Looking back at Syracuse basketball's 2003 NCAA Tournament title run

[SWC75]

Just saw this on You-Tube. it's a recent post (3/23) so I don't know if people on this board have seen it yet.

 

[sutomcat]

Just saw this on You-Tube. it's a recent post (3/23) so I don't know if people on this board have seen it yet.

Hadn't seen it. I urge everyone to check it out. Lots of good stuff in this.

 

[JackBauer44]

Great video. Can't help but think if Hakim's block is what got Jimmy B so infatuated with length in the zone and recruiting for the zone. I know i'm a youngster so I can't speak to the recruiting prior to 2003. Would love to hear thoughts from people who followed the recruiting in the 90's.

 

[Ptzburghcuse]

Gerry's comments made me laugh. I also remember running aimlessly that night - just around the house instead of the Superdome. That was a high that took a while to come down from. It was a hard earned and well earned run I will never forget. I have signed copies of both magazines shown early in that video. I hope my son's have that same feeling some day and hopefully I can run around again with them.

 

[rrlbees]

That video has been around awhile. Not sure who made it. Someone posted it here several months ago. But it can’t be posted too much, it’s that good.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

That was great. Love how Boeheim shares the spotlight so willingly.

 

[Day2]

Great video. Can't help but think if Hakim's block is what got Jimmy B so infatuated with length in the zone and recruiting for the zone. I know i'm a youngster so I can't speak to the recruiting prior to 2003. Would love to hear thoughts from people who followed the recruiting in the 90's.

Well, you could argue that if someone like Hakim was on the ‘87 roster and in that spot, JB would have two titles.

 

[OttoMets]

Great video. Can't help but think if Hakim's block is what got Jimmy B so infatuated with length in the zone and recruiting for the zone. I know i'm a youngster so I can't speak to the recruiting prior to 2003. Would love to hear thoughts from people who followed the recruiting in the 90's.

I didn't become aware of a change in emphasis on physical frames over skills until he switched to zone full-time in 2009. Before that it seemed like everyone was a ballplayer, maybe someone you'd hide in a zone (Devendorf, Dayshawn Wright, Kris Joseph, Jackson, Onuaku) but not someone whose skills would really enhance a zone.

Since then, we've mostly gone for taller, long-armed guards (with a couple exceptions). I'd argue that the favored attributes for forward recruits have never really changed - what Boeheim liked in a wing in 1986 is more or less the same as what he wants now.

 

[Eric15]

I can't believe the 2003 season is almost closer to the 1987 run than the present day.

 

[RF2044]

Great video. Can't help but think if Hakim's block is what got Jimmy B so infatuated with length in the zone and recruiting for the zone. I know i'm a youngster so I can't speak to the recruiting prior to 2003. Would love to hear thoughts from people who followed the recruiting in the 90's.

Back in the late 80s / early 90s, our recruiting profile was completely different. We were going toe-to-toe with blue chip programs for blue chip recruits -- and landing our fair share. Guys like Pearl Washington [#1 rated overall in his class], Derrick Coleman [#2], Billy Owens [#1B], John Wallace [#7], we were landing seemingly every class -- along with other McD's and top 35-ish kinds of recruiting classes.

That 1987 class had DC, Stevie, Earl Duncan, and Keith Hughes -- all in the top 35. Two of them transferred out because they couldn't get PT. Nowadays, those guys would be the crown jewel of our recruiting classes.

Then, shiz hit the fan in 1991, when the Post-Standard published a multi-year investigation titled "Outside the Lines: How SU plays ball off of the court." The investigation was a hatchet job, outlining hundreds of allegations, but it drew the attention of the NCAA, who then spent a full year sifting through the findings. At the end, they nailed us with about 10 minor findings, but we were the first program that the NCAA had the opportunity to drop the hammer on, so they did.

While that investigation was going on, we lost out on several prospects that I think we otherwise might have had a chance to land, including highly rated blue chippers like Donyell Marshall and Jalen Rose. We were very fortunate that we landed John Wallace, who came to SU over Kansas because he wanted to stay closer to home to be near his younger brothers -- even with the impending spectre of probation hanging over the program.

