SWC75
Bored Historian
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I got in a little discussion with Alibrat in the chatroom about Jim Boeheim and what percentage of Syracuse's all time wins he has. Actually what started it was a comment he made that "Syracuse didn't win much before Jim Boeheim". I said that Syracuse won a lot of games before Jim's career here. They just were not a national power until his tenure.
This morphed into a discussion of the games won before and after Jim's career. Ali had read something in Wikipedia, (which I can not now find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Boeheim ) that Syracuse had 800 something victories before Jim and that he thus had more than half the wins in school history. That, of course would not mean that we "didn't win much" before Jim. But I looked it up and, according to the Media Guide, (which is available on-line here: http://www.sidearmdmg.com/syracuse/mbball/ ), Syracuse' all-time record going into this season was 1,874 wins and 832 losses. Jim Boeheim's record was 920 wins ans 314 losses, (look at "Year-by-Year record on page 113 or "Series Records" on page 120).
By my math, Syracuse had 954 wins before Jim became head coach and 518 losses. That's a winning percentage of .648. With the 10 wins this year, Jim's winning percentage is now .748. He has won (930/1884) 49.4% of the schools' all-time wins. When he gets to 950 wins, (which could happen this year), he'll have exactly 50% of SU's all-time wins.
Of course Jim has played a more difficult schedule than those teams before his tenure. Once we got the Carrier Dome and were on ESPN, we started scheduling games in the top teams in the nation on a regular basis. Before that we were a regional schools who played northeastern teams- and not necessarily the best of them- almost exclusively. On the other hand, we play 40 games a year these days. Syracuse used to play 20-25-30 games a year.
There is no question that Jim Boeheim- with the help of the Big East, ESPN and the Dome- has taken Syracuse to heights it never experienced before and maintained that success with a consistency we've never seen before. But I think Syracuse fans should realize that, except for a G-Robesque stretch in the early 60's, we've always been pretty good at this game.
That 800 something total that was once on Wikipedia may have been a reference to the number of wins before Jim became an assistant coach or before he first came here as a player: the number of wins he has seen. We had 806 wins before Roy Danforth took over for the 1968-69 season. Per Jim's bio, he was a grad assistant beginning in 1969 and a full-time assistant in 1972. We won 9 games in 68-69 which would be 815 before Jim was a grad assistant. We won 12 in 1969-70, 19 in 1970-71 and 22 in 1971-72, so that pushes it to 868 before he became a full-time assistant coach. We had won 715 games before Fred Lewis came here and Jim was part of Fred's first class. If you add to that the games won in 1969-72, you get 777. I suspect the Wikipedia number was 868, the number of games SU won before Jim was a full-time assistant. If you add the 52 games SU won when Jim was on the varsity to the 139 games won when the was a grad assistant and full-time assistant coach to the 930 games he's won as head coach, he's "seen" 1121 of our 1884 wins, or 59.5%.
This morphed into a discussion of the games won before and after Jim's career. Ali had read something in Wikipedia, (which I can not now find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Boeheim ) that Syracuse had 800 something victories before Jim and that he thus had more than half the wins in school history. That, of course would not mean that we "didn't win much" before Jim. But I looked it up and, according to the Media Guide, (which is available on-line here: http://www.sidearmdmg.com/syracuse/mbball/ ), Syracuse' all-time record going into this season was 1,874 wins and 832 losses. Jim Boeheim's record was 920 wins ans 314 losses, (look at "Year-by-Year record on page 113 or "Series Records" on page 120).
By my math, Syracuse had 954 wins before Jim became head coach and 518 losses. That's a winning percentage of .648. With the 10 wins this year, Jim's winning percentage is now .748. He has won (930/1884) 49.4% of the schools' all-time wins. When he gets to 950 wins, (which could happen this year), he'll have exactly 50% of SU's all-time wins.
Of course Jim has played a more difficult schedule than those teams before his tenure. Once we got the Carrier Dome and were on ESPN, we started scheduling games in the top teams in the nation on a regular basis. Before that we were a regional schools who played northeastern teams- and not necessarily the best of them- almost exclusively. On the other hand, we play 40 games a year these days. Syracuse used to play 20-25-30 games a year.
There is no question that Jim Boeheim- with the help of the Big East, ESPN and the Dome- has taken Syracuse to heights it never experienced before and maintained that success with a consistency we've never seen before. But I think Syracuse fans should realize that, except for a G-Robesque stretch in the early 60's, we've always been pretty good at this game.
That 800 something total that was once on Wikipedia may have been a reference to the number of wins before Jim became an assistant coach or before he first came here as a player: the number of wins he has seen. We had 806 wins before Roy Danforth took over for the 1968-69 season. Per Jim's bio, he was a grad assistant beginning in 1969 and a full-time assistant in 1972. We won 9 games in 68-69 which would be 815 before Jim was a grad assistant. We won 12 in 1969-70, 19 in 1970-71 and 22 in 1971-72, so that pushes it to 868 before he became a full-time assistant coach. We had won 715 games before Fred Lewis came here and Jim was part of Fred's first class. If you add to that the games won in 1969-72, you get 777. I suspect the Wikipedia number was 868, the number of games SU won before Jim was a full-time assistant. If you add the 52 games SU won when Jim was on the varsity to the 139 games won when the was a grad assistant and full-time assistant coach to the 930 games he's won as head coach, he's "seen" 1121 of our 1884 wins, or 59.5%.
