Bad Losses | Syracusefan.com

Bad Losses

SWC75

SWC75

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I recently heard a radio discussion of the impact of the St. John’s loss earlier this year on Syracuse’s chances for the NCAA tournament. I looked at the standings on ESPN and the Johnnies are now 7-18 on the season and we lost to them by 12 points, so that is a very bad loss. Hopefully the absence of Coach Boeheim will be considered in the committee’s deliberations.


It made me wonder how many times we’ve lost to teams with losing records over the years and what have been our worst losses and how these games impacted our NCAA chances and seeding. I decided to look at the history of our losses, using the SU media guide, the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia and their website.

I decided to look at several things:

1) When have we lost to teams that wound up with losing records?

2) What have been our margins of defeat over the years- how many games have we lost by single digits, how many by 5 points or less, how many by 10-19 points, how many by 20-29 and how many by 30+?

3) Our margins of victory and the number of games our victorious opponents won more than they lost are kind of similar (the first has been an average of 10, the second 14),. What If I subtracted the points we lost by from the net difference between wins and losses of the other team? It could make an interesting ranking of losses.

4) What is the net ranking by that measure of each SU team, (the total W-L won-loss differential of the other team minus our total margin of defeat)?

5) What has been the impact of this on whether we get invited and where we get seeded?
 
We have lost 28 games to teams with losing records:

2/21/81 at Seton Hall 65-66, (I remember Danny Calandrillo hitting a shot at the buzzer while Bill rafter leapt off his chair.) They were 11-16 that year so if you add the margin of defeat to their W-L differential, you get -7, the magnitude of the loss.
2/7/83 at 13-15 Pittsburgh 74-85 = -13
3/5/83 at 12-16 Connecticut 54-55 = -5 (I remember something about the refs calling a late foul and getting the teams back out on the court so UCONN could win the game with a free throw. Not a happy occasion.)
1/19/85 vs. 13-15 Connecticut 68-70 = -4 (JB’s firs thome loss to a tam that wound up with a losing record.)
2/20/85 at 13-15 Connecticut 69-71 = -4 (Instant replay and Jim Calhoun didn’t show up until a couple of years later.)
3/2/89 at 12-17 Boston College 87-90 = -8
1/21/92 at 14-15 Villanova 60-70 = -11
1/28/92 at 14-17 Providence 73-87 = -17
3/8/92 vs. 14-15 Villanova 56-76 = -21
1/2/93 vs. 8-19 Villanova 61-79 = -29 (Ouch! And in the Dome!)
2/6/93 at 10-17 Miami 74-81 = -14
1/16/96 at 12-15 West Virginia 78-90 = -15
2/20/96 at 12-16 Seton Hall 79-80 = -5
2/12/97 at 13-14 St. John’s 87-91 = -5
1/13/98 vs. 13-16 Providence 64-76 = -15
1/21/98 at 13-14 Notre Dame 63-83 = -21
2/21/98 at 14-15 Rutgers 58-62 = -5
12/9/98 at 10-19 West Virginia 59-73 = -23 (We were 7-1 and looking really good when we just seemed to stop playing late in the first half. that SU team wound up a very disappointing 21-12 but they didn’t lose to another loser for three years.)
12/16/01 at 15-16 Georgia Tech 80-96 = -17 (JB was out for prostate surgery.)
1/19/02 at 15-16 Tennessee 62-66 = -5
1/29/03 at 12-16 Rutgers 65-68 = -3 = -7 (The Lamizana shot- the only three he made all year. ESPN’s College Basketball Encyclopedia lists a top ten “Worst Teams That Won The NCAA Tournament” and lists our champs #9 because they lost this game.)
3/2/06 at 12-15 DePaul 69-108 = -42 (Did it really happen?)
1/9/08 at 13-19 Cincinnati 66-74 = -14
2/13/08 at 12-19 South Florida 78-89 = -18
1/25/10 vs. 13-18 Seton Hall 68-90 = -27 (Like DePaul, they just couldn’t miss.)
2/19/14 vs. 8-24 Boston College 59-62 = -19 (There is no excuse for a #1 ranked 25-0 team to lose at home to a team that was 6-19 at the time.)
3/4/14 vs. 16-17 Georgia Tech 62-67 = -6
12/13/15 at presently 7-18 St. John’s 72-84 = -23 (They’ve lost 15 straight since.)

