scholarships kept the roster down and so when kids left early (3 freshmen in a row), it really hurt. Ennis leaving early set a bad cycle in motion at pg, it left a freshmen Joseph at pg, then after that mess, now Howard. McCullough in the post. Richardson at the 2/3. SU has never been in positon to constantly replace such quality year in and year out. And lastly, no way does SU even remotely resemble Seton Hall. Since joining the ACC, who has had the better conference record. SU in the ACC or SH in what ever conference they are in?
 
Bingo. Probably will be 3 years before we are a legit top 15 team again. Last year's glorious fluke was fun as hell but doesn't change the fact we are 24-24 the last two seasons plus in this league. Also failed to ever once win a single conference tourney game.
Come on Bud, shouldn't you be working on another Doug Marrone-is-not-a-nice-man column?
 
It's not one year.
2014, 2015, 2016 regular seasons have been mediocre.
The 2015 Final Four saves our national standing of
common fans. However anybody who looks closely sees we have had problems and the future is uncertain.
We've been worse this season is what I mean.
 
You just called me Bud. Wow you must be a basketball only Kaiser talks about.
I'm not a basketball only but even so, I don't understand the comment. Are you the anti-Bud on the football side?
 
I'm not a basketball only but even so, I don't understand the comment. Are you the anti-Bud on the football side?
The fact you labeled me Bud because I said we had 3 mediocre regular seasons in a row is funny. I gave credit for the Final Four when Pud never did.
What the hell smart thing has Bud ever said? I don't even know his FB take.
 
The fact you labeled me Bud because I said we had 3 mediocre regular seasons in a row is funny. I gave credit for the Final Four when Pud never did.
What the hell smart thing has Bud ever said? I don't even know his FB take.

He thinks Syracuse would be better off in the Patriot League.
 
The fact you labeled me Bud because I said we had 3 mediocre regular seasons in a row is funny. I gave credit for the Final Four when Pud never did.
What the hell smart thing has Bud ever said? I don't even know his FB take.
Good. It was meant to be funny.

Even if you GAVE credit for the FF, JB would have disagreed with you anyway.
 
I miss the days when we started the season 18-0, and lost a game to Pitt, and it wasn't the end of the world. The days when are biggest concern going into selection sunday was 3 or 4 seed. I don't recognize what I am watching right now, we have become Seton Hall the past couple of years, I long for the good old days, maybe I am spoiled by our past success, but this year hurts.

It's not been a particularly pretty stretch, to say the least, but I'm not sure it's really unprecedented in JB's history or even in this program's recent history (note: this season could be unprecedented if they struggle through the rest of the ACC schedule, a distinct possibility). But consider:

'05-'06 through '07-'08 (68-37, .648)

-- They averaged 12.3 losses/season
-- Two NITs and one first round and out exit
--- Won the BET in GMac's final season, otherwise it would have been three straight missed NCAAs
-- Not really a lot of personnel issues to point to for the struggles. team was fresh off an NCAA title in '03. Melo leaves early but Warrick stays for four years. Edelin would have helped but major culprit is a slew of recruiting misses (josh wright, dayshawn wright, gorman, mccroskey, Mike Jones, DBM, and Sean Williams) as well as others that took a little longer to come around than maybe the staff thought (Nichols, excellent as a senior OK but not great before that, Watkins excellent defensively, never much on offense and then Roberts, however you grade him).
-- '08-'09 was another 10-loss season but in a really tough Big East and they had 28 wins, the 6 OT classic, and a sweet 16

'80-81 through '82-'83 (59-35, .628)
-- Averaged ~12 losses/season
-- Numbers would have been much worse in terms of wins if '80-'81 team didn't finish strong, winning BE tourney (3 wins) and putting up another 4 in the NIT.