One of the things the PS investigation focused on was SU's relationship with a buffoon named Rob Johnson, who was a "street agent." Johnson had been highly instrumental in steering McD's all american Conrad McRae to Syracuse [or at least that was the perception]. After the NCAA penalties, SU was one of the first programs to establish a compliance office, and whatever recruiting shenanigans were going on before came to an abrupt halt.

From there, our recruiting "range" tangibly dipped. We still went after some highly rated guys, but the days of recruiting entire classes of top 35 talent were gone. JB started landing quality athletes who were dark horses with upside, and many of those guys panned out.

But we still underwent a dry spell in the mid 90s, until we landed the highly touted Hart / Etan / Blackwell class. Those guys weren't immediate impact players like the players from the early 90s, but by the time they were upperclassmen they were good, and they had a pretty good senior year.

Things changed when we brought in Troy Weaver, who then helped us to land quality players from the DC area [Edelin, Carmelo -- who wasn't as highly rated when he committed to us as a junior as where he ended up], as well as important players like Pace, Warrick, Forth, etc. Suddenly we were cooking with gas again. In fact, we had classes lined up a full year in advance, which enabled our coaching staff to start focusing on the next year's class, making inroads / establishing relationships with the juniors, etc.

Overall, I think we used to play the game -- and that's how we were landing blue chip talent [along with the high profile Big East, playing in the largest on campus basketball arena in college sports, etc.].

Then, we got hit with sanctions, and JB switched things up. We started recruiting lower rated guys with high athletic upside. Then we transitioned again to going after zone athletes. And most recently, we've transitioned to looking for bigger guards, emphasizing length up top over basketball skill.

It's been a long strange trip.

 

[CsonkaStash]

Back in the late 80s / early 90s, our recruiting profile was completely different. We were going toe-to-toe with blue chip programs for blue chip recruits -- and landing our fair share. Guys like Pearl Washington [#1 rated overall in his class], Derrick Coleman [#2], Billy Owens [#1B], John Wallace [#7], we were landing seemingly every class -- along with other McD's and top 35-ish kinds of recruiting classes.

That 1987 class had DC, Stevie, Earl Duncan, and Keith Hughes -- all in the top 35. Two of them transferred out because they couldn't get PT. Nowadays, those guys would be the crown jewel of our recruiting classes.

Then, shiz hit the fan in 1991, when the Post-Standard published a multi-year investigation titled "Outside the Lines: How SU plays ball off of the court." The investigation was a hatchet job, outlining hundreds of allegations, but it drew the attention of the NCAA, who then spent a full year sifting through the findings. At the end, they nailed us with about 10 minor findings, but we were the first program that the NCAA had the opportunity to drop the hammer on, so they did.

While that investigation was going on, we lost out on several prospects that I think we otherwise might have had a chance to land, including highly rated blue chippers like Donyell Marshall and Jalen Rose. We were very fortunate that we landed John Wallace, who came to SU over Kansas because he wanted to stay closer to home to be near his younger brothers -- even with the impending spectre of probation hanging over the program.

One of the things the PS investigation focused on was SU's relationship with a buffoon named Rob Johnson, who was a "street agent." Johnson had been highly instrumental in steering McD's all american Conrad McRae to Syracuse [or at least that was the perception]. After the NCAA penalties, SU was one of the first programs to establish a compliance office, and whatever recruiting shenanigans were going on before came to an abrupt halt.

From there, our recruiting "range" tangibly dipped. We still went after some highly rated guys, but the days of recruiting entire classes of top 35 talent were gone. JB started landing quality athletes who were dark horses with upside, and many of those guys panned out.

But we still underwent a dry spell in the mid 90s, until we landed the highly touted Hart / Etan / Blackwell class. Those guys weren't immediate impact players like the players from the early 90s, but by the time they were upperclassmen they were good, and they had a pretty good senior year.

Things changed when we brought in Troy Weaver, who then helped us to land quality players from the DC area [Edelin, Carmelo -- who wasn't as highly rated when he committed to us as a junior as where he ended up], as well as important players like Pace, Warrick, Forth, etc. Suddenly we were cooking with gas again. In fact, we had classes lined up a full year in advance, which enabled our coaching staff to start focusing on the next year's class, making inroads / establishing relationships with the juniors, etc.

