ACC Regrets?

[HastingsCuse]

I guess I should have worded my initial post better. Yes, I think we'd be better in the Big East if that had been a possibility. I also think (just an opinion) that we'd match up better in the Big Ten, despite the lack of rivalries.

I don't necessarily think Syracuse was wrong to join the ACC, but I think it's a move that has ramifications. I don't think we will ever consistently be a top 2-3 team in this league. I guess I'm spoiled because I like winning championships. I liked our swagger. I miss being an alpha dog.

I also realize the sanctions have hurt us. But with the sanctions set to end, I still don't see us regularly competing for ACC supremacy. Sure we'll upset Duke and UNC from time to time. But the days of expecting a top 2-3 finish nearly every year are over. IMO. I miss the good ole days.

NO REGRETS. I also think you have a selective memory as to SU's performance in the Big East if you think SU was a top 2-3 team every year. For the last 4 years in the BE (2010-2013), SU was great and in the regular season finished 5th (2012-13), 1st (11-12), 3rd (10-11) and 1st (09-10) . However the four years ending in 2009 we finished 6th, 9th, 5th and 9th in the regular season BE. Based upon the reasons discussed ad nauseam in this thread we have had a few down years (and still winning 18-20 games!) but in the future SU will be competitive and among the top 2-3 teams in the ACC. We have a HOF coach and an established, successful program with great facilities.

 

[Hoo's That]

Was the tattooist eating a Milky Way at the time?

 

[007]

That's fine if that's your stance. I hope you're right. I make no definitive claims. I think perhaps you're making a claim that is no more verifiable than mine. There too many variables to determine whether the challenge in recruiting is due to:
Conference affiliation
Sanctions
The age of our coach
Dynamics with Hopkins
The exclusivity of the zone
The moneybags and agents.
Etc.

If you understand research you know that having too many variables decreases the reliability of the results. So my "asking" if the conference affiliation impacts recruiting is far less of a reach than saying "we are middle of the pack right now because of sanctions," and that recruiting will be fine. That is an opinion far less substantiated than my question.

The only minor "regret" for me is being distanced from our iconic role in the rise of the BE basketball and the BE's role in the explosion of ESPN. But, that "regret" pales in comparison to the absolute elation of being a desired piece of the Power 5 expansion. The ACC was our lifeboat. I am grateful of that.

I simply and respectfully disagree with your other points about not being able to compete with Duke and NC, and the negative impact to recruiting. Obviously, that story is still being written. But, we have: the Dome (the renovation, if done "right," will be a major asset to recruiting and add to SU's uniqueness/iconic factor); Babers personality and his offense; a HOF coach with a 40+ year history of winning; and our presence in NYC.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

42-23 at Halftime

 

[sufandu]

I miss the Big East, but moving to the ACC was necessary. Everyone knows why. We aren't middle of the pack because the ACC is any tougher than the Big East was. Through most of it's existence it was a deeper conference than the ACC was. We're middle of the pack because we're not that good. The 2010 or 2012 teams would've competed for ACC championships would still have been 1 seeds in the tournament.

 

[blust2i3d4]

Out of curiosity, do you guys think Syracuse made the right decision to join the ACC?

In the Big East we were alpha dogs. Sure there was competition, but the competition wasn't blue bloods (Duke and UNC). Don't get me wrong, the Syracuse teams of old could compete against and beat Duke/UNC. But we've taken ourselves out of our domain. We'll never consistently beat UNC and Duke playing in the same conference because we've lost our edge in recruiting.

It was far less difficult to sell a kid to come play for Syracuse when we played in the Big East because we consistently were an upper echelon team. In the ACC, that's not happening because of Duke and UNC. Even with the nice recruiting class we've got coming in next season it's below Duke and UNC.

I actually think we'd be better off if we'd followed the Catholic schools and joined the new Big East. Heck, I think we'd be better off in the Big Ten too. There are no blue blood programs in the Big ten.

I think we may be a middle of the pack team in this conference most years because we lost our recruiting edge. An aging JB doesn't make it any easier. In this conference we're always going to be a notch below...

Before joining ACC, SU and Duke is 50/50 in win and loss. Now we are less likely to win because we are in their house and use their referees. Not just Duke and UNC, referees want NC State, GA Tech, Wake, Florida State to win, too. It reduces our chance to be in big dance tremendously.

 

[721Comstock]

Have you seen Duke's recruiting class? Each of their 4 recruits is ranked higher than Bazely.

