Another unappreciated Orange great - Rony Seikaly

[AZOrange]

Find me an SU player...hell find me a human that has been married to or dating more beautiful women! Rony!

 

[capt.cuse]

Seikaly...not under appreciated. Generally considered one of top SU centers ever...he put in some hard work.

Rudy Hackett was an absolute monster and it's true he's all but forgotten.
He'd be my PF on the all-time SU team (with Derrick at center).
However, he predates the Boeheim head coaching era.

THE most under-appreciated player of the Boeheim era by far is Leo Rautins.
Hard to consider this even debatable.
Maybe most people here never saw Leo play.

Bad knees limited his games and stats.
But nothing he couldn't do.
Could score inside and outside, rebound and defend.
And a SPECTACULAR passer.
The only Syracuse player of the Boeheim era to have three triple doubles.

Those Rautins teams were some of the most exciting I have seen in the dome. Eric Santifer and Red Bruin were also very very un-remembered. Those teams were one big man away from being powerhouses. If sam perkins or sam bouie had decided to come here and they were both close to coming here.

 

[Vshukla]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess it was just my perception that Rony was underappreciated. As mentioned, the improvement from Freshman year to a solid 10 year NBA career was fun to watch.

 

[kuethstheman]

Those Rautins teams were some of the most exciting I have seen in the dome. Eric Santifer and Red Bruin were also very very un-remembered. Those teams were one big man away from being powerhouses. If sam perkins or sam bouie had decided to come here and they were both close to coming here.

Those teams were fun to watch! Every play was a five-man fast break. Fun to watch some better teams get all exasperated.

 

[DoubleDee]

His greatest accomplishment was Elsa Benitez.

 

[miamicuse]

I vaguely remember some interview with JB where he was talking about Rony and how Rony asked him why he yelled at him all the time but never yelled at Stevie Thompson and JB said something and I may be misremembering then JB yelled at Stevie in front of Rony on Stevie working too hard and Stevie always listened and paid attention never talking back to him. Wish there is a clip of that exchange.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

Was?

Unemployed

 

[Col. Bleep]

Find me an SU player...hell find me a human that has been married to or dating more beautiful women! Rony!

And possibly doing it all that at the same time.
Truth there.
But when it comes to successful romance you have to give it to Rakeem Christmas.

Michael Jordan's Daughter Jasmine & Rakeem Christmas Made MJ a Grandpa

Michael Jordan is a grandfather thanks to his daughter Jasmine Jordan. Learn more about Jasmine and her relationship with Rakeem Christmas.

heavy.com

 

[Stevenson]

I watched every home game he played and sat two rows behind him at graduation. He could play. Started out raw and grew into a beast. One of my favs.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

No love for how great he is on NBA Jams ?

 

[SU94]

Just ran the math Rony, who might be SU's top clutch performer in the NCAA Tournament:
Rony average 18.8 point/game, 8.5 rebounds/game and 2.8 blocks/game in 12 career NCAA Tournament games for Syracuse. His last two years, he averaged 23.1ppg - 9.1rpg - 2.5bpg.

That's standing tall, especially within the context of the future NBA big men he battled in those 12 games: Dallas Comegys, John Salley, David Robinson (Rony got worked, TBH!), Tellis Frank, Kannard Johnson, Dwayne Schintzius, J.R. Reid, Joe Wolf, Scott Williams, Marty Conlon and Dean Garrett.

In total, that's seven first-round NBA draft picks and two second-rounders. Remarkable.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Classic photo on Twitter today.

 

[Briancuse]

Find me an SU player...hell find me a human that has been married to or dating more beautiful women! Rony!

Jb.

 

[Louie&Bouie]

His number hangs from the roof. Saying his career is unappreciated is severely ill-informed.

Rony worked his ass off while he was here. His career numbers are astounding.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I don't think of him as underappreciated at all. I feel like he is pretty universally considered the best 5 we have ever had with Etan mentioned as better defensively. The one thing I will say about Rony and someone correct me if I'm wrong but he never really talke about Syracuse all that much and doesn't come back or doing anything like that. The other great big of his time DC does that all the time and was the #1 pick in the draft so maybe that is a reason.

 

[elimunelson]

What is the Rony recruitment story? Didn't he just show up on campus or was that some folk lore esque story.

My not so personal Rony story is in 1996 we celebrated my greek grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary by going to Greece. It meant alot to them to have the family in Greece and it was one of my cherished moments in my life to visit their homeland, go to Istanbul and meet the patriarch of the greek orthodox church.

I wore my 1996 Syracuse nike warmup jacket getting off the plane in Athens and the baggage guys were in awe of the jacket and kept mentioning Rony Rony Rony. Although he was Lebanese he grew up there and the locals loved him. My family was so surprised by all the attention I was getting from the workers and I had to explain that a big 7 foot greek guy was a legend to these people.

 

[MSOrange]

I don't think of him as underappreciated at all. I feel like he is pretty universally considered the best 5 we have ever had with Etan mentioned as better defensively. The one thing I will say about Rony and someone correct me if I'm wrong but he never really talke about Syracuse all that much and doesn't come back or doing anything like that. The other great big of his time DC does that all the time and was the #1 pick in the draft so maybe that is a reason.

Rony came back for his jersey retirement in 2007 and was in New Orleans in 2003, but he's not someone like Coleman who you see everywhere. He also come out very strongly to support Bernie when that whole deal was going on

 

[RF2044]

What is the Rony recruitment story? Didn't he just show up on campus or was that some folk lore esque story.

My not so personal Rony story is in 1996 we celebrated my greek grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary by going to Greece. It meant alot to them to have the family in Greece and it was one of my cherished moments in my life to visit their homeland, go to Istanbul and meet the patriarch of the greek orthodox church.

I wore my 1996 Syracuse nike warmup jacket getting off the plane in Athens and the baggage guys were in awe of the jacket and kept mentioning Rony Rony Rony. Although he was Lebanese he grew up there and the locals loved him. My family was so surprised by all the attention I was getting from the workers and I had to explain that a big 7 foot greek guy was a legend to these people.

Story is that there was no "recruitment," per se -- amazing as that might sound.

He had some family members who were alums, that led him to enroll at Syracuse University as a normal student [who just happened to be 6-10]. He'd played some ball in Lebanon, but didn't have a ton of experience and was really raw. One day early on in his freshman year, he randomly showed up at the basketball offices to inquire about trying out for the team as a walk on.

When they got him on the court, they couldn't believe his physical tools, even though he didn't know what the hell he was doing. He literally fell into JB's lap, and was a completely unknown commodity.

Kid was a physical specimen [even as a frosh], so JB couldn't believe his raw athletic ability. But it took him several years for his skill level and instincts to come up to the level of his athleticism.

 

[clayman32]

Watching TNT NBA postgame. When asked if there were players he tried to mimic Shaq said that his two handed dunking style came from Rony Seikaly because he got his legs up and forward

 

[rocklloyd]

Find me an SU player...hell find me a human that has been married to or dating more beautiful women! Rony!

Troy?