Comment: Only two of these teams failed to get to double figures in wins. 22 of the games were on the road. 11 of the losses were a magnitude of less than 10. But there are some memorably bad losses there: DePaul -42, -21 and -29 to Villanova in successive years, -21 to Notre Dame, (they were proably raining threes), -27 to Seton Hall and this year’s St. John’s game. The Red Storm might be the worst team a Boeheim team has ever lost to, although the BC team two eyars ago might give them a rival for that designation. I still can’t believe we lost to them. But then, ic an’t believe we lsot to any of these teams. .
 
Here is the number of games we have lost by each point margin:

1 22 games
2 28
3 28
4 31 That’s 109 games lost by 1-4 points
5 23
6 17
7 23
8 20
9 11 94 lost by 5-9 points
10 20
11 23
12 13
13 11
14 15 82 lost by 10-14 points
15 8
16 4
17 9
18 6
19 5 32 lost by 15-19 points
20 5
21 2
22 5
23 3
24 2 17 by 20-24 points
25 0
26 0
27 1
28 1
29 1 3 lost by 25-29 points
30 0
31 0
32 1
33 1
34 1 3 lost by 30-34 points
35 0
36 0
37 0
38 0
39 1 Yup, the DePaul game.

Comment: It’s a rare game that we were never even in. A lot of those 10-14 games were really close games that got away from us at the end, including 4 such games this year.
 
That loss was completely inexcusable regardless of JB not being there. That is not a D1 caliber team right now -- it's kind of like Lemoyne 2010, but in a game that counts.
 
Here are out Bottom 25 worst losses over the years, subtracting the margin of defeat from the W-L differential of the opponent.

1) 3/2/06 at 12-15 DePaul 69-108 = -42
2) 1/2/93 vs. 8-19 Villanova 61-79 = -29
3) 1/25/10 vs. 13-15 Seton Hall 68-90 = -27
4) 2/7/98 vs. 15-15 Seton Hall 61-85 = -24
5) 12/9/98 at 10-19 West Virginia 59-73 = -23
6) 12/13/15 at presently 7-18 St. John’s 72-84 = -23 (this might be moving on up)
7) 3/8/92 vs. 14-15 Villanova 56-76 = -21
8) 1/21/98 at 13-14 Notre Dame 63-83 = -21
9) 2/19/14 vs. 8-24 Boston College 59-62 = -19
10) 2/13/08 at 12-19 South Florida 78-89 = -18
11) 1/28/92 at 14-17 Providence 73-87 = -17
12) 1/2/97 at 16-14 Notre Dame 52-69 = -17
13) 12/16/01 at 15-16 Georgia Tech 80-96 = -17
14) 1/6/90 vs. 18-15 Villanova 74-93 = -16
15) 12/26/97 vs. 25-9 Michigan 61-93 = -16 (Puerto Rico Holiday Classic)
16) 12/12/98 vs. 15-15 Seton Hall 64-80 = -16
17) 1/16/96 at 12-15 West Virginia 78-90 = -15
18) 1/13/98 vs. 13-16 Providence 64-76 = -15
19) 2/6/93 at 10-17 Miami 74-81 = -14
20) 1/9/08 at 13-19 Cincinnati 66-74 = -14
21) 2/7/83 at 13-15 Pittsburgh 74-85 = -13
22) 1/14/09 at 16-15 Georgetown 74-88 = -13
23) 3/1/93 at 19-11 St. John’s 70-90 = -12
24) 3/14/93 vs. 28-7 Seton Hall 70-103 = -12 (BET Finals in MSG)
25) 1/17/15 at 16-15 Clemson 53-66 = -12

Comment: Again, only two of those teams had single digit losses. Most of them were average teams in a tough league. We had a number of bad performances vs. Seton Hall. I guess it was hard to get up for them.

