SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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(I'll be posting one part per day)
THE SITUATION
I recently called into one of the local radio shows. They were discussing the expectations for this year’s SU basketball team and what criteria should be used. One guy asked “Do you see this as a Final Four team? Elite 8? Sweet 16? I called in to say that you really can’t judge a season by NCAA tournament results because it’s a single-elimination tournament where every team can beat you, (ask Virginia). It’s not quite a roulette wheel but it’s close. We’ve had 5 teams that achieved a #1 ranking and 6 Final Four teams. That’s 11 different teams. We had teams lose in overtime NCAA games in 1992, 1994 and 1995, (we were on probation in 1993). In 1996, we won our overtime game, (one of the greatest games of all time) and went on to play for the national championship. What might those other teams have done if they’d won their overtime games? You can lose NCAA tournament games for all same reasons you can lose regular season games: bad match-ups, injuries, foul trouble, the ball goes around and out rather than around and in, etc. The regular season where you play all kinds of teams in all kinds of games and can have some off nights but come back to excel in other games, is a better measure of a teams’ quality. I argued that the best way to look at it is that what we want out of the regular season is to be curious, rather than nervous on selection Sunday and hopeful after that. The radio guy pronounced that “backwards”, saying “Most people judge seasons by what happens in the NCAA tournament.”
Actually people judge the team from time the season starts and they care very much what happens in the regular season. SU fans have been complaining for years that we’ve been in a rut of having double figure loss seasons, that we keep finishing in the middle of the ACC when we are supposed to be an elite program and that we are “always on the bubble”. Their greatest desire is to win another national championship, especially since so many schools we consider ourselves to be the equal of or superior to have surpassed our relatively meager total of one. Mediocre regular seasons make us feel farther and farther away from that goal. We long for the types of teams we had a decade ago, when we had three teams achieve that #1 ranking in six years and won 28, 27 and 30 games, (and went to a Final Four), in the years we didn’t. We also want to continue our nation-leading streak of 51 consecutive winning seasons, there short of UCLA’s record of 54. It would be a tragedy to lose that streak before we get the record. Once we lose that streak, we’ll never see it again. And you can’t get into the NCAA tournament without continuing it, unless we have a really bad team that somehow wins the ACC tournament. But we’d really like to have a team that proves early on that they are one of the best teams in the country, breaks into the rankings early and stays there all year and allows us to dream of great post-season success for four months before we actually find out what happens.
That hasn’t happened since 2013-14, when we started out 25-0 and were ranked #1 for three weeks. The next year came the probation, which has a lot to do with this. We only played the regular season and went 18-13. That was the last time we had a center who was good at all phases: defense, scoring and rebounding, which also has a lot to do with this. We started out ranked 23rd but fell out after an early loss to California and never got back into the rankings. The next year we went 19-12 and were one and done in the ACC tournament but fought our way from the Final Four to the First Four to wind up 23-14. We’d won our first 6 games, including the “Battle for Atlantis” and that got us a #14 ranking which disappeared in losses to Wisconsin and Georgetown and which didn’t come back until we made the Final Four. The writers didn’t do a post tournament poll but the coaches did and had us #10. In 2017 Jim Boeheim thought he had a really good team put together and we started out ranked #19 but that went away with losses to South Carolina, Wisconsin and Connecticut and never came back as we went 18-13 again, then lost 2 of 3 post season games, the last in the NIT, to finish a disappointing 19-15. In 2018 we were never ranked, went 19-12 but went 4-2 in the post season, losing to Duke in the Elite 8 to finish 23-14 again. It wasn’t enough to get a ranking for 2018 but since all five starters returned for 2019, we started out ranked #16. That ended with losses to Connecticut and Oregon. A five-game winning streak allowed us to creep back in at #25 but then we lost to Old Dominion and Buffalo and that was that. We again went 19-12 but lost in the second round of the ACC tournament and in the first round of the NCAAs to finish 20-14. We were never ranked in 2020 and went 18-13 again. A shocking rout of the North Carolina Tar Heels in the first round of the ACC tournament was suddenly overwhelmed, as was everything else by the Covid epidemic. We were never ranked last year, either, going 15-8 in a schedule abbreviated due to the pandemic. We had another nice post-season run, losing to Virginia in the second round of the ACC tournament and to Houston in the Sweet 16 to finish 18-10.
