When Syracuse was left out of the 1981 NCAAs after winning the first Big East Tournament in the Carrier Dome, it was not that controversial. The NCAA tourney had only featured 32 teams thru 1978, and until the 1974 ACC conference tournament final between #1 NC State and #4 Maryland, only one school from every conference received a bid. That ACC finals game caused the first real expansion of NCAA teams and 1981 was during the early years of tournament expansion. Most people outside of Syracuse did not consider our regular season record worthy of an at-large bid back then.