SWC75
Bored Historian
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Syracuse’s first invitation to the National Invitation Tournament came in 1946. We’ had a tremendous 23-3 regular season, (a victory record that wasn’t topped until the 70’s, but suffered a disappointing first round loss to Muhlenberg, 41-47 in the first round. The Mules at that time were a sort of mid-major, not the DIII school they are now. (They were 22-4 themselves.) Their football coach was someone named Ben Schwartzwalder, who had also been their basketball coach. He had handed that team off to one of his football assistants, Bud Barker but was no doubt in the stands, rooting against Syracuse.
The orange returned in 1950, with a more modest record of 17-8 but greater success, crushing pre-war power LIU 80-52 before losing to #1 ranked Bradley66-78. (Yes, the #1 ranked team was in the NIT, not the NCAA – it was the older and more prestigious tournament back then, although that was about to change.) The next year SU played in something called the National Campus Tournament, which was create to rival the NIT and the NCAAs and played on Bradley’s campus. Syracuse won that tournament by beating Bradley, our other post-season tournament win that nobody remembers because that tournament folded after this one season.
Our next NIT appearance wasn’t until 1964. I had been born in the meantime but wasn’t really aware of SU basketball yet. This was Dave Bing’s, (and Jim Boeheim’s) sophomore year and we improved from consecutive years of 4-19, 2-22 and 8-13 to 17-7 but we lost to NYU 68-77. Ironically, that tournament was won by…Bradley!
I first started paying attention to SU basketball in Dave Bing’s senior year. Fred Lewis was emulating John Wooden by having his play for 40 minutes in a full-court zone press, the system UCLA had used to win the last two national championships. And we were doing a great job with it, averaging 102 point in winning our first seven games. Dave Bing was battling for the national scoring lead, a big deal in those days. And the Orange had been invited to the 8 team “Bruin Classic”, where they might get a chance to actually play UCCLA. This created a lot of basketball excitement in this town, for the first time since the Nationals had left. Unfortunately Vanderbilt and 6-10 Clyde Lee got in the way and we lost 98-113 despite 46 points from Bing. We went on to average 99 points a game and lost to Duke in the Eastern Regional Final, ending the Syracuse career of Bing, (but not Boeheim).
The Bing team was interesting but the team I fell in love with was the next year’s team. They weren’t supposed to amount to much but they didn’t pay attention to that and won 19 of their first 21 games and were ranked #8 in the country until St. John’s, who was 18-3 and ranked #7, and their 6-8 center Sonny Dove walked into Manley Field House. Our starting line-up was already Roy’s Runts, even tho9ugh Roy Danforth was just an assistant: we went 6-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 and 5-10 and had no answer for a 6-8 “skyscraper” like Dove. We actually led most of the game but Dove threw down a couple of thunderous follow-up dunks in the final minute to win for the Redmen, as they were called in those days. This was the first game I managed to convince my father, who was at best a luke-warm sports fan, to take me to. I remember the birds flying around the place after the dunks but, contrary to the story that they were doves the St. John’s cheerleaders released, I think they were probably the pigeons that were always around the place when I went there as an under-graduate.
Everything seemed to fall apt after that. We lost a game to Canisius, despite having the ball with a 4 point lead with 20 seconds to go. Then we lost a rematch with a Niagara team we’d beaten earlier in the year before beating Colgate. The NCAA tournament had only 24 teams at the time, many of them conference champions with automatic bids. And the regionals were regional- teams stayed in their own geographic area. In the East St. John’s and Boston College were clearly better than we were. Despite the great start and the 20-5 record, we were in the NIT, where we lost 64-66 to New Mexico. The only thing I remember about that game is that the Lobos had 6-9 Mel Daniels, another big man we had no answer for and that, despite the final score, we were behind the whole game and ti just seemed like we were trying to swim upstream.
Then we got hit with academic and legal issues. Lewis left under rumors the players had rebelled against him, (I’ve never heard the full story on what happened and probably never will.) We had two straight losing records and, after a promising 6-0 start that made it seem like the fever had broken, stumbled to a 12-12 record in 1969-70. When a 5-0 starting 1970-71was followed by 4 losses in 5 games, I wondered if we would ever pull out of this. Then we went on a 13-2 run that produced excitement we hadn’t felt in years. The only losses we a one pointer at Temple and a 71-86 loss at Massachusetts where Julius Erving scored 36 points- and had 32 rebounds!
