How much did leaving the Big East really hurt the program?

[Cusefan0307]

How much of the "all felt like home games" was due to SU's success in the league? If SU was struggling to win would traveling to see those games seem more like a trip to the woodshed? Semi-interesting relevant factoid - Clemson has never won in Chapel Hill going back 70 years. Do you think their fans are nostalgic about playing there?

We're going through a similar situation in football scheduling. "Why are we playing {team from west of the Appalachians} instead of James Madison?" Because not all our alums live in VA.

It felt like home games because our fans consistently overwhelmed other teams fan bases outside of UConn, Pittsburgh and later Louisville. Their fan bases were minuscule and half of those schools felt the need to play in NBA arenas.

 

[Hoo's That]

It felt like home games because our fans consistently overwhelmed other teams fan bases outside of UConn, Pittsburgh and later Louisville because their fan bases were minuscule and half of those schools felt the need to play in NBA arenas.

I understand that. That was one of the allures of the BE, playing in those arenas. That said, how often would SU fans have gone to those games if you were hovering around a .500 league record, that losing was just as likely as winning?

 

[Cusefan0307]

I understand that. That was one of the allures of the BE, playing in those arenas. That said, how often would SU fans have gone to those games if you were hovering around a .500 league record, that losing was just as likely as winning?

Couldn’t answer that because we never had a stretch of seasons then like we have now. We do take over BC’s arena every time we play.

A big part of it is our fans missing the nostalgia when we were the flagship school for 35 years in that conference and winning like Virginia has been the past decade in the ACC.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I understand that. That was one of the allures of the BE, playing in those arenas. That said, how often would SU fans have gone to those games if you were hovering around a .500 league record, that losing was just as likely as winning?

That would be 2006, 2007, 2008 and we had plenty of people at those places.

Being able to take a train to BC, Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, Nova, Georgetown can’t be replicated.

 

[HOFCeluck]

It felt like home games because our fans consistently overwhelmed other teams fan bases outside of UConn, Pittsburgh and later Louisville because their fan bases were minuscule and half of those schools felt the need to play in NBA arenas.

I think the fact that we no longer get to play in cavernous half-empty NBA arenas on the road has contributed to our struggles to a degree.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I think the fact that we no longer get to play in cavernous half-empty NBA arenas on the road has contributed to our struggles to a degree.

Maybe, but we suck in the dome too. We lost 6 home games this season and 5 last year.

We lost 4 home games combined my first two years on the hill as a student.

 

[tbonezone]

big east has better ranking than the ACC per AP poll. this is a down year. if selling out tourney teams in basketball and lacrosse was the price to pay for what we've gotten in mediocre to poor football. why bother ?

 

[Cheriehoop]

The guy is 78, yes he should have retired before this. It’s why most places have mandatory retirement ages.

Who has mandatory retirement ages? Isn’t that illegal? Only specific professions like airline pilots, air traffic controllers etc have them.

 

[oldpinepoint]

Who has mandatory retirement ages? Isn’t that illegal? Only specific professions like airline pilots, air traffic controllers etc have them.

Lots of private practices do, law firms, accounting office, professional groups

 

[Cheriehoop]

Lots of private practices do, law firms, accounting office, professional groups

Illegal though. I’m an accountant - no mandatory age.

 

[oldpinepoint]

Illegal though. I’m an accountant - no mandatory age.

Maybe but it happens, an example would be they can not longer be a partner past the age of 70 but they can still work. Ways to get around it

 

[tbonezone]

this ACC championship game is downright FUGGLY at halftime . and this is the best we got ?

 

[Cheriehoop]

Maybe but it happens, an example would be they can not longer be a partner past the age of 70 but they can still work. Ways to get around it

As long as they get paid the same or a mutual agreement is reached.

 

[Willy75]

Equity partners in a law firm are owners rather than employees and I believe can be subject to mandatory retirement.

 

[syrBossHogg]

Excellent post. Exactly how it is. We had to go, but it sucks and it DID hurt our hoops program It really sucks for me because I’m a hoops fanatic , I never really liked college football and I hate it even more now because what it has done to the landscape of college sports over the last decade.

Also I don’t like the ACC. Reason number 1024:

C'mon. There's no way that comment by JB wasn't going to bite him in the ***. Just laugh about it and move on.

 

[Cheriehoop]

C'mon. There's no way that comment by JB wasn't going to bite him in the ***. Just laugh about it and move on.

I could see fans ripping on it but the city even using an official ACC tournament twitter account logo, doing it? 6 years later after his comments? OK - lol.

 

[OrangeCrush22]

I could see fans ripping on it but the city using an official ACC tournament twitter account, doing it? 6 years later after his comments? OK - lol.

