SWC75
Bored Historian
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THE SITUATION
I recently started a discussion on Syracusefan.com that not too many school’s fans can have: what’s more fun, having a regular season where you achieve a #1 ranking or going to the Final Four? Syracuse fans can have that discussion because we’re having quite a decade. Halfway through, we’ve had three teams reach a #1 ranking while a fourth team made the Final Four. Our 2010 team was one of my favorite SU teams of all time. I call it the “Noah’s Ark” team, as we seemed to have two of everything. Two guys who could score inside. Two guys who could score form outside. Two or more guys who could drive to the basket to score. They were really fun to watch. Our center, Arinze Onuakui, got hurt in the Big East Tournament and we got beat in the NCAAs by 4 by Butler, who went on to lose the national title game to Duke when a half-court shot rimmed out. Our 2011 team won its first 18 games before stumbling to a 9-8 finish. 2012 was perhaps the best defensive team we’ve had, with a 7 foot shot-blocking center, plenty of quick players and great fast-break. That team roared to an incredible 30-1 regular season and finished with the best numerical record SU ever had, 34-3. But we again lost our center, this time to an academic suspension, just before the NCAA tournament, and lost to a strong Ohio State team in the Elite 8. Our 2013 team, in contrast had a frustrating regular season where we got off to another outstanding start, 18-1, but then lost 7 of our last 12 regular season games, ending in a dismal 39-61 loss in our last game, (as a conference member) at arch-rival Georgetown. But that team picked itself up off the floor and had 7-2 post season, losing to Michigan in the national semi-finals, preventing a fourth confrontation with national champion Louisville, (whom we’d beaten once in three games). Last year we got off to the best start in school history, 25-0, only to suffer a bad shooting slump at the wrong time and finished 28-6. Take your pick of those seasons. Together they add up to a 149-32, (.823) record this decade with three #1 ranked teams, (and the other two made it to #3), three thirty win seasons and a Final Four. It’s good to be a Syracuse fan.
But there’s also some discontent. Last year Connecticut, a former rival form the Big East, won their fourth national championship. The year before Louisville, another former Big East Rival who will now be an ACC rival, won their third national championship. Our new big rival Duke, with whom we split last year in two very memorable games, has 4 national titles. North Carolina has 5 of them. Syracuse fans like to think of their school as being on the same level as those basketball institutions but our single national championship is looking kinda lonely about now. Jim Boeheim, in his memoir, “Bleeding Orange”, admits that he’s glad our lone title team, back in 2003, didn’t have to play Connecticut again that year. They beat us twice by 14 and 13 points and Jim thinks they were actually the best team in the country that year. Texas upset them and we then beat Texas. That’s the way it goes in the NCAAs sometimes. The Huskies won their second title with basically the same roster the following year. In the book, Jim says “a championship is what validates you. It’s how the legacy makers keep score.” Right now the score is 1 to 3 or 4 or 5 against the schools we consider our rivals. SU fans are wondering when we will close the gap.
There’s another historical perspective involved here. Syracuse has been to five Final Fours, one each in the last five decades. It’s a good record but one wonders if that streak will also continue. If so, then we’ve already had our Final Four team this decade and it was a team that, based on its record, probably didn’t belong there. They won their way there, so they deserved to be there. But why couldn’t we have gone to the Final Four with the 2010 or 2012 teams intact, teams that might have a great chance to win it all? Or can we build a team that can win it all, keep that team together, make it back to the Final Four and win another title? And can we do it in this decade? And will Jim Boeheim be coaching that team? He’ll pro0alby retire and hand over the reins to his long-time heir apparent, Mike Hopkins in the near future. Everybody likes Mike and he’s had a wonderful opportunity to learn beside the Hall of Famer but typically, coaching legends are not followed by coaching legends. The saying goes: “You don’t want to be the guy who replaces the legend. You want to be the guy who replaces that guy.” We are one of eight schools to have won both a football national championship and a basketball national championship at this level but we have only one of each and that one basketball title is looking like a lone historical peak in that sport, like the football title. But we’ve been a much better basketball school than we ever were a football school and that just doesn’t seem right.
I recently started a discussion on Syracusefan.com that not too many school’s fans can have: what’s more fun, having a regular season where you achieve a #1 ranking or going to the Final Four? Syracuse fans can have that discussion because we’re having quite a decade. Halfway through, we’ve had three teams reach a #1 ranking while a fourth team made the Final Four. Our 2010 team was one of my favorite SU teams of all time. I call it the “Noah’s Ark” team, as we seemed to have two of everything. Two guys who could score inside. Two guys who could score form outside. Two or more guys who could drive to the basket to score. They were really fun to watch. Our center, Arinze Onuakui, got hurt in the Big East Tournament and we got beat in the NCAAs by 4 by Butler, who went on to lose the national title game to Duke when a half-court shot rimmed out. Our 2011 team won its first 18 games before stumbling to a 9-8 finish. 2012 was perhaps the best defensive team we’ve had, with a 7 foot shot-blocking center, plenty of quick players and great fast-break. That team roared to an incredible 30-1 regular season and finished with the best numerical record SU ever had, 34-3. But we again lost our center, this time to an academic suspension, just before the NCAA tournament, and lost to a strong Ohio State team in the Elite 8. Our 2013 team, in contrast had a frustrating regular season where we got off to another outstanding start, 18-1, but then lost 7 of our last 12 regular season games, ending in a dismal 39-61 loss in our last game, (as a conference member) at arch-rival Georgetown. But that team picked itself up off the floor and had 7-2 post season, losing to Michigan in the national semi-finals, preventing a fourth confrontation with national champion Louisville, (whom we’d beaten once in three games). Last year we got off to the best start in school history, 25-0, only to suffer a bad shooting slump at the wrong time and finished 28-6. Take your pick of those seasons. Together they add up to a 149-32, (.823) record this decade with three #1 ranked teams, (and the other two made it to #3), three thirty win seasons and a Final Four. It’s good to be a Syracuse fan.
But there’s also some discontent. Last year Connecticut, a former rival form the Big East, won their fourth national championship. The year before Louisville, another former Big East Rival who will now be an ACC rival, won their third national championship. Our new big rival Duke, with whom we split last year in two very memorable games, has 4 national titles. North Carolina has 5 of them. Syracuse fans like to think of their school as being on the same level as those basketball institutions but our single national championship is looking kinda lonely about now. Jim Boeheim, in his memoir, “Bleeding Orange”, admits that he’s glad our lone title team, back in 2003, didn’t have to play Connecticut again that year. They beat us twice by 14 and 13 points and Jim thinks they were actually the best team in the country that year. Texas upset them and we then beat Texas. That’s the way it goes in the NCAAs sometimes. The Huskies won their second title with basically the same roster the following year. In the book, Jim says “a championship is what validates you. It’s how the legacy makers keep score.” Right now the score is 1 to 3 or 4 or 5 against the schools we consider our rivals. SU fans are wondering when we will close the gap.
There’s another historical perspective involved here. Syracuse has been to five Final Fours, one each in the last five decades. It’s a good record but one wonders if that streak will also continue. If so, then we’ve already had our Final Four team this decade and it was a team that, based on its record, probably didn’t belong there. They won their way there, so they deserved to be there. But why couldn’t we have gone to the Final Four with the 2010 or 2012 teams intact, teams that might have a great chance to win it all? Or can we build a team that can win it all, keep that team together, make it back to the Final Four and win another title? And can we do it in this decade? And will Jim Boeheim be coaching that team? He’ll pro0alby retire and hand over the reins to his long-time heir apparent, Mike Hopkins in the near future. Everybody likes Mike and he’s had a wonderful opportunity to learn beside the Hall of Famer but typically, coaching legends are not followed by coaching legends. The saying goes: “You don’t want to be the guy who replaces the legend. You want to be the guy who replaces that guy.” We are one of eight schools to have won both a football national championship and a basketball national championship at this level but we have only one of each and that one basketball title is looking like a lone historical peak in that sport, like the football title. But we’ve been a much better basketball school than we ever were a football school and that just doesn’t seem right.
