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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4190479, member: 289"] We think of Syracuse as an elite program but we haven't been for several years. [URL unfurl="true"]http://orangehoops.org/BBall.htm[/URL] We were elite when the Louie and Bouie Show went 100-18. We were elite from 1986-91, when we went 165-43, played for the national title and reached the #1 ranking twice. We were elite when we went to the 1996 Final Four, reached a #2 ranking in 1999-2000, We were elite when we won the national championship in 2003. And we were elite from 2009-14 when we went 177-42 and reached the #1 ranking three times. The rest of the time we were good by normal standards but not elite. A good post season run doesn't really change that. They are certainly welcome but it's better to be dreaming of national championships for four months than to be amazed for a couple of weeks. Of course, elite teams do both. The problem is, Jim wants us to evaluate our recent teams by normal, not elite standards. We have now achieved mediocrity and the fear is that we are on the precipice of being truly bad. The hope is that we've bottomed out and will again be elite in the near future. It's likely to take more than a class where the top recruit is rated 96th in the country by 247 to achieve that. That's why recruited Mintz, (#56) and getting Benny to live up to the hype, (#32) is important. Also, Jim Boeheim didn't "build this program up from nothing". It was nothing when Fred Lewis came here and he took them to 99 points a game and the Elite 8. then it got derailed by off the field problems. Roy Danforth put it back on the tracks and went 127-43 his final six years and to our first Final Four. Jim Boeheim, (plus Jake Crouthamel, Dave Gavitt, the Big East, ESPN and the Dome) then took it to new heights, to which we hope to return. [/QUOTE]

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