I remember the final game of the regular season, against Niagara who had become our biggest rival at the time. Calvin Murphy had gone but they still had several good players, including Marshall Wingate, their star. They also had a good record and it was understood that the winner of that game would go to the NIT. There was no talk of the NCAAs at all. The game, played in Manley, was an all-time classic. It was 58-59 in favor of the visitors when both teams had 6 straight empty possessions. We couldn’t take the lead and they couldn’t clinch it. Finally, a little-used reserve named Chuck Wichman twisted his way through the defense to make a lay-up with 20 seconds left. Niagara played for the last shot and got the ball to Wingate, who missed. 6-11 string bean center Bill Smith grabbed the ball and hugged it while the students stormed the court. We were in the NIT!!!!
But not for long. We lost to Michigan, who had been a contender in the big ten. In those days only one team per conference went to the NCAAs. There were many independents to fill the other slots in those days. They had a good player in Henry Willmore. That’s all I recall about the 76-82 loss. The fact that we’d had a winning record, (first of 47 in a row so far) and been to a post season tournament was what really mattered.
I remember what happened the next year a lot more. We didn’t have Bill Smith anymore but had a bunch of gritty kids who combined what they did have to actually improve the team’s record to 21-5. Greg “Kid” Kohls ripped the nets for 26.7 points per game, second all-time to Dave Bing. His backcourt partner, Dennis DuVal, averaged 15.8 and the two forwards, 6-3 Mike Lee and 6-1 Mark Wadach, averaged 18 and 9 points a game. More amazingly, they each averaged 8 rebounds a game, as did 6-5 center Bob Dooms. It was another loveable team.
After beating Davidson 81-77, we ran smack into Maryland, who had 6-11 Tom McMillen and 6-9 Len Elmore. I remember we missed 30 of our first 33 shots and fell way behind. But Maryland wasn’t ripping the nets either and we started pressing them like the old days. It was only 20-35 at the half. We kept chipping away and it came down to a one-possession game. I remember Bob Costas, then an SU student doing the game on WAER shouting into the microphone, “Make a good pass, Bobby!” when Dooms had the ball. But we came up short, losing 65-71. The Terps went on to win the tournament, crushing our old pals, the Purple Eagles of Niagara, 100-69 in the final. I recall my New York City friends in Booth Hall saying “We coulda won the NIT!!!” That was the ultimate goal for some of them.
We made the NCAAs the next eight years. We went to the Final Four in 1975 and then rose to a #2 ranking in 1980. The Big East was here and the Carrier Dome was here but the Louie and Bouie Show had left town and we stumbled to a 15-11 record. Then we lost our best outside shooter, Marty head, to an injury. The Big East tourney wasn’t yet wedded to New York and they held it in the Dome for the only time. Before an Orange-colored crowd we beat St. John’s, Georgetown and then Villanova in triple overtime to win the title. But the Big East was still in a probationary period before it got an automatic bid. And the NCAA, not for the last time, looked at Syracuse and said “Nope”. You think we were pissed off this year? You think we were pissed off in 2007? 1981 is when we were PISSED off!
And we took it out on Marquette, (88-81), Holy Cross (77-57) and Michigan (91-76), all in the Dome. The Michigan game featured a 16 for 16 streak to start the second half which produced the loudest Dome I’ve ever heard. It was almost all jump shots, many from what would now be three point range. The cheering got louder with each shot and never calmed down between shots. I went home feeling a natural high. Anything seemed possible.
