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Message: [QUOTE="JeffCuse, post: 5368058, member: 1151"] Last night was weird for me. I settled in at 9pm ET to watch Syracuse basketball. Why? I really don't know. But I did. And I was actually pleasantly surprised with the first half performance. Possibly the best first half of the season by many metrics. Certainly passed the eye test. I even tweeted as much. Could they hold on? Nope. Same old same old. A 2nd half in which we just didn't adjust. We were outcoached at the half, again, and you could feel it just slipping away the whole time. Despondent, but unsurprised. Then I turned on the University of Arizona game. Many of you know my son goes there (Bear Down) so it's become a 2nd team of sorts, and one which I pay close attention to. It was like night and day. Arizona made a coaching change a few years ago, and it was a sudden coaching change because Sean Miller was a moron. And this is a University that has been in financial duress for many years (google it if you want...they are broke). And given the sudden nature of the change, and the fact this was not an expense they had planned for (or could afford), they had every opportunity and obligation to go cheap. Very cheap. And probably would have been justified. Yet, they didn't. They didn't stay in house. In the family. No, they hired the hottest young major program assistant out there, Tommy Lloyd from Gonzaga. And he just became the first AZ coach ever to win 20 games in his first 4 seasons. This is a BAD year for them and they are 20-10, ranked 24, and have the #10 NET ranking. The team is well-coached. Kids always come to play. The offensive is cohesive and creative. They lost their arguably most important player for the season very early. Did they shut it down? Look for excuses? No. Lloyd just coached around it, and kids stepped up. Oh and to be clear, they had the #35 composite recruiting class last fall according to 247 after losing 2 key guys to the NBA last season. Syracuse? #36. We are not talking about a top 10 type class. Lloyd makes about $5 mill. It's not cheap, I know. And seeing the JMA Dome so empty is truly upsetting. Games that used to get 30K fans are lucky to get half of that now. But let me ask you this. Could an elite coach get 2K more people a game into the building? I think so. 20 games...2k more people...75 bucks a ticket. That's $3 million. And that's conservative. Simply getting that 15K back into the Duke game could be worth well over a million dollars to the University alone. But It's never been about what we can afford, but what we choose to spend and if we are willing to gamble in the short term for bigger gains later. Look it is what it is. This feels like a dying basketball program, one in which the administration would rather move the goalposts and explain why we can't do things...why we can't compete...why we can't change coaches...why we can't go outside the program when we do...than make creative investments in the future. I hope Syracuse and its leaders make the decision to do what it takes to be a big time program again rather than seed the media with excuse after excuse as to why it can't be. But I'm sure glad I have another program to watch that seems to care enough to. I know many if not most of you don't. Arizona is an all time great program that acts like it. Syracuse acts like it's happy to be here and its fans should be too. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?