And here are our 25 ‘best’ losses:

1) 1/23/85 at 31-4 St. John’s 80-82 = +25
2) 3/8/86 vs. 31-5 St. John’s 69-70 = +25 (BET Finals: the moment of “Truth”)
3) 3/30/87 vs. 30-4 Indiana 73-74 = +25 (NCAA Finals: It still Smarts)
4) 3/2/13 vs. 35-5 Louisville 53-58 = +25
5) 12/20/14 at 33-3 Villanova 77-82 = +25
6) 3/25/10 vs. 33-5 Butler 59-63 = +24 (NCAA Sweet 16: yes, it was a ‘good’ loss by this measure.)
7) 3/8/85 vs. 35-3 Georgetown 65-74 = +23 (BET semis)
8) 2/22/87 vs. 29-5 Georgetown 71-72 = +23 (I think this might be the one where Sherman Douglas seemed to have scored the winning bucket but Charley Smith topped him at the buzzer)
9) 3/26/89 vs. 31-5 Illinois 86-89 = +23 (Elite 8)
10) 4/1/96 vs. 34-2 Kentucky 67-76 = +23 (NCAA Finals)
11) 3/19/95 vs.32-7 Arkansas 94-96 = +23 (Round of 32. We had it won. All we had to do was…nothing… And we couldn’t do that.)
12) 2/14/15 vs. 35-4 Duke 72-80 = +23
13) 2/23/85 vs. 31-4 St. John’s 83-88 = +22
14) 1/31/87 at 29-5 Georgetown 81-83= +22
15) 3/11/90 at 31-6 Connecticut 75-78 = +22 (BET Finals)
16) 3/7/98 vs. 32-5 Connecticut 64-69 = +22 (BET Finals)
17) 11/18/06 vs. 33-6 Florida 70-75 = +22 (Sports Challenge Hoop Classic in MSG)
18) 11/30/87 vs. 35-3 Arizona 69-80 = +21 (Great Alaska Shoot=-out with Kenny Lofton laughing from the bench)
19) 3/10/84 vs. 34-3 Georgetown 71-82 = +20 (BET Finals- the Michael Graham game.)
20) 1/21/96 at 32-3 Connecticut 70-79 = +20
21) 2/7/01 at 27-5 Boston College 63-65 = +20
22) 1/21/08 at 28-6 Georgetown 62-64 = +20
23) 1/19/80 at 25-5 Old Dominion 67-68 = +19 (The winning shot was actually after the buzzer but they got some home cookin’. We had been 14-0)
24) 1/30/82 vs. 26-2 DePaul 87-92 = +19
25) 2/26/86 vs. 31-5 St. John’s 79-86 = +19
26) 2/22/09 vs. 30-8 Villanova 86-89 = +19

Comment: I thought that list would make me feel better but it didn’t. Maybe this will: 6 of those teams were national champions. Maybe someday I’ll do a similar study of our victories.
 
The net results of each team’s losses (W-L differentials of all the victorious opponents minus the margins of defeat and the result divided by the number of losses prior to the NCAA tournament), along with the NCAA seeding of each team, when they made the tournament):