We cooled off in New York but still out-lasted Purdue 70-63 to reach the title game for the first and thus far only time. The opponent was Tulsa, coached by Nolan Richardson in his pre-Arkansas days. The game was a struggle but we finally pulled out to about a 7 point lead midway through the second half. Richardson called a time-out and spent the entire time talking to the refs, ignoring his team. He was screaming at them, just talking with them. I’ve always wondered what he told them because almost every foul call in the game after that was against Syracuse. Four of our five starters fouled out. The one they missed, Eric Santifer, had the game of his life, scoring 29 points and sending the game into overtime, where an exhausted Santifer and four reserves lost 84-86. Digger Phelps, moonlighting as a color man agreed with the play-by-play guy that it was unfortunate that the refs had decided the contest, not the players. Our one real chance to win the NIT and close out a miracle finish to a frustrating season had been stolen from us.
The next year we again went 15-11. The BET was in the Hartford Ciciv Center and we had a 12 point lead over Boston College- and then gave up the last 14 points to lose to them for the third time that year, 92-94. It put us back in the NIT but there was no magic this time. We beat St. peters 84-75 in the Dome but then hosted our old friends, Bradley, who beat us 95-81 and went on to win the tournament.
Then came our greatest period. We went to the NCAA tournament ten years in a row, were ranked in the top ten at some point in 8 of those years, including twice at the top of the rankings. We made it to the NCAA title game and should have won but let it slip away. This streak was interrupted not by the Nit but by probation. We were back in the NCAAs for another three straight years after that, including another appearance in the championship game. Our NIT years seemed to be over.
But we had to rebuild with a bunch of freshmen in 1996-97 and it cost us. We struggled through an 18-11 regular season, lost in the second round of the BET and didn’t get selected by the NCAAs. Instead we got a home game against Florida State which proved to be the most dismal experience any of us who were there had had rooting for the orange in the Dome. The team didn’t seem to care. Neither did the Carrier Dome crew as the scoreboard stopped working halfway through. A mediocre Florida State team blew by us, 67-82 and the season was over.
The ‘Cuse was in the house but nobody was home. I didn’t see any point in even going to the NIT again after that but you can’t have enough home games so we’ve never turned them down. I thought we might be back in it in 98-99 but we made n 8-9 game by the skin of our teeth and then lost to a team with Doug Gottlieb at the point. We might have bene better off in the NIT. Then came the weird 200-102 season. We started out like a house afire, winning the pre-season NIT and 16 of our first 18 games, with the only two losses coming when JB was out for his surgery. We went into a 4-7 slump after that but still had a very respectable 20-11 record with a winning Big East record: 9-8, even after a loss to Villanova in the first round of the BET. Still, we were back in the NIT, which gave us a rare chance to win both the pre- and post- season NITs. We almost did it, beating St. Bonaventure 76-66 and our new friends, Butler, 66-65 in OT in the Dome, before a larger and more enthusiastic crowd than in 1997. Then we went on the road to beat John Belein coached Richmond team, 62-46. It was on to the Big Apple. We were finally going win the NIT and avenge ’81?
Ah…no. The wrong uniforms showed up and we were dressed all in white, just like our opponent, Sou8th Carolina. At halftime, we switched to practice jerseys and it looked it. It seems every time we mess with classic uniforms, we pay the price. WE lost to the Gamecocks, 59-66 and looked bad, (in more ways than one) doing it. Then we played a “why-are-we-here” consolation game against Temple and lost that one, too, 54-65.
The next year all of our dreams came true. The follow-=up to that wasn’t a strong one. GMAC drilled 43 point to avert a first round defeat to BYU in ’04. Then we were one and Done in both ’05 and ’06. At least it was in the NCAAs. Then came 2007. We were 22-10 and 11-7 in the big east on selection Sunday. But Arkansas, whom the NIT had already penciled in as the second seed of their Southern Regional, was suddenly snapped up by the NCAAs and we were left out. The NIT made us the second seed in their Southern Regional. We beat South Alabama, 79-73 and San Diego State 80-64 in the Dome and were looking pretty good. But because we had Arkansas’ seeding, we had to go on the road to play at our future ACC brethren, Clemson, where we lost 70-74.