Overall, I think we used to play the game -- and that's how we were landing blue chip talent [along with the high profile Big East, playing in the largest on campus basketball arena in college sports, etc.].

Then, we got hit with sanctions, and JB switched things up. We started recruiting lower rated guys with high athletic upside. Then we transitioned again to going after zone athletes. And most recently, we've transitioned to looking for bigger guards, emphasizing length up top over basketball skill.

It's been a long strange trip.[/QUOTE

This is why I do not begrudge Jimmy for being short with the Local Media. They sold him out completely in the 90's with the Bill Rapp deal and everything else. All colleges were doing it and most still are. Matter of fact if I remember correctly many students were interviewed that the time saying just that and describing that we were not doing anything drastically different from other schools.

The Post Standard investigated the Syracuse basketball program for seven months interviewing players, coaches, parents, etc...For what ? So someone could win a Pulitzer prize and make a name for themselves. Typically I would not expect the likes of local media to sell out their basketball program.

In reality the Post Standard set our program back and I'm not sure they really care...They got their accolades and the spot light shining on their investigation and our program. Boeheim has every right to treat them like garbage.

 

[Eric15]

Back in the late 80s / early 90s, our recruiting profile was completely different. We were going toe-to-toe with blue chip programs for blue chip recruits -- and landing our fair share. Guys like Pearl Washington [#1 rated overall in his class], Derrick Coleman [#2], Billy Owens [#1B], John Wallace [#7], we were landing seemingly every class -- along with other McD's and top 35-ish kinds of recruiting classes.

That 1987 class had DC, Stevie, Earl Duncan, and Keith Hughes -- all in the top 35. Two of them transferred out because they couldn't get PT. Nowadays, those guys would be the crown jewel of our recruiting classes.

Then, shiz hit the fan in 1991, when the Post-Standard published a multi-year investigation titled "Outside the Lines: How SU plays ball off of the court." The investigation was a hatchet job, outlining hundreds of allegations, but it drew the attention of the NCAA, who then spent a full year sifting through the findings. At the end, they nailed us with about 10 minor findings, but we were the first program that the NCAA had the opportunity to drop the hammer on, so they did.

While that investigation was going on, we lost out on several prospects that I think we otherwise might have had a chance to land, including highly rated blue chippers like Donyell Marshall and Jalen Rose. We were very fortunate that we landed John Wallace, who came to SU over Kansas because he wanted to stay closer to home to be near his younger brothers -- even with the impending spectre of probation hanging over the program.

One of the things the PS investigation focused on was SU's relationship with a buffoon named Rob Johnson, who was a "street agent." Johnson had been highly instrumental in steering McD's all american Conrad McRae to Syracuse [or at least that was the perception]. After the NCAA penalties, SU was one of the first programs to establish a compliance office, and whatever recruiting shenanigans were going on before came to an abrupt halt.

From there, our recruiting "range" tangibly dipped. We still went after some highly rated guys, but the days of recruiting entire classes of top 35 talent were gone. JB started landing quality athletes who were dark horses with upside, and many of those guys panned out.

But we still underwent a dry spell in the mid 90s, until we landed the highly touted Hart / Etan / Blackwell class. Those guys weren't immediate impact players like the players from the early 90s, but by the time they were upperclassmen they were good, and they had a pretty good senior year.

Things changed when we brought in Troy Weaver, who then helped us to land quality players from the DC area [Edelin, Carmelo -- who wasn't as highly rated when he committed to us as a junior as where he ended up], as well as important players like Pace, Warrick, Forth, etc. Suddenly we were cooking with gas again. In fact, we had classes lined up a full year in advance, which enabled our coaching staff to start focusing on the next year's class, making inroads / establishing relationships with the juniors, etc.

Overall, I think we used to play the game -- and that's how we were landing blue chip talent [along with the high profile Big East, playing in the largest on campus basketball arena in college sports, etc.].

Then, we got hit with sanctions, and JB switched things up. We started recruiting lower rated guys with high athletic upside. Then we transitioned again to going after zone athletes. And most recently, we've transitioned to looking for bigger guards, emphasizing length up top over basketball skill.

It's been a long strange trip.

Great read -- thanks for sharing.