1976-77 +12 points divided by 3 losses = +4 result: We made the field of 32, which was not formally seeded. We opened with Tennessee, who was ranked #7/#8 in the two polls while we were ranked #10/#9.
1977-78 +20 / 5 = +4 result: We made the 32 team field. We were ranked #18 by the writers and unranked by the coaches. We played a 15-13 Western Kentucky team that was unranked.
1978-79 +16 / 3 = +5.3 result: We were a #4 seed in a 40 team tournament.
1979-80 +51 /3 = +17 result: We were a #1 seed.
1980-81 +15 / 11 = +1.4 result: We weren’t invited, even though we won the BET.
1981-82 +84 / 11 = +7.6 result: We weren’t invited. What’s interesting is that both the 1980-81 and 1981-82 teams had identical 15-11 regular season records. The 1981-82 team is remembered, if at all for being the worst team of the JB era because they had the worst record (16-13). But they actually had a better regulars season that the year before. They lost 6 games by 5 points or less and only one of the teams they lost to failed to win 20 games and that team, (Fordham) was 18-11 that season.
1982-83 +32 / 9 = +3.6 result: We were seeded #6 in a 52 team field.
1983-84 +73 / 8 = +9.25 result: We were seeded #3 in a 53 team field.
1984-85 +78 / 8 = +9.75 result: We were seeded #7 in a 64 team field.
1985-86 +85 / 5 = +17 result: We were seeded #2. Our greatest era had begun.
1986-87 +82 / 6 = +13.7` result: We were seeded +2.
1987-88 +102 / 8 = +12.75 result: We were seeded #3.
1988-89 +27 / 7 = 3.9 result: We were seeded #2. Most people would choose this as our most talented team and they had a fine season: 30-8 and a close loss in the Elite 8. But their losses were not all that impressive except for 7 and 9 point losses to a 29-5 Georgetown team. They lost by 3 to a 12-17 Boston College team, by 5 to a 17-13 Pittsburgh team, by 6 to an 18-13 Connecticut team, by 2 to an 18-16 Villanova team and by 2 to a 20-13 St. John’s team.
1989-90 +25 / 6 = +4.2 result: We were seeded #2.We were ranked #1 for 6 weeks but lost by 19 and by 4 to an 18-15 Villanova team, by 1 to a 17-12 Providence team and by 1 to a 16-13 Notre Dame team.
1990-91 -8 / 5 = -1.6 result: We were seeded #2. Perhaps the disastrous ending to the season could have been foretold by the poor quality of some of the losses: by 10 and by 2 to a 17-15 Villanova team,(the latter after having a 16 point lead), by 14 to a 21-12 Pittsburgh team and by 10 to a 19-13 Providence team.
1991-92 -32 / 9 = -3.6 result: We were seeded #6.
1992-93 -46 / 9 = -5.1 result: We were on probation.
1993-94 +19 / 6 = +3.2 result: We were seeded #4. (At least we were back in the black after three years of bad losses).
1994-95 +57 / 9 = +6.3 result: We were seeded #7. (We lost by a total of 26 points to four opponents with a combined record of 109-23 but we also lost by 7 to an 18-14 George washignotn team at Manley, by 8 to a 16-14 Seton Hall team, by 4 to a 14-14 St. John’s team and by 2 to a 17-13 Providence team.)
1995-96 +37 / 8 = +4.6 result: We were seeded #4
1996-97 -29 / 12 = - 2.4 result: We missed the tournament. (I think this was JB’s worst team, not the 1981-82 team , which lost Leo Rautins for 7 games to injury and had better losses.)
1997-98 -31 / 8 = -3.9 result: We were seeded #5
1998-99 -10 / 11 = -0.9 result: We were seeded #8
1999-00 +20 / 5 = +4 result: We were seeded #4
2000-01 -1 / 8 = -0.1 result: We were seeded #5 in a 65 team field.
2001-02 -13 / 12 = -1.1 result: We missed the tournament
2002-03 +10 / 5 = +2 result: We were seeded #3. (That Lamizana game was -7 and we lost by 14 and 13 to a 23-10 UCONN team that shouldn’t have been able to beat our national champions. )
2003-04 +19 / 7 = +2.7 result: We were seeded #5
2004-05 +44 / 6 = +3 result: We were seeded #4
2005-06 +31 / 11 = +2.8 result: We were seeded #5
2006-07 +51 / 10 = +5.1 result: We got Arkansas’s spot in the NIT field so I assume if a deal hadn’t bene made we’d have gotten their spot, which was a #12 seed.
2007-08 +24 / 13 = +1.8 result: Back to the NIT (Our losses were not horrible but there were just too many of them.)
2008-09 +82 / 9 = +9.1 result: We were seeded #3 (Including the NCAA loss to Oklahoma, this team lost 7 games where the opponent had 30 or more wins!)
2009-10 +9 / 4 = +2.25 result: We were a #1 seed for the first time in 30 years.
2010-11 +17 / 7 = +2.4 result: We were seeded #3 in a 68 team field.
2011-12 +13 /2 = +6.5 result: We were seeded #1
2012-13 +77 / 9 = +8.6 result: We were seeded #4 (Another year where the regular season losses might have predicted the post season result, in this case a good one)
2013-14 -10 / 5 = -2 result: We were seeded #3 (And another such year.)
2014-15 +51 / 12 = +4.25 result: We were on probation (A weird years: We lost by 5 to a 33-3 Villanova team for +25 and by 8 to a 35-4 Duke national champion for a +23. But we also had 5 “negative” losses, including a 14 pointer to an 18-15 California team and a 13 pointer to a 16-15 Clemson team.)