The next year we belonged in the NIT. The team had been crushed by injuries. We got down to 6 scholarship players, one of whom, (Scoop Jardine) had a stress fracture he didn’t report to the coaches because he knew the team needed him. So he played in pain. We stumbled to a 19-13 record. The Boeheim bashers were at their high water mark, saying that “the game has passed him by” and suggesting that he be “eased into retirement”. Those were the polite ones. It was paid to read the board after a loss. The team responded by beating Robert Morris, (87-81) and Maryland (88-72) in the Dome and then built up a 24 point second half lead on Massachusetts, a team that had beaten us during the regular season. I really felt we were finally going to do it: Win the NIT! And that would shut up the Boeheim bashers.
The lead started slipping away, as it has in so many other games. But it was such a large lead and I kept looking at the clock, waiting for it to win the game for us. But the clock can’t make plays and, amazingly that gigantic lead completely disappeared and morphed into a 77-81 defeat. I don’t think I even looked at the basketball board until the next season.
We won 28 games the next season, including the epic 6 overtime win over Connecticut. Then one of our beast teams went 30-5 and might have gone all the way except we lost our starting center to injury just before the tournament started. In the ‘off’ year of 2011 we went 27-8. Then came 2011-12, we then had a dream-sequence 30-1 regular season, with the only loss coming when Fab Melo was temporarily suspended. We were ranked #1 for a month before that. We looked forward to a confrontation to the other #1 team that year, Kentucky, for all the marbles. Then Melo was suspended again. We went to the Elite 8 without him but it was another “What might have been” season. We went to the Final Four the next year and started the following season 25-0 and achieved our third #1 ranking in five years. The Boeheim Bashers were hiding behind the Blue Curtain.
Then it all fell apart again. A 25-0 team lost a home game to a 7-19 team, (again, the uniforms seemed to be a factor). We stumbled to 28-6, round of 32 finish. Then came self-imposed probation and an 18-13 record. We had the same record the next year and lost to Pitt in the first round of the ACCT. We were 18-14 with an 9-10 conference record and got picked for the NCAAs, over the protest of many, (like Doug Gottlieb)). We won our way to the Final Four to silence most of the critics.
This year we were 18-14 and 10-9 in the conference but were left out and we find ourselves in the NIT once more. We’ve beaten UNC Greensboro 90-77 in the opener and now play Ole Miss. The field looks flat as a pancake. We can beat or lose to any of them. Can we finally win this thing? Stay tuned.
The orange returned in 1950, with a more modest record of 17-8 but greater success, crushing pre-war power LIU 80-52 before losing to #1 ranked Bradley66-78. (Yes, the #1 ranked team was in the NIT, not the NCAA – it was the older and more prestigious tournament back then, although that was about to change.) The next year SU played in something called the National Campus Tournament, which was create to rival the NIT and the NCAAs and played on Bradley’s campus. Syracuse won that tournament by beating Bradley, our other post-season tournament win that nobody remembers because that tournament folded after this one season.
Our next NIT appearance wasn’t until 1964. I had been born in the meantime but wasn’t really aware of SU basketball yet. This was Dave Bing’s, (and Jim Boeheim’s) sophomore year and we improved from consecutive years of 4-19, 2-22 and 8-13 to 17-7 but we lost to NYU 68-77. Ironically, that tournament was won by…Bradley!
I first started paying attention to SU basketball in Dave Bing’s senior year. Fred Lewis was emulating John Wooden by having his play for 40 minutes in a full-court zone press, the system UCLA had used to win the last two national championships. And we were doing a great job with it, averaging 102 point in winning our first seven games. Dave Bing was battling for the national scoring lead, a big deal in those days. And the Orange had been invited to the 8 team “Bruin Classic”, where they might get a chance to actually play UCCLA. This created a lot of basketball excitement in this town, for the first time since the Nationals had left. Unfortunately Vanderbilt and 6-10 Clyde Lee got in the way and we lost 98-113 despite 46 points from Bing. We went on to average 99 points a game and lost to Duke in the Eastern Regional Final, ending the Syracuse career of Bing, (but not Boeheim).