'14-'15 through '16-'17 (52-35, .598)
-- Barring some sort of miracle the winning percentage here will be the worst of the three eras.
-- This era has included perhaps some of the most inexplicable losses -- absolute blowouts vs. brutal St. John's teams, a brutal loss to a miserable UConn team this year, the completely confounding loss to BC.
-- That said, there are some mitigating factors.
  • Early departures are crushing -- Ennis' departure was a pretty big surprise given his physical profile; McCullough is barely even active long enough to be considered truly a part of Syracuse basketball history, Grant and Richardson leave after putting up good but not great regular seasons and then there's the strange saga of BJ Johnson. That's pretty unprecedented for most of SU basketball history.
  • There are sanctions.
  • There is a coach who is in his final years, which can often be tough for good programs.
  • There is a final four run included in this stretch, which either makes it better or worse depending on how you look at it.
  • This season isn't over. Could get worse, but could get better to. A couple key wins and taking care of business vs. 50/50 opponents or weaker opponents could add a couple ticks on the positive side of the ledger. Who knows?
So, is it unprecedented or inevitable that there are going to be some struggles, particularly toward the end of a successful coach's long tenure? I don't know. Feels pretty ugly right now looking at next year but stranger things have happened.

To me this feels like more of a weird stretch where the coaches got hit with a few sucker punches they didn't plan for and, to be fair, would have been tough to plan for. The '14-'15 team with Grant and Ennis or even just Ennis and a healthy McCullough is really interesting. Even with Joseph and neither of Ennis/Grant, they're 12-4 in the 16 games with McCullough. An ugly loss (Cal) but a couple that aren't terrible ones (St. John's wins 21 games that year; Michigan is no good but it's close and on the road) and one to a good Nova team. Then they go 6-6 over the next 12 ACC games with a win over a top 10 ND team to put themselves at 18-10 with three to go before dropping those three and not playing in the postseason ACC tournament. It just feels like it's tough to hammer the staff for '14-'15 given the circumstances.

'15-'16 is interesting because at this time last year (essentially) they are 10-7. Sound familiar? But they figured things out. Do you crush the staff and call it a lucky/fluky final four run? I don't know. I'd say it's something in between because if you look, after losing to Carolina on 1/9, they go 9-6 the rest of the way with the loss to Pitt in ACCT. Not impressive, per se, but that was actually some pretty solid hoops. Won at Duke, blew out an elite 8 team in ND at home, played well in a loss at UNC, lost at L'ville and UVA (tough matchups) and then dropped a game that could easily have gone their way in the ACCT. Got a lucky draw in the NCAA, no question, but I think that team actually played some pretty good hoops down the stretch. If they get by Pitt in the ACCT, maybe they go on a run. If they pull it out at UNC or FSU, then maybe they would have been viewed much differently. I don't know.

Anyway, it's been an ugly stretch in many ways, but I'm not sure it's a harbinger of a program on the decline.
 
It definitely gets old when the same handful of posters trash anyone who sees that we are in trouble. Whatever floats your boat I guess...

Football is on the rise at least...
 
It definitely gets old when the same handful of posters trash anyone who sees that we are in trouble. Whatever floats your boat I guess...

Football is on the rise at least...

I think a lot of people see we are in trouble for next year. Doesn't mean we can't turn it around for 2018 if we do this correctly.
 
I think a lot of people see we are in trouble for next year. Doesn't mean we can't turn it around for 2018 if we do this correctly.

Agreed, we still can position ourselves for a nice rebuild. If we're able to bring in Duarte and Ayala that gives us 5 new freshmen program type guys in the system (Moyer, Sidibe, Brissett, Ayala, Duarte). Sprinkle in Battle, Frank and TT for however long they are still here and that's a young core you can develop and build with. Potentially, then you have the supporting pieces in place to sell for a couple instant impact guys to step in and be the last piece on an experienced, strong roster of program guys.

It will take patience from the fan base but that's the making of a strong foundation of upperclassmen leadership in a couple seasons.
 
The fact you labeled me Bud because I said we had 3 mediocre regular seasons in a row is funny. I gave credit for the Final Four when Pud never did.
What the hell smart thing has Bud ever said? I don't even know his FB take.
Final four is great (Thank god for that). Not making the tournament 2 out of 3 years is not great and unacceptable IMO. This is also the second time in the past decade where we haven't made the tourney 2 out of 3 years. So NCAA tournament 60% of the time this decade...
 
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After we eat a Snickers.
 

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