So far this year:
We’ve lost by 8 to a 15-9 Wisconsin team = -2
We’ve lost by 7 to a 14-12 Georgetown team = -5
We’ve lost by 8 to a 7-18 St. John’s team= -23 (They haven’t won since they beat us.)
We’ve lost by 11 to a 17-6 Pittsburgh team = 0
We’ve lost by 13 to a 19-4 Miami team = +2
We’ve lost by 1 to a 15-10 Clemson team = +4
We’ve lost by 11 to a 20-4 North Carolina team = +5
We’ve lost by 8 to a 20-4 Virginia team = +8
Total: -11 / 8 losses = -1.4

The two closest teams to this one in quality of losses are the 1998-99 team (-10//11 = -0.9), which got a #8 seed and 2013-14 (-10/6 = -2), which got a #3 seed. The 1990-91 team was -8/5 = -1.6 and got a #2 seed. The 2001-02 team was -13/13 = -1.1 and missed the tournament.

Looking at those numbers I think that the number of losses is more important than their “quality”, which is probably more of a tie-breaker. I also think we have some work to do. If the committee does consider the 5 losses while JB was gone, we really can’t afford very many more. On the other hand, if they do ignore them or discount them in some way, we may have some slack.


But let’s not find out. Just win, baby!!!
 
doc05 said:
That loss was completely inexcusable regardless of JB not being there. That is not a D1 caliber team right now -- it's kind of like Lemoyne 2010, but in a game that counts.
Expand...
I have a feeling that if the earth were annihilated and only a single lifeform emerged from the rubble, it would be talking about that game SU dropped to St. John's back in 2015.
 
Great historical info.

It was a bad loss, but it's my opinion that quantity is more then "quality" in this case. Most bubble teams will have at least one, and probably more then half often will have multiple bad losses. (defined as sub 100 RPI)

Somewhat inspired by this thread, I am going to come up with a list of the worst losses by a team that is in "as of now" this year.
 
I remember the 1998 ND game. We. Lost because a 8ppg player named Keith Friel hit shots from everywhere. He finished with 30.
 
It's almost such a comically bad loss you almost have to ignore, it's such an outlier. Our 2nd worst loss RPI wise is Clemson who is in the high 80's, St. John's RPI is over 200.

If we end up making it as an at-large -- it might very well be the worst loss for any at-large team this year.
 
SWC75 said:
Here is the number of games we have lost by each point margin: 1 22 games 2 28 3 28 4 31 That’s 109 games lost by 1-4 points 5 23 6 17 7 23 8 20 9 11 94 lost by 5-9 points 10 20 11 23 12 13 13 11 14 15 82 lost by 10-14 points 15 8 16 4 17 9 18 6 19 5 32 lost by 15-19 points 20 5 21 2 22 5 23 3 24 2 17 by 20-24 points 25 0 26 0 27 1 28 1 29 1 3 lost by 25-29 points 30 0 31 0 32 1 33 1 34 1 3 lost by 30-34 points 35 0 36 0 37 0 38 0 39 1 Yup, the DePaul game. Comment: It’s a rare game that we were never even in. A lot of those 10-14 games were really close games that got away from us at the end, including 4 such games this year.
Expand...

Wow. Any chance you could do the same matrix for our wins?
 
Richmond and Vermont were bad but that was the tournament. Anything can happen. DePaul was completely deflating.
 
Jake said:
Wow. Any chance you could do the same matrix for our wins?
Expand...

Someday. I'm concerned that a 50 point win over Colgate might out-rank a close win over Duke or Georgetown in the old days.
 
The Rutgers one in 03 was the one I remember the most, to this day Rutgers fans still talk about that game.
 
You can't leave zone defense out of this discussion. every now and then a bad team is just better against the zone then m2m.
St Johns and Gtown Neither are good ball handling teams. If we could have pressed both another 10 minutes we probably win. Our zone had some issues early in the season.

Look at wisconsin we forced them to 18 turnovers. When you force a opponent to 18 turnovers there really isn't much of a excuse to lose unless you get like doubled up in rebounds or something.
 
All those 1998 losses really have stuck with me. That wasn't a great team, but we kept losing to bad teams and cost ourselves a good seed.

Incidentally, this year's team composition and future outlook reminds me of that season: imperfect team, improved as the season went on, likely to take off next season when the graduating seniors are replaced by more talented underclassmen. (Only the wheels fell off in 1999 and we had to wait an extra year.)
 
SWC75 said:
...
1/2/93 vs. 8-19 Villanova 61-79 = -29 (Ouch! And in the Dome!)
...
Expand...

We had no answer for Haynes and Bain. Who? Exactly.

Nova brought their pep band to the Dome in those days and they were sitting right next to us. Just a miserable afternoon.
 
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