 

[SWC75]

Gerry's comments made me laugh. I also remember running aimlessly that night - just around the house instead of the Superdome. That was a high that took a while to come down from. It was a hard earned and well earned run I will never forget. I have signed copies of both magazines shown early in that video. I hope my son's have that same feeling some day and hopefully I can run around again with them.

I remember how much fun it was to remind myself that "we are the champions" every five minutes for a month afterwards - and every month since.

I also remember the first thing out my bother's mouth when he called after that game "well, that ought to help their recruiting!" ?!?

 

[SWC75]

Well, you could argue that if someone like Hakim was on the ‘87 roster and in that spot, JB would have two titles.

That should have been our second championship. we just needed to make our free throws. The third should have been 2010. that's where we belong.

 

[SWC75]

I can't believe the 2003 season is almost closer to the 1987 run than the present day.

I can't believe it was 17 years from the '69 Mets to the '86 Mets and it's been 33 years since the 86 Mets.

 

[HakAttack]

I can't believe it was 17 years from the '69 Mets to the '86 Mets and it's been 33 years since the 86 Mets.

And it's been 50 years since the 69' Mets. They've got some great stuff planned for the 69' team later in the summer.

 

[cuseinseattle]

This is why I do not begrudge Jimmy for being short with the Local Media. They sold him out completely in the 90's with the Bill Rapp deal and everything else. All colleges were doing it and most still are. Matter of fact if I remember correctly many students were interviewed that the time saying just that and describing that we were not doing anything drastically different from other schools.

The Post Standard investigated the Syracuse basketball program for seven months interviewing players, coaches, parents, etc...For what ? So someone could win a Pulitzer prize and make a name for themselves. Typically I would not expect the likes of local media to sell out their basketball program.

In reality the Post Standard set our program back and I'm not sure they really care...They got their accolades and the spot light shining on their investigation and our program. Boeheim has every right to treat them like garbage.

The PS doesn't care. They think they are real journalists and everyone look what we did. They probably cost us multiple titles with this crap. Can you imagine Duke or UK or some other school doing this to the program in their area. This is also why I don't like the PS and enjoy when Boeheim goes after them when they say stupid things or ask stupid questions.

 

[SWC75]

Back in the late 80s / early 90s, our recruiting profile was completely different. We were going toe-to-toe with blue chip programs for blue chip recruits -- and landing our fair share. Guys like Pearl Washington [#1 rated overall in his class], Derrick Coleman [#2], Billy Owens [#1B], John Wallace [#7], we were landing seemingly every class -- along with other McD's and top 35-ish kinds of recruiting classes.

That 1987 class had DC, Stevie, Earl Duncan, and Keith Hughes -- all in the top 35. Two of them transferred out because they couldn't get PT. Nowadays, those guys would be the crown jewel of our recruiting classes.

Then, shiz hit the fan in 1991, when the Post-Standard published a multi-year investigation titled "Outside the Lines: How SU plays ball off of the court." The investigation was a hatchet job, outlining hundreds of allegations, but it drew the attention of the NCAA, who then spent a full year sifting through the findings. At the end, they nailed us with about 10 minor findings, but we were the first program that the NCAA had the opportunity to drop the hammer on, so they did.

While that investigation was going on, we lost out on several prospects that I think we otherwise might have had a chance to land, including highly rated blue chippers like Donyell Marshall and Jalen Rose. We were very fortunate that we landed John Wallace, who came to SU over Kansas because he wanted to stay closer to home to be near his younger brothers -- even with the impending spectre of probation hanging over the program.

One of the things the PS investigation focused on was SU's relationship with a buffoon named Rob Johnson, who was a "street agent." Johnson had been highly instrumental in steering McD's all american Conrad McRae to Syracuse [or at least that was the perception]. After the NCAA penalties, SU was one of the first programs to establish a compliance office, and whatever recruiting shenanigans were going on before came to an abrupt halt.

From there, our recruiting "range" tangibly dipped. We still went after some highly rated guys, but the days of recruiting entire classes of top 35 talent were gone. JB started landing quality athletes who were dark horses with upside, and many of those guys panned out.