The Bing team was interesting but the team I fell in love with was the next year’s team. They weren’t supposed to amount to much but they didn’t pay attention to that and won 19 of their first 21 games and were ranked #8 in the country until St. John’s, who was 18-3 and ranked #7, and their 6-8 center Sonny Dove walked into Manley Field House. Our starting line-up was already Roy’s Runts, even tho9ugh Roy Danforth was just an assistant: we went 6-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 and 5-10 and had no answer for a 6-8 “skyscraper” like Dove. We actually led most of the game but Dove threw down a couple of thunderous follow-up dunks in the final minute to win for the Redmen, as they were called in those days. This was the first game I managed to convince my father, who was at best a luke-warm sports fan, to take me to. I remember the birds flying around the place after the dunks but, contrary to the story that they were doves the St. John’s cheerleaders released, I think they were probably the pigeons that were always around the place when I went there as an under-graduate.
Everything seemed to fall apt after that. We lost a game to Canisius, despite having the ball with a 4 point lead with 20 seconds to go. Then we lost a rematch with a Niagara team we’d beaten earlier in the year before beating Colgate. The NCAA tournament had only 24 teams at the time, many of them conference champions with automatic bids. And the regionals were regional- teams stayed in their own geographic area. In the East St. John’s and Boston College were clearly better than we were. Despite the great start and the 20-5 record, we were in the NIT, where we lost 64-66 to New Mexico. The only thing I remember about that game is that the Lobos had 6-9 Mel Daniels, another big man we had no answer for and that, despite the final score, we were behind the whole game and ti just seemed like we were trying to swim upstream.
Then we got hit with academic and legal issues. Lewis left under rumors the players had rebelled against him, (I’ve never heard the full story on what happened and probably never will.) We had two straight losing records and, after a promising 6-0 start that made it seem like the fever had broken, stumbled to a 12-12 record in 1969-70. When a 5-0 starting 1970-71was followed by 4 losses in 5 games, I wondered if we would ever pull out of this. Then we went on a 13-2 run that produced excitement we hadn’t felt in years. The only losses we a one pointer at Temple and a 71-86 loss at Massachusetts where Julius Erving scored 36 points- and had 32 rebounds!
I remember the final game of the regular season, against Niagara who had become our biggest rival at the time. Calvin Murphy had gone but they still had several good players, including Marshall Wingate, their star. They also had a good record and it was understood that the winner of that game would go to the NIT. There was no talk of the NCAAs at all. The game, played in Manley, was an all-time classic. It was 58-59 in favor of the visitors when both teams had 6 straight empty possessions. We couldn’t take the lead and they couldn’t clinch it. Finally, a little-used reserve named Chuck Wichman twisted his way through the defense to make a lay-up with 20 seconds left. Niagara played for the last shot and got the ball to Wingate, who missed. 6-11 string bean center Bill Smith grabbed the ball and hugged it while the students stormed the court. We were in the NIT!!!!
But not for long. We lost to Michigan, who had been a contender in the big ten. In those days only one team per conference went to the NCAAs. There were many independents to fill the other slots in those days. They had a good player in Henry Willmore. That’s all I recall about the 76-82 loss. The fact that we’d had a winning record, (first of 47 in a row so far) and been to a post season tournament was what really mattered.
I remember what happened the next year a lot more. We didn’t have Bill Smith anymore but had a bunch of gritty kids who combined what they did have to actually improve the team’s record to 21-5. Greg “Kid” Kohls ripped the nets for 26.7 points per game, second all-time to Dave Bing. His backcourt partner, Dennis DuVal, averaged 15.8 and the two forwards, 6-3 Mike Lee and 6-1 Mark Wadach, averaged 18 and 9 points a game. More amazingly, they each averaged 8 rebounds a game, as did 6-5 center Bob Dooms. It was another loveable team.
After beating Davidson 81-77, we ran smack into Maryland, who had 6-11 Tom McMillen and 6-9 Len Elmore. I remember we missed 30 of our first 33 shots and fell way behind. But Maryland wasn’t ripping the nets either and we started pressing them like the old days. It was only 20-35 at the half. We kept chipping away and it came down to a one-possession game. I remember Bob Costas, then an SU student doing the game on WAER shouting into the microphone, “Make a good pass, Bobby!” when Dooms had the ball. But we came up short, losing 65-71. The Terps went on to win the tournament, crushing our old pals, the Purple Eagles of Niagara, 100-69 in the final. I recall my New York City friends in Booth Hall saying “We coulda won the NIT!!!” That was the ultimate goal for some of them.
