Greatest Final Four ever?

[longtimefan]

At least, based upon the overall quality of the participating teams in the past 50 years, as ranked by ESPN's
"50 in 50"rankings: 1975 #2 UCLA, #3 UK, #6 UL, #8 SU. That is, I believe, the only year where the FF was totally composed of teams that all made the top ten of the list.

As a side note--anyone who is old enough to have followed the Orange in those days probably remembers that we were considered an interloper, crashing the party thrown by 3 of the blue bloods of the sport. At least, that's the way it was characterized at the time by the national media, i.e. SI.

We've come a long way since then, thanks to JAB. I know--also the Dome and ESPN.

 

[TexanMark]

Yes we were considered an upstart...actually I think we ranked #6 going into the Final Four (highest ranking since Dave Bing team in '66 and the '57 team). As CTO will tell you we were worse than GRob bad in basketball in the early 60s and Dave Bing changed that. Back to 1975...we bolted up the rankings after the upset at UNC and the win against Kansas State. Pretty sure we were ranked around 19th or 20th (only 20 teams ranked then) when we played UNC in NC who was solidly in the Top 10. That win was our most important win in getting SU to the level of regional power instead of good regional team. Our team had a big center named Ernie Siebert who was about 6'9" 260lbs and looked and played like a smart 35 year old YMCA rec league player. Bob Parker was his backup and equally big (not as big a beer belly though). They were good for 10 fouls...but UK had three quality big guys who abused them in the national semis. We played a dejected Louisville team in the national consolation game (around 5pm and before the National final) and almost beat UL but Jimmy Lee's shot rimmed out and we lost in OT.

Anybody else like me..used to listen to Joel Mareiness read off the AP and UPI top 20 every Tuesday live on WSYR in the early 70's? It was huge news when we got ranked...and it started happening quite a bit during the Dennis "Sweet D" Duval era. SU basketball broke through in 1970-71 season with Roy's Runts and we haven't looked back since.

 

[The Governor]

Thats way before my time, but the 08 Final Four had the top 4 teams in the country. Kansas, Memphis, UCLA, and UNC.

 

[longtimefan]

Thats way before my time, but the 08 Final Four had the top 4 teams in the country. Kansas, Memphis, UCLA, and UNC.

I'm basing this on the ESPN ratings over the past 50 years. Memphis is not top 10 in that rating.

 

[longtimefan]

Yes we were considered an upstart...actually I think we ranked #6 going into the Final Four (highest ranking since Dave Bing team in '66 and the '57 team). As CTO will tell you we were worse than GRob bad in basketball in the early 60s and Dave Bing changed that. Back to 1975...we bolted up the rankings after the upset at UNC and the win against Kansas State. Pretty sure we were ranked around 19th or 20th (only 20 teams ranked then) when we played UNC in NC who was solidly in the Top 10. That win was our most important win in getting SU to the level of regional power instead of good regional team. Our team had a big center named Ernie Siebert who was about 6'9" 260lbs and looked and played like a smart 35 year old YMCA rec league player. Bob Parker was his backup and equally big (not as big a beer belly though). They were good for 10 fouls...but UK had three quality big guys who abused them in the national semis. We played a dejected Louisville team in the national consolation game (around 5pm and before the National final) and almost beat UL but Jimmy Lee's shot rimmed out and we lost in OT.

Anybody else like me..used to listen to Joel Mareiness read off the AP and UPI top 20 every Tuesday live on WSYR in the early 70's? It was huge news when we got ranked...and it started happening quite a bit during the Dennis "Sweet D" Duval era. SU basketball broke through in 1970-71 season with Roy's Runts and we haven't looked back since.

The wins over UNC and KSt were in Providence. We did beat LaSalle the previous week at the Palestra in Philly, and clobbered Niagara and St Bonnie in the ECAC in Buffalo prior to that.