But we still underwent a dry spell in the mid 90s, until we landed the highly touted Hart / Etan / Blackwell class. Those guys weren't immediate impact players like the players from the early 90s, but by the time they were upperclassmen they were good, and they had a pretty good senior year.

Things changed when we brought in Troy Weaver, who then helped us to land quality players from the DC area [Edelin, Carmelo -- who wasn't as highly rated when he committed to us as a junior as where he ended up], as well as important players like Pace, Warrick, Forth, etc. Suddenly we were cooking with gas again. In fact, we had classes lined up a full year in advance, which enabled our coaching staff to start focusing on the next year's class, making inroads / establishing relationships with the juniors, etc.

Overall, I think we used to play the game -- and that's how we were landing blue chip talent [along with the high profile Big East, playing in the largest on campus basketball arena in college sports, etc.].

Then, we got hit with sanctions, and JB switched things up. We started recruiting lower rated guys with high athletic upside. Then we transitioned again to going after zone athletes. And most recently, we've transitioned to looking for bigger guards, emphasizing length up top over basketball skill.

It's been a long strange trip.

Our dry spell in the mid-1990s included a trip to the 1996 championship game. It was during this period that JB's rep changed from a coach who could recruit but just rolled the ball out there and let his players play to a coach who could get the most out of lesser talent. Then we started complaining about the recruiting until Weaver and Hopkins turned it around.

Our sins, (from memory- feel free to correct me if my memory is faulty)-

1990:

- We employed a street agent named Rob Johnson whose job it was to steer recruits toward schools by establishing himself as a sort of mentor and buying stuff for the kid. Johnson also worked for other schools, (he convinced Tony Scott to transfer from SU after the University had cut him off) and virtually every school had to work through Johnson or someone like him to recruit the kids at all. The only things that were ever proven about Johnson, as I recall was that he pretended to be SU assistant Rob Murphy, which was noted in the book "Raw Recruits" and inspired the Post Standard to do it's series on SU; that he bought Conrad McRae some SU sneakers and tickets to a game, which Conrad later paid him back for and that Johnson was seen sitting in the VIP seats behind the SU bench at the Dome.

- The Post Standard series, instead of investigating what it took to maintain an elite college sports program with SU as an example, simply quoted the NCAA rule book and identified anything by any interpretation at all could be construed as a violation, making it look like SU was a miscreant in an otherwise uncorrupted world.

- Billy Owens decided to attend SU during his official visit and celebrated finally making his decision by dunking a basketball. The paper suggested that might be an illegal "try-out" under NCAA rules. Billy was the #1 recruit in America at the time.

- A patient on leave from Hutchings Psychiatric Center showed up at practice and challenge Stevie Thompson to a one-on-one contest. They gave him a shot for laughs and Stevie toasted him. That too, was an illegal try-out according to the paper.

- Bill Rapp put a 50 dollar bill in the player's lockers at Christmastime and employed some players during the summer to paint the same wall over and over again to give them employment

- An SU player was living with a booster family and got the family's daughter pregnant. Living with a booster family was illegal under NCAA rules at the time of the article and there was an implication of statutory rape. The thing is, living with a booster family was not against the rules at the time of the incident and SU had ended that program as soon as the NCAA made a rule against it. And the player was underage as well, so it wasn't stautory rape, either.

- The paper found out that Leroy Ellis, the father of LeRon Ellis, who had transferred to SU from Kentucky after the Wildcats went on probation, was employed, they said, by George Hicker, JB's former teammate from the 60's, who was now a successful businessman in California. It was implied that Hicker had hired Ellis to get his son to transfer to SU from Kentucky. The truth was that Ellis was employed a security firm that Hicker employed but was not assigned to any of Hicker's buildings and Hicker wasn't even aware that he worked for the firm - and had been doing so for nine years. Hicker called the paper several times to explain this but his calls were never returned so he had to take out an ad in the paper to explain this.

- Rodney Walker, a player who had left the program disgruntled with his playing time, alleged that a grade had been changed "by a female professor" to keep him eligible. A check revealed that no grade was changed and he had no female professors.