We made the NCAAs the next eight years. We went to the Final Four in 1975 and then rose to a #2 ranking in 1980. The Big East was here and the Carrier Dome was here but the Louie and Bouie Show had left town and we stumbled to a 15-11 record. Then we lost our best outside shooter, Marty head, to an injury. The Big East tourney wasn’t yet wedded to New York and they held it in the Dome for the only time. Before an Orange-colored crowd we beat St. John’s, Georgetown and then Villanova in triple overtime to win the title. But the Big East was still in a probationary period before it got an automatic bid. And the NCAA, not for the last time, looked at Syracuse and said “Nope”. You think we were pissed off this year? You think we were pissed off in 2007? 1981 is when we were PISSED off!
And we took it out on Marquette, (88-81), Holy Cross (77-57) and Michigan (91-76), all in the Dome. The Michigan game featured a 16 for 16 streak to start the second half which produced the loudest Dome I’ve ever heard. It was almost all jump shots, many from what would now be three point range. The cheering got louder with each shot and never calmed down between shots. I went home feeling a natural high. Anything seemed possible.
We cooled off in New York but still out-lasted Purdue 70-63 to reach the title game for the first and thus far only time. The opponent was Tulsa, coached by Nolan Richardson in his pre-Arkansas days. The game was a struggle but we finally pulled out to about a 7 point lead midway through the second half. Richardson called a time-out and spent the entire time talking to the refs, ignoring his team. He was screaming at them, just talking with them. I’ve always wondered what he told them because almost every foul call in the game after that was against Syracuse. Four of our five starters fouled out. The one they missed, Eric Santifer, had the game of his life, scoring 29 points and sending the game into overtime, where an exhausted Santifer and four reserves lost 84-86. Digger Phelps, moonlighting as a color man agreed with the play-by-play guy that it was unfortunate that the refs had decided the contest, not the players. Our one real chance to win the NIT and close out a miracle finish to a frustrating season had been stolen from us.
The next year we again went 15-11. The BET was in the Hartford Ciciv Center and we had a 12 point lead over Boston College- and then gave up the last 14 points to lose to them for the third time that year, 92-94. It put us back in the NIT but there was no magic this time. We beat St. peters 84-75 in the Dome but then hosted our old friends, Bradley, who beat us 95-81 and went on to win the tournament.
Then came our greatest period. We went to the NCAA tournament ten years in a row, were ranked in the top ten at some point in 8 of those years, including twice at the top of the rankings. We made it to the NCAA title game and should have won but let it slip away. This streak was interrupted not by the Nit but by probation. We were back in the NCAAs for another three straight years after that, including another appearance in the championship game. Our NIT years seemed to be over.
But we had to rebuild with a bunch of freshmen in 1996-97 and it cost us. We struggled through an 18-11 regular season, lost in the second round of the BET and didn’t get selected by the NCAAs. Instead we got a home game against Florida State which proved to be the most dismal experience any of us who were there had had rooting for the orange in the Dome. The team didn’t seem to care. Neither did the Carrier Dome crew as the scoreboard stopped working halfway through. A mediocre Florida State team blew by us, 67-82 and the season was over.
The ‘Cuse was in the house but nobody was home. I didn’t see any point in even going to the NIT again after that but you can’t have enough home games so we’ve never turned them down. I thought we might be back in it in 98-99 but we made n 8-9 game by the skin of our teeth and then lost to a team with Doug Gottlieb at the point. We might have bene better off in the NIT. Then came the weird 200-102 season. We started out like a house afire, winning the pre-season NIT and 16 of our first 18 games, with the only two losses coming when JB was out for his surgery. We went into a 4-7 slump after that but still had a very respectable 20-11 record with a winning Big East record: 9-8, even after a loss to Villanova in the first round of the BET. Still, we were back in the NIT, which gave us a rare chance to win both the pre- and post- season NITs. We almost did it, beating St. Bonaventure 76-66 and our new friends, Butler, 66-65 in OT in the Dome, before a larger and more enthusiastic crowd than in 1997. Then we went on the road to beat John Belein coached Richmond team