That’s seven seasons in which we went 139-94, an average record of 20 wins and 13 losses and a winning percentage of .597. We played as a ranked team 18 times in that stretch, the last on Christmas day, 2018. We’ve played 84 consecutive games as an unranked team. Since 2015 we’ve played 58 games against ranked teams, and we were also ranked in 3 of them and were the lower ranked team on each occasion (we lost all 3 games). 39 of our 94 losses were to ranked teams. Compare that to the previous six season run in which we went 177-42, an average of 30-7 and winning percentage of .808. We played as a ranked team in 206 of those 219 games, including the last 108 in a row. We faced 39 ranked teams in that time and were also ranked 37 times and had the higher ranking 31 of those times. Of our 42 losses, 25 of them were to ranked teams. In conference games, including the tournaments, we were 87-34 from 2009-14 winning two regular season titles and finishing 2nd, 3rd (twice) and 6th in the other years. Our best record was 18-2, (17-1 in the regular season). From 2015 on, we are 59-58. We’ve been amazingly consistent: 9-9, 9-9, 10-8, 8-10, 10-8, 10-10 and 9-7 during the regular season. The best we’ve managed is a three-way tie for 5th. The one thing the two eras have in common is that we’ve never been able to win the conference tournament in either. But in the earlier period, we played for it twice, (and lost to Louisville each time), and had the famous 9 overtime game. We’ve never won two games in the ACCT, although we don’t know what the 2020 team might have accomplished if the pandemic hadn’t canceled everything.
The big difference between 2009-14 and 2015-21 are that in the first era we were strong at both ends of the court and the defense and offense complimented each other. In the second era, we’ve tended to be good on defense or on offense but not both. We’ve found out that the defensive teams tend to do better getting to the NCAA tournament and winning games there but neither is as good as being strong on both ends. Last year’s team started out being an offensive team but got good at defense at the end of the season thanks in large part to Jesse Edwards, Robert Braswell and Kadary Richmond, two of whom are no longer here.
So I think SU fans care very much about the regular season. Then they will care very much about the post season. If the regular season doesn’t go well, they will spend four months griping about it. If they aren’t griping, they will dream of a Hollywood ending in which Jim Boeheim and his two sons cut down the nets at the end, (and give Julie a snip). It will be a lot more fun if the regular season allows them to spend those four months dreaming of that moment.
THE SITUATION
I recently called into one of the local radio shows. They were discussing the expectations for this year’s SU basketball team and what criteria should be used. One guy asked “Do you see this as a Final Four team? Elite 8? Sweet 16? I called in to say that you really can’t judge a season by NCAA tournament results because it’s a single-elimination tournament where every team can beat you, (ask Virginia). It’s not quite a roulette wheel but it’s close. We’ve had 5 teams that achieved a #1 ranking and 6 Final Four teams. That’s 11 different teams. We had teams lose in overtime NCAA games in 1992, 1994 and 1995, (we were on probation in 1993). In 1996, we won our overtime game, (one of the greatest games of all time) and went on to play for the national championship. What might those other teams have done if they’d won their overtime games? You can lose NCAA tournament games for all same reasons you can lose regular season games: bad match-ups, injuries, foul trouble, the ball goes around and out rather than around and in, etc. The regular season where you play all kinds of teams in all kinds of games and can have some off nights but come back to excel in other games, is a better measure of a teams’ quality. I argued that the best way to look at it is that what we want out of the regular season is to be curious, rather than nervous on selection Sunday and hopeful after that. The radio guy pronounced that “backwards”, saying “Most people judge seasons by what happens in the NCAA tournament.”
Actually people judge the team from time the season starts and they care very much what happens in the regular season. SU fans have been complaining for years that we’ve been in a rut of having double figure loss seasons, that we keep finishing in the middle of the ACC when we are supposed to be an elite program and that we are “always on the bubble”. Their greatest desire is to win another national championship, especially since so many schools we consider ourselves to be the equal of or superior to have surpassed our relatively meager total of one. Mediocre regular seasons make us feel farther and farther away from that goal. We long for the types of teams we had a decade ago, when we had three teams achieve that #1 ranking in six years and won 28, 27 and 30 games, (and went to a Final Four), in the years we didn’t. We also want to continue our nation-leading streak of 51 consecutive winning seasons, there short of UCLA’s record of 54. It would be a tragedy to lose that streak before we get the record. Once we lose that streak, we’ll never see it again. And you can’t get into the NCAA tournament without continuing it, unless we have a really bad team that somehow wins the ACC tournament. But we’d really like to have a team that proves early on that they are one of the best teams in the country, breaks into the rankings early and stays there all year and allows us to dream of great post-season success for four months before we actually find out what happens.