Based on this, the NCAA initiated an investigation that went on for two years and put us on probation for " "a lack of institutional control", which one source said that's what they use when they really hadn't found much of anything but felt they had to impose some penalty to justify the time they had spent investigating the school. Thus ended the golden era when we were pulling in some of the top players in the country each year. We not only suffered the controversy and the probation but had to walk on eggshells to recruit for years afterwards so we didn't get in trouble again.

2015:

- The NCAA began investigating our drug policy a decade before, after we suspended some players for using marijuana. They took so long to do it, (indicating a lack of priority), that two other things happened that spiked their interest and all three unrelated things got rolled together in their findings.

- The NCAA has no drug policy but requires their institutions, if they have one, to apply it equally to athletes and non-athletes. A couple of players were found to be using marijuana once. It was decided not to suspend them but to warn them and not tell their parents since it was a first offense and not repeated. The NCAA insisted that we should have suspended them and told the parents and didn't because they were athletes and we wanted them to be able to play. SU said the policy was intended to be flexible and have tiers of punishment based on the seriousness of the violation and if it was repeated.

- Several players were enrolled in a "family services" course that involved some field work with kids through a YMCA. A YMCA official was supposed to keep track of their work and did not report the failure of some of them to complete assignments or the fact that he employed some of them to help with charity events and provided them with free transportation.

- Fab Melo, who came here from Brazil and had trouble with English, had to write his own biography to complete a course. It was supposed to include footnotes and didn't so a secretary in the athletic department wrote the footnotes for him.

For that we lost three scholarships and over 100 victories and JB was suspended for 9 games and we are back recruiting on eggshells. Our great period of the early 2010's ended and we are a perennial bubble team or close to it. You can make your own comparisons to how other programs were treated for their sins.


(Warning: profanity)

 

[JackBauer44]

Back in the late 80s / early 90s, our recruiting profile was completely different. We were going toe-to-toe with blue chip programs for blue chip recruits -- and landing our fair share. Guys like Pearl Washington [#1 rated overall in his class], Derrick Coleman [#2], Billy Owens [#1B], John Wallace [#7], we were landing seemingly every class -- along with other McD's and top 35-ish kinds of recruiting classes.

That 1987 class had DC, Stevie, Earl Duncan, and Keith Hughes -- all in the top 35. Two of them transferred out because they couldn't get PT. Nowadays, those guys would be the crown jewel of our recruiting classes.

Then, shiz hit the fan in 1991, when the Post-Standard published a multi-year investigation titled "Outside the Lines: How SU plays ball off of the court." The investigation was a hatchet job, outlining hundreds of allegations, but it drew the attention of the NCAA, who then spent a full year sifting through the findings. At the end, they nailed us with about 10 minor findings, but we were the first program that the NCAA had the opportunity to drop the hammer on, so they did.

While that investigation was going on, we lost out on several prospects that I think we otherwise might have had a chance to land, including highly rated blue chippers like Donyell Marshall and Jalen Rose. We were very fortunate that we landed John Wallace, who came to SU over Kansas because he wanted to stay closer to home to be near his younger brothers -- even with the impending spectre of probation hanging over the program.

One of the things the PS investigation focused on was SU's relationship with a buffoon named Rob Johnson, who was a "street agent." Johnson had been highly instrumental in steering McD's all american Conrad McRae to Syracuse [or at least that was the perception]. After the NCAA penalties, SU was one of the first programs to establish a compliance office, and whatever recruiting shenanigans were going on before came to an abrupt halt.

From there, our recruiting "range" tangibly dipped. We still went after some highly rated guys, but the days of recruiting entire classes of top 35 talent were gone. JB started landing quality athletes who were dark horses with upside, and many of those guys panned out.

But we still underwent a dry spell in the mid 90s, until we landed the highly touted Hart / Etan / Blackwell class. Those guys weren't immediate impact players like the players from the early 90s, but by the time they were upperclassmen they were good, and they had a pretty good senior year.

Things changed when we brought in Troy Weaver, who then helped us to land quality players from the DC area [Edelin, Carmelo -- who wasn't as highly rated when he committed to us as a junior as where he ended up], as well as important players like Pace, Warrick, Forth, etc. Suddenly we were cooking with gas again. In fact, we had classes lined up a full year in advance, which enabled our coaching staff to start focusing on the next year's class, making inroads / establishing relationships with the juniors, etc.

