I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.

[CuseCPT]

It would've been more appropriate had Andy Bernard gone to Colgate instead of Cornell, but the quote fits perfectly.

I'll be blunt. Syracuse is a has-been athletic program in football and basketball. I started really understanding sports in 1986 and graduated from SU in 2001. Local boy. I thought that was baseline for SU sports. Looking back, SU peaked in 1995-1996. Runner up in hoops, young McNabb beats Clemson 41-0 in a legit bowl game, and men's lacrosse was in the middle of one of the most dominant runs in any college sport. I thought it was the norm, it was really just a golden age.

I guess it made me an entitled fan. I look at the names on the jerseys and I expect SU to thrash BC in football, and for our walk-ons to be able to beat Colgate in basketball. I don't blame the kids at all. They are doing their best, but they just aren't the level of athletes we used to get. Can you imagine our best player from a basketball team in that era and transferring to another team and not starting?!?! The reality is that is our current level of talent. It is what it is. By the eye test, SU and Colgate looked evenly matched. It looked like a hard-fought matchup between conference peers.

I have some hope that football might be headed in the right direction. For hoops, instead of Andy Bernard, I'll quote Dalton from Road House, "It'll get worse before it gets better."

 

[Cuse1055]

The crazy thing is we have not one, but two McDonald’s All Americans on this roster with probably one or two on the way next year.

 

[two3zone]

The quote has been ringing true in a lot of aspects in life lately. Didn't sign up for getting older.

 

[Newhouser]

The crazy thing is we have not one, but two McDonald’s All Americans on this roster with probably one or two on the way next year.

Think that proves that Mickey D choices aren't always the best guys.

 

[teamco]

If Syracuse basketball were the stock market you'd have to say we are about ten years into a secular bear market . . . kinda getting that 1930s Great Depression vibe!

 

[Orangezoo]

It’s so much more than SU now. The joy and fun is not there across the entire landscape now. These games have entertainment value but they simply don’t have the same meaning and intensity anymore. That is no excuse for the current team but just a reality of college bball today and college sports overall.

 

[Sherman20]

The crazy thing is we have not one, but two McDonald’s All Americans on this roster with probably one or two on the way next year.

Starling needs to step it up. He’s starting slow on offense just like he did last season. Hopefully he turns it around asap…. As for his defense, omg, what did he do all offseason?!?! I am mystified. He’s speedy and he’s a good athlete. But for some reason on D, he struggles to shuffle his feet! And It never feels like he’s down in an actual defensive stance. It looks like he’s just standing. Does he just have slow instincts? He needs to work a lot harder and be way more focused on defense, that’s for sure.

 

[two3zone]

It’s so much more than SU now. The joy and fun is not there across the entire landscape now. These games have entertainment value but they simply don’t have the same meaning and intensity anymore. That is no excuse for the current team but just a reality of college bball today and college sports overall.

It's a more organized, better marketed and better produced AAU.

You don't even have the larger than life coaches anymore.

 

[syrBossHogg]

There were fans sulking here even during the 08-14 run

 

[FrancoPizza]

It's a more organized, better marketed and better produced AAU.

You don't even have the larger than life coaches anymore.

that’s perfectly stated

 

[JustPherU]

The quote has been ringing true in a lot of aspects in life lately. Didn't sign up for getting older.

Getting older beats the alternative.

 

[donniesyracuse]

Getting older beats the alternative.

You don’t know that for sure

 

[JustPherU]

You don’t know that for sure

I’ll take my chances and hope I’m wrong

 

[kirbivore]

 

[DilemaCuse]

For me in football it was around 2003, soon after the bball title and the end of the PP era, you could sense and feel the decline.

2019 was rough as well and opened my eyes. Football coming off a 10 win season and hot shot Tommy D was not the answer in a 5 win season that brought football back down to earth. At the same time, sophomore Buddy B was thrust into a starting role replacing Tyus Battle and basically playing 35 mins a game. We had a 175 lber playing Center in Marek (god bless him) Seth Greenberg noted on a telecast in Nov we don't look like Syracuse anymore. That's when I knew JB wasn't serious about competing for titles anymore and was just playing out the string of his career for how many more years he wanted to and the program was in trouble and the good days were in the rear view mirror.

 

[ADKDave]

I took a mandatory rah rah company course mainly about positivity about 30 years ago. The thing I took away and still remember was the guy told us “These are the good old days”.

 

[swish7]

I was a HS sophomore in the area at the start of the golden years. Definitely spoiled. Concerned about the future, not just for SU, but for amateur athletics.

SU just doesn't get the horses anymore.

As importantly, they don't seem to coach them up.

But, it can be done. Look at UConn hoops & Indiana football.

 

[DoctahLexus]

Cuse basketball is an unbelievably important part of this city's identity. Winter comes around and if you are not an outdoors type then it severely reduces the entertainment options here. Basketball is the one thing that can bring the entire community together no matter their background. I am that outdoors type, and two things I would have not thought possible 15 years ago are now the unfortunate reality: we get hardly any serious snow in the winter, and the basketball team is flirting with being totally irrelevant. To have both of those key aspects to the city's identity fade away at about the same rate is more depressing than I thought even possible. My core memories of Syracuse all involve the snowy winters and watching basketball at a packed house in the dome. The younger generation not having the opportunity to make those same memories depresses me like crazy. Winter is something this area should be looking forward to, not dreading.

 

[NKR1978]

It’s so much more than SU now. The joy and fun is not there across the entire landscape now. These games have entertainment value but they simply don’t have the same meaning and intensity anymore. That is no excuse for the current team but just a reality of college bball today and college sports overall.