And this is different than in any other year, and for any other school other than UK - HOW?

And in spite of that, we're 3-4 vs Duke, with 4 of those games being played at Cameron Indoor.
(And one of those, we took the L, along with JB's jacket, on a horrible home-cooking call)

Our first year in the ACC, it was Business as Usual for Cuse, and we went 14-4.

Since then - sanctions. So we played basically .500 ball in the conference.
And still managed a Final Four run.

Now, we've got our best recruiting class in ages coming in, some decent young talent returning, and no sanctions or coaching 'continuity' issues over our heads.

To the OP - zero, none, zip, nada.
Football drives the D1 bus, and we're in a Big Boy conference, not an also-ran scrappy mid-major.

 

[JazzNC]

NO REGRETS. I also think you have a selective memory as to SU's performance in the Big East if you think SU was a top 2-3 team every year. For the last 4 years in the BE (2010-2013), SU was great and in the regular season finished 5th (2012-13), 1st (11-12), 3rd (10-11) and 1st (09-10) . However the four years ending in 2009 we finished 6th, 9th, 5th and 9th in the regular season BE. Based upon the reasons discussed ad nauseam in this thread we have had a few down years (and still winning 18-20 games!) but in the future SU will be competitive and among the top 2-3 teams in the ACC. We have a HOF coach and an established, successful program with great facilities.

I have not forgotten our performance in the Big East at all. It was not our norm to finish in the middle of the pack AND even when we were not at the top we were often still in the tournament and ranked nationally. Unfortunately, finishing in the middle of the pack has been our norm since joining the ACC.

That said, I love your optimism and I hope we can keep pace recruiting as a middle of the pack team. Time will tell. I think there are many factors involved, and IMO conference affiliation is a factor.

 

[Cheriehoop]

So an SU fan who I assume lives in N.C. isn’t happy that we left the Big East, playing closer to him while longing for our time in the Big East?

 

[JazzNC]

So an SU fan who I assume lives in N.C. isn’t happy that we left the Big East, playing closer to him while longing for our time in the Big East?

Fun question...

I love being able to see them more. I just fear that it may be detrimental to recruiting. Would love nothing more than to put a plug in some of my UNC and Duke fan friends down here.

 

[JoeSU]

My only regret is that I can't get Mellow Mushroom pizza where I live.

 

[73CAV]

I don't believe conference affiliation has any bearing on Syracuse's problems. I think there has been a paradigm shift in intercollegiate basketball which has not worked to the advantage of the Orange. I'm not even convinced that the scholarship reductions are a major factor. Boeheim is recruiting just fine, IMO. His problem is that he is not retaining that talent. 20 or 30 years ago, those players who left for the draft would have been around for four years. Furthermore, if you are going to recruit OAD types, you have to do it every year, and, if you want to be successful, you have to surround them with good senior leadership. The frosh alone are not enough (see Kentucky this year). UVa only has 11 scholarship players this year and one of them is redshirting, so I don't think raw numbers are as important as experience and leadership. Syracuse is recruiting enough talent to be a national power, but they are not doing it at such a high level that the attrition is mitigated. Furthermore, because of that attrition, there is a lack of continuity. If this were still the 90's, Lidon and Richardson would still be on the team, and Syracuse would have some upperclass leadership and you would be fine, regardless of conference.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Is this thread for real?

 

[raf4488]

What was our excuse when we went through a similar period in 2006-2008? Couldn’t blame the ACC then, and we recovered nicely.

 

[SkyTopBus44]

I miss the old rivalries with the Big East Schools. I don’t know anyone who graduated from unc, NC State, Wake Forest, uva, duke etc. growing up in the northeast I had friends who went to Georgetown, UConn, Nova, Boston College, Providence, etc. we had more at stake in those games because I wanted the bragging rights. We had to go to the acc because of many reasons others have already stated on the thread. Sad to miss those days but you can’t unring a bell!

 

[SmilinBob]

No regrets in any way shape or form.

That said if SU didn't get asked to join the ACC and the ACC did expand without adding SU, my guess is SU would be in the Big 10...not the AAC. Do you people honestly think the Big 10 would pick Rutgers over SU?

 

[Jack Hall]

Butler isn't a Catholic school , they are a private school that even has an FCS D1 football team in the "Pioneer League" though.

There you go, a little creative problem solving. If SU wants to win another National Title probably have to separate bball from fball. The rest is putting lipstick on a pig imo. It couldnt be more telling that our best record in acc was with BE recruited kids. Also couldnt be more telling that our top two recruits since then we had to steal from Mich and OSU after they had already committed there. Whole new world recruiting in acc!!

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I regret nothing.

 

[PhatOrange]

lol 1 word - whoconn

 

[TheCusian]

None

 

[Sherman20]

Out of curiosity, do you guys think Syracuse made the right decision to join the ACC?

In the Big East we were alpha dogs. Sure there was competition, but the competition wasn't blue bloods (Duke and UNC). Don't get me wrong, the Syracuse teams of old could compete against and beat Duke/UNC. But we've taken ourselves out of our domain. We'll never consistently beat UNC and Duke playing in the same conference because we've lost our edge in recruiting.

It was far less difficult to sell a kid to come play for Syracuse when we played in the Big East because we consistently were an upper echelon team. In the ACC, that's not happening because of Duke and UNC. Even with the nice recruiting class we've got coming in next season it's below Duke and UNC.

I actually think we'd be better off if we'd followed the Catholic schools and joined the new Big East. Heck, I think we'd be better off in the Big Ten too. There are no blue blood programs in the Big ten.

I think we may be a middle of the pack team in this conference most years because we lost our recruiting edge. An aging JB doesn't make it any easier. In this conference we're always going to be a notch below...

I would have rather stayed in the Big East, but we had no choice because of football, and that’s all there is too it. When expansion happened, like JB, I wanted ACC all the way and no part of the Big 10, because our recruiting grounds are all along the Eastern Seaboard, the Northeast to Mid Atlantic. But it has been tough sledding competing against Duke and UNC and now a surging Virginia. We’ll be back, though, to finishing in the Top third of the conference regularly, now that the sanctions are winding down and JB has decided not to retire for the foreseeable future. The uncertainty around the JB to Hop handoff hurt us as well. Though we would’ve been fine if Hop had taken over next season.

 

[Sherman20]

I don't believe conference affiliation has any bearing on Syracuse's problems. I think there has been a paradigm shift in intercollegiate basketball which has not worked to the advantage of the Orange. I'm not even convinced that the scholarship reductions are a major factor. Boeheim is recruiting just fine, IMO. His problem is that he is not retaining that talent. 20 or 30 years ago, those players who left for the draft would have been around for four years. Furthermore, if you are going to recruit OAD types, you have to do it every year, and, if you want to be successful, you have to surround them with good senior leadership. The frosh alone are not enough (see Kentucky this year). UVa only has 11 scholarship players this year and one of them is redshirting, so I don't think raw numbers are as important as experience and leadership. Syracuse is recruiting enough talent to be a national power, but they are not doing it at such a high level that the attrition is mitigated. Furthermore, because of that attrition, there is a lack of continuity. If this were still the 90's, Lidon and Richardson would still be on the team, and Syracuse would have some upperclass leadership and you would be fine, regardless of conference.

This is a very good post. I think it’s tough to quantify or evaluate, and I believe JB is probably unsure himself. JB has picked his poison, to continue to try and recruit top 50 players who may go pro early because talent always gives you an advantage and can mean the difference between Sweet 16s and national championships, but you also have to put enough experienced players around them so you can succeed in said tourney. It’s always hard to predict who might turn pro early or be fringe 1-and-done. But I would imagine he sees how Nova and UVA have been able to recruit at a good level, keep their guys around for 3-4 years, and build their culture by maintaining a consistent program and consistent depth. I do believe you will see him shift his approach depending on how the next few years go. I think this past year’s class (2017) was an important one for building much-needed depth.

 

[br801]

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention

 

[Cheriehoop]

This is a very good post. I think it’s tough to quantify or evaluate, and I believe JB is probably unsure himself. JB has picked his poison, to continue to try and recruit top 50 players who may go pro early because talent always gives you an advantage and can mean the difference between Sweet 16s and national championships, but you also have to put enough experienced players around them so you can succeed in said tourney. It’s always hard to predict who might turn pro early or be fringe 1-and-done. But I would imagine he sees how Nova and UVA have been able to recruit at a good level, keep their guys around for 3-4 years, and build their culture by maintaining a consistent program and consistent depth. I do believe you will see him shift his approach depending on how the next few years go. I think this past year’s class (2017) was an important one for building much-needed depth.

However even considering changing one’s recruiting philosophy to what we are seeing right now - how would loosening up the transfer policy for immediate eligibility etc that college basketball has been contemplating, elimination of one and done’s etc have on programs?

 

[tbonezone]

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention

And now, the end is near...