Overall, I think we used to play the game -- and that's how we were landing blue chip talent [along with the high profile Big East, playing in the largest on campus basketball arena in college sports, etc.].

Then, we got hit with sanctions, and JB switched things up. We started recruiting lower rated guys with high athletic upside. Then we transitioned again to going after zone athletes. And most recently, we've transitioned to looking for bigger guards, emphasizing length up top over basketball skill.

It's been a long strange trip.

Wow. One of the best historical posts I've read on SU Basketball recruiting. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time spent in typing this all out.

 

[721Comstock]

Our dry spell in the mid-1990s included a trip to the 1996 championship game. It was during this period that JB's rep changed from a coach who could recruit but just rolled the ball out there and let his players play to a coach who could get the most out of lesser talent. Then we started complaining about the recruiting until Weaver and Hopkins turned it around.

Our sins, (from memory- feel free to correct me if my memory is faulty)-

1990:

- We employed a street agent named Rob Johnson whose job it was to steer recruits toward schools by establishing himself as a sort of mentor and buying stuff for the kid. Johnson also worked for other schools, (he convinced Tony Scott to transfer from SU after the University had cut him off) and virtually every school had to work through Johnson or someone like him to recruit the kids at all. The only things that were ever proven about Johnson, as I recall was that he pretended to be SU assistant Rob Murphy, which was noted in the book "Raw Recruits" and inspired the Post Standard to do it's series on SU; that he bought Conrad McRae some SU sneakers and tickets to a game, which Conrad later paid him back for and that Johnson was seen sitting in the VIP seats behind the SU bench at the Dome.

- The Post Standard series, instead of investigating what it took to maintain an elite college sports program with SU as an example, simply quoted the NCAA rule book and identified anything by any interpretation at all could be construed as a violation, making it look like SU was a miscreant in an otherwise uncorrupted world.

- Billy Owens decided to attend SU during his official visit and celebrated finally making his decision by dunking a basketball. The paper suggested that might be an illegal "try-out" under NCAA rules. Billy was the #1 recruit in America at the time.

- A patient on leave from Hutchings Psychiatric Center showed up at practice and challenge Stevie Thompson to a one-on-one contest. They gave him a shot for laughs and Stevie toasted him. That too, was an illegal try-out according to the paper.

- Bill Rapp put a 50 dollar bill in the player's lockers at Christmastime and employed some players during the summer to paint the same wall over and over again to give them employment

- An SU player was living with a booster family and got the family's daughter pregnant. Living with a booster family was illegal under NCAA rules at the time of the article and there was an implication of statutory rape. The thing is, living with a booster family was not against the rules at the time of the incident and SU had ended that program as soon as the NCAA made a rule against it. And the player was underage as well, so it wasn't stautory rape, either.

- The paper found out that Leroy Ellis, the father of LeRon Ellis, who had transferred to SU from Kentucky after the Wildcats went on probation, was employed, they said, by George Hicker, JB's former teammate from the 60's, who was now a successful businessman in California. It was implied that Hicker had hired Ellis to get his son to transfer to SU from Kentucky. The truth was that Ellis was employed a security firm that Hicker employed but was not assigned to any of Hicker's buildings and Hicker wasn't even aware that he worked for the firm - and had been doing so for nine years. Hicker called the paper several times to explain this but his calls were never returned so he had to take out an ad in the paper to explain this.

- Rodney Walker, a player who had left the program disgruntled with his playing time, alleged that a grade had been changed "by a female professor" to keep him eligible. A check revealed that no grade was changed and he had no female professors.

Based on this, the NCAA initiated an investigation that went on for two years and put us on probation for " "a lack of institutional control", which one source said that's what they use when they really hadn't found much of anything but felt they had to impose some penalty to justify the time they had spent investigating the school. Thus ended the golden era when we were pulling in some of the top players in the country each year. We not only suffered the controversy and the probation but had to walk on eggshells to recruit for years afterwards so we didn't get in trouble again.

2015:

- The NCAA began investigating our drug policy a decade before, after we suspended some players for using marijuana. They took so long to do it, (indicating a lack of priority), that two other things happened that spiked their interest and all three unrelated things got rolled together in their findings.