We used to play every team in the conference twice a year. You knew all the players. All the coaches. You felt like you knew them.

Apathy has set in for me. I love the community here otherwise I might completely check out of basketball. I wish the football team was 7-2 instead of 6-3, but on that side I see hungry young coaches are recruiting and the shine hasn't worn off.

Basketball I just don't see much of a difference with the end of JB and Red. We may be even backsliding even more since the talent is supposed to be better.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

It would've been more appropriate had Andy Bernard gone to Colgate instead of Cornell, but the quote fits perfectly.

I'll be blunt. Syracuse is a has-been athletic program in football and basketball. I started really understanding sports in 1986 and graduated from SU in 2001. Local boy. I thought that was baseline for SU sports. Looking back, SU peaked in 1995-1996. Runner up in hoops, young McNabb beats Clemson 41-0 in a legit bowl game, and men's lacrosse was in the middle of one of the most dominant runs in any college sport. I thought it was the norm, it was really just a golden age.

I guess it made me an entitled fan. I look at the names on the jerseys and I expect SU to thrash BC in football, and for our walk-ons to be able to beat Colgate in basketball. I don't blame the kids at all. They are doing their best, but they just aren't the level of athletes we used to get. Can you imagine our best player from a basketball team in that era and transferring to another team and not starting?!?! The reality is that is our current level of talent. It is what it is. By the eye test, SU and Colgate looked evenly matched. It looked like a hard-fought matchup between conference peers.

I have some hope that football might be headed in the right direction. For hoops, instead of Andy Bernard, I'll quote Dalton from Road House, "It'll get worse before it gets better."

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories, and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while
It's something unpredictable
But in the end, it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

Greenday

 

[NKR1978]

I took a mandatory rah rah company course mainly about positivity about 30 years ago. The thing I took away and still remember was the guy told us “These are the good old days”.

The 09-16 era was pretty great. We don't have to go back 30 years. 2010-2014 might be the best 5 year period in the history of the program.

 

[Cusefan95]

I took a mandatory rah rah company course mainly about positivity about 30 years ago. The thing I took away and still remember was the guy told us “These are the good old days”.

When I was working on my MBA about 25 years ago, I had a professor who predicted the US was going to collapse in 2033. That might have been his way of telling us we were living in the good old days. His prediction seemed crazy back then...feels a lot more plausible now (and possibly slightly optimistic).

 

[Col. Bleep]

It’s so much more than SU now. The joy and fun is not there across the entire landscape now. These games have entertainment value but they simply don’t have the same meaning and intensity anymore. That is no excuse for the current team but just a reality of college bball today and college sports overall.

All true.
The move to the ACC started it.
The Orange gave up their identity and the meaning of battling in-conference rivals.

I look forward to the annual G-town game but wonder how many students or recent fans have any idea of the rivalry and how important this game used to be.
It was one of the top 3 rivalries in all of sports...up there with Duke-UNC and Yankees-Red Sox.

There is not and will never be a real rival in the ACC (barring some bizarre incident).
Those "Beat Duke" shirts are an embarrassment.
Everyone wants to beat them.
And to Duke, Syracuse is now just another second or third rate conference team they have to play.
Their rival is UNC.

Larger than life coaches?
How great would it be in a conference where SU fans roared at Danny Hurley and Rick Pitino and insulted Ed Cooley?
But the real Big East was the good old days.

There would be some of the old intensity and meaning if the Orange were competing at the top level of the ACC. Not like the good old days...but somethng.

And this new era of paid athletes and new players every year does nothing for loyalty or the old experience of seeing players develop and become stars.
The game is now mostly teams that happen to wear the names of colleges on their uniforms and where the players' names change every year.

But a fan is a fan.
So I look forward to the G-town game (with great apprehension this year).
I (still) LOATHE G-TOWN!

Go Orange!

 

[Zelda Zonk]

The quote has been ringing true in a lot of aspects in life lately. Didn't sign up for getting older.

This is the theme of Midnight in Paris.

”Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present... the name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in - it's a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”

”That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.”

 

[Cusefan95]

All true.
The move to the ACC started it.
The Orange gave up their identity and the meaning of battling in-conference rivals.

I look forward to the annual G-town game but wonder how many students or recent fans have any idea of the rivalry and how important this game used to be.
It was one of the top 3 rivalries in all of sports...up there with Duke-UNC and Yankees-Red Sox.

There is not and will never be a real rival in the ACC (barring some bizarre incident).
Those "Beat Duke" shirts are an embarrassment.
Everyone wants to beat them.
And to Duke, Syracuse is now just another second or third rate conference team they have to play.
Their rival is UNC.

Larger than life coaches?
How great would it be in a conference where SU fans roared at Danny Hurley and Rick Pitino and insulted Ed Cooley?
But the real Big East was the good old days.

There would be some of the old intensity and meaning if the Orange were competing at the top level of the ACC. Not like the good old days...but somethng.

And this new era of paid athletes and new players every year does nothing for loyalty or the old experience of seeing players develop and become stars.
The game is now mostly teams that happen to wear the names of colleges on their uniforms and where the players' names change every year.

But a fan is a fan.
So I look forward to the G-town game (with great apprehension this year).
I (still) LOATHE G-TOWN!

Go Orange!

In reality, if we hadn’t jumped to the ACC, we’d be pointing to not getting into the ACC as the thing that “started it”. Not getting the ACC revenue would have created a big hole in the AD budgeting - that probably would have hurt basketball and lacrosse (and honestly the entire AD). In a situation with no good options, Syracuse at least took the least bad one - but that means sometimes you don’t have any control over the fact the good old days are going to end.