That hasn’t happened since 2013-14, when we started out 25-0 and were ranked #1 for three weeks. The next year came the probation, which has a lot to do with this. We only played the regular season and went 18-13. That was the last time we had a center who was good at all phases: defense, scoring and rebounding, which also has a lot to do with this. We started out ranked 23rd but fell out after an early loss to California and never got back into the rankings. The next year we went 19-12 and were one and done in the ACC tournament but fought our way from the Final Four to the First Four to wind up 23-14. We’d won our first 6 games, including the “Battle for Atlantis” and that got us a #14 ranking which disappeared in losses to Wisconsin and Georgetown and which didn’t come back until we made the Final Four. The writers didn’t do a post tournament poll but the coaches did and had us #10. In 2017 Jim Boeheim thought he had a really good team put together and we started out ranked #19 but that went away with losses to South Carolina, Wisconsin and Connecticut and never came back as we went 18-13 again, then lost 2 of 3 post season games, the last in the NIT, to finish a disappointing 19-15. In 2018 we were never ranked, went 19-12 but went 4-2 in the post season, losing to Duke in the Elite 8 to finish 23-14 again. It wasn’t enough to get a ranking for 2018 but since all five starters returned for 2019, we started out ranked #16. That ended with losses to Connecticut and Oregon. A five-game winning streak allowed us to creep back in at #25 but then we lost to Old Dominion and Buffalo and that was that. We again went 19-12 but lost in the second round of the ACC tournament and in the first round of the NCAAs to finish 20-14. We were never ranked in 2020 and went 18-13 again. A shocking rout of the North Carolina Tar Heels in the first round of the ACC tournament was suddenly overwhelmed, as was everything else by the Covid epidemic. We were never ranked last year, either, going 15-8 in a schedule abbreviated due to the pandemic. We had another nice post-season run, losing to Virginia in the second round of the ACC tournament and to Houston in the Sweet 16 to finish 18-10.
That’s seven seasons in which we went 139-94, an average record of 20 wins and 13 losses and a winning percentage of .597. We played as a ranked team 18 times in that stretch, the last on Christmas day, 2018. We’ve played 84 consecutive games as an unranked team. Since 2015 we’ve played 58 games against ranked teams, and we were also ranked in 3 of them and were the lower ranked team on each occasion (we lost all 3 games). 39 of our 94 losses were to ranked teams. Compare that to the previous six season run in which we went 177-42, an average of 30-7 and winning percentage of .808. We played as a ranked team in 206 of those 219 games, including the last 108 in a row. We faced 39 ranked teams in that time and were also ranked 37 times and had the higher ranking 31 of those times. Of our 42 losses, 25 of them were to ranked teams. In conference games, including the tournaments, we were 87-34 from 2009-14 winning two regular season titles and finishing 2nd, 3rd (twice) and 6th in the other years. Our best record was 18-2, (17-1 in the regular season). From 2015 on, we are 59-58. We’ve been amazingly consistent: 9-9, 9-9, 10-8, 8-10, 10-8, 10-10 and 9-7 during the regular season. The best we’ve managed is a three-way tie for 5th. The one thing the two eras have in common is that we’ve never been able to win the conference tournament in either. But in the earlier period, we played for it twice, (and lost to Louisville each time), and had the famous 9 overtime game. We’ve never won two games in the ACCT, although we don’t know what the 2020 team might have accomplished if the pandemic hadn’t canceled everything.
The big difference between 2009-14 and 2015-21 are that in the first era we were strong at both ends of the court and the defense and offense complimented each other. In the second era, we’ve tended to be good on defense or on offense but not both. We’ve found out that the defensive teams tend to do better getting to the NCAA tournament and winning games there but neither is as good as being strong on both ends. Last year’s team started out being an offensive team but got good at defense at the end of the season thanks in large part to Jesse Edwards, Robert Braswell and Kadary Richmond, two of whom are no longer here.
So I think SU fans care very much about the regular season. Then they will care very much about the post season. If the regular season doesn’t go well, they will spend four months griping about it. If they aren’t griping, they will dream of a Hollywood ending in which Jim Boeheim and his two sons cut down the nets at the end, (and give Julie a snip). It will be a lot more fun if the regular season allows them to spend those four months dreaming of that moment.