- The NCAA has no drug policy but requires their institutions, if they have one, to apply it equally to athletes and non-athletes. A couple of players were found to be using marijuana once. It was decided not to suspend them but to warn them and not tell their parents since it was a first offense and not repeated. The NCAA insisted that we should have suspended them and told the parents and didn't because they were athletes and we wanted them to be able to play. SU said the policy was intended to be flexible and have tiers of punishment based on the seriousness of the violation and if it was repeated.

- Several players were enrolled in a "family services" course that involved some field work with kids through a YMCA. A YMCA official was supposed to keep track of their work and did not report the failure of some of them to complete assignments or the fact that he employed some of them to help with charity events and provided them with free transportation.

- Fab Melo, who came here from Brazil and had trouble with English, had to write his own biography to complete a course. It was supposed to include footnotes and didn't so a secretary in the athletic department wrote the footnotes for him.

For that we lost three scholarships and over 100 victories and JB was suspended for 9 games and we are back recruiting on eggshells. Our great period of the early 2010's ended and we are a perennial bubble team or close to it. You can make your own comparisons to how other programs were treated for their sins.


(Warning: profanity)

It’s pretty incredible, how relatively minor the stuff that Syracuse got DRILLED for, on 2 separate occasions

vs.

The ridiculous level of shenanigans going on at programs like:
UK, Duke, UNC, Kansas, Llvll, Zona, LSU, the list goes on and on...

... and NONE of them got even a tiny fraction of the penalties the NCAA dropped on us.
If any at all! (O hai UNCheat!)

You think about the butterfly effect, and what if?...
Donyell Marshall doesn’t then go to UConn.
- do they ever reach the levels they did?
Jalen Rose doesn’t go to Michigan.
- Fab Five, er - Four isn’t remotely the same without their PG and leader.

What kind of trajectory might we have been on back then if those things didn’t go down like they did?

 

[BlackSquirrels]

The PS doesn't care. They think they are real journalists and everyone look what we did. They probably cost us multiple titles with this crap. Can you imagine Duke or UK or some other school doing this to the program in their area.

Is this a serious question? The Lexington newspaper had a huge investigative series on Kentucky basketball a few years before the Post-Standard's series on Syracuse. I think it cost Eddie Sutton the head coach job.

The newspaper in Raleigh drove the coverage of UNC's academic shenanigans that the NCAA ended up ignoring.

 

[OttoMets]

...

2015:

- The NCAA began investigating our drug policy a decade before, after we suspended some players for using marijuana. They took so long to do it, (indicating a lack of priority), that two other things happened that spiked their interest and all three unrelated things got rolled together in their findings.

- The NCAA has no drug policy but requires their institutions, if they have one, to apply it equally to athletes and non-athletes. A couple of players were found to be using marijuana once. It was decided not to suspend them but to warn them and not tell their parents since it was a first offense and not repeated. The NCAA insisted that we should have suspended them and told the parents and didn't because they were athletes and we wanted them to be able to play. SU said the policy was intended to be flexible and have tiers of punishment based on the seriousness of the violation and if it was repeated.

- Several players were enrolled in a "family services" course that involved some field work with kids through a YMCA. A YMCA official was supposed to keep track of their work and did not report the failure of some of them to complete assignments or the fact that he employed some of them to help with charity events and provided them with free transportation.

- Fab Melo, who came here from Brazil and had trouble with English, had to write his own biography to complete a course. It was supposed to include footnotes and didn't so a secretary in the athletic department wrote the footnotes for him.


(Warning: profanity)

This is like a game of telephone.

Love ya, SWC, but none of those things is accurate.

 

[RF2044]

Great read -- thanks for sharing.

Wow. One of the best historical posts I've read on SU Basketball recruiting. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time spent in typing this all out.

Thanks, guys -- it started out as a much shorter post in my mind, but I just kept typing away.

Appreciate the kind words.

 

[skurey]

I think blaming the paper for reporting on our cheating is a bad look.

Yeah others do it too. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be reported on.

 

[OttoMets]

I think blaming the paper for reporting on our cheating is a bad look.

Yeah others do it too. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be reported on.

I'll blame the Sub Standard for a lot of things.

Investigative journalism (its job) isn't one of them.