Nothing happens in Greeensboro. It’s best known for for the sit-in movement. Good ol’ boy southern town. Best thing they have to do is rag on a northerner who dared speak badly about their pissant town.

 

[OrangePA]

Yup. We left for enough money to be at the bottom of the list for P5 football schools. Rejoined our hoops identity in the progress, which I said would happen at the time. I guess if you’re committed to trying to be relevant in football then we had to do it. But it sucked then and looks even worse now.

By the time we left the Big East was no longer the Big East.

St. Johns and Georgetown are no longer what they were.

Competing with Duke, NC, UVA and NC St. along with Pitt and BC is a draw.

The move to the ACC didn’t get us to where we are right now.

 

[Sherman20]

I understand that. That was one of the allures of the BE, playing in those arenas. That said, how often would SU fans have gone to those games if you were hovering around a .500 league record, that losing was just as likely as winning?

Check out the Georgia Tech games in Atlanta in recent years. Sounds like a Cuse home game and all the announcers comment on it. Or BC most years. We’ve drawn really well in Miami, even at Wake and NC state. Gtown when we’ve played them down in DC.

 

[Sherman20]

But that’s you and me and the rest of Cuse fans talking about that. Duke likely barely remembers and nationally, no one cares. That’s the bigger issue. Cuse/Villanova may have only mattered regionally by the end but at least within the region it mattered.

Cuse-Nova mattered nationally. I guess you forgot College Game Day coming to the Dome in 2010 when we were both top 10 Teams. We even played for two years after the demise of the real Big East and beat them the first year, in 2013-14.

Everyone remembers the first Cuse-Duke games as ACC foes. They show clips of JB’s jacket ripping, ref berating tirade all the time. And Sulaiman’s buzzer beater to send the game to OT in the Dome.

 

[Trueblue25]

Greensboro still sucks and nothing will change that. Im glad they had a 5 minute moment of victory on twitter or wherever though.

 

[Sherman20]

Leaving the Big East killed basketball recruiting. Kids want their families to watch them play and kids from the northeast don't want to play teams that are 1,000 miles away.

Um, hello, Syracuse is still located in the Northeast. And I guess you’re blind to us playing in Boston every year, in NYC every year, and at least every other year in DC. Oh, and Charlottesville is close to the DMV. We just have to renew the series with Nova so we can get back into Philly regularly.

Guess you also missed the fact that Big East schools Creighton, Marquette, DePaul, Butler, and Xavier (half the conference!) are 1,000 miles+ from the Northeast.

Is your post meant to be sarcasm?

 

[Sherman20]

I have previously stated that joining the ACC was a bad move and not just for SU. No BE team has consistently done well in the ACC in basketball. Miami has fared the best but were they really a BE school? Louisville had some success but with questionable tactics recruiting. Pitt used NIL / portal to build a team but one questionable call pushed them to 5th place. It's like the ACC won't allow outsiders to be good. Unfortunately SU had to move if football was to survive and the AAC wasn't going to cut it financially.

Miami has done the best?? Lol. They’ve had a two good years in a row. But they were trash or middle of the pack most years since we joined in 2014.

 

[Hopkins16]

I don't miss the Big East as it existed at the time we left but the Big East with the original teams that were in the Northeast. When we started adding teams like East Carolina and several others outside of the region, the conference became weak and lost its appeal. I like to focus on the present and the great ACC conference we are in. When we first entered, we had high quality players and we were competitive. Now, with the coaching shakeup, Red's promise to be versatile (do away with playing zone exclusively) and energized recruiting and NIL efforts, we should be able to get top recruits and not look as though we are in over our heads when we play against the top ACC teams.

With Boeheim now gone, Carrier Dome renamed, I think we should do away with the Georgetown and St. John's games. We need to fully embrace the future and not have one foot stuck in the past.

 

[baggerbob]

A couple other points...

1) Kids have been leaving the northeast to go play ball in other parts of the country for decades. Lew Alcindor went to HS in NYC and the left for college in California. Kenny Anderson went to Atlanta, as did Stephon Marbury. Nate Archibald went to UTEP. Bernard King went to Tennessee. Jamal Mashburn went to Kentucky. And that's just a tiny sampling of NYC kids.

2) The world is far more global today than it once was, particularly the sports world. And HS players today only know Syracuse as an ACC team. They know we play in Central NY, and play a lot of games against the biggest brands in the sport. I have a hard time believing that some standout NYC kid is thinking "Yeah, my family can see me play 4 hours away 18 times a season, and we usually play games in the city... but they can't come see me in Piscataway twice if I stay four years, so I'm not going to SU."

Stevie came from California, as did Earl Duncan, Tony Bland, DC from Detroit, later Devo.
Coaches matter, and for a long time Jim recruited well. The last few years he hasn't put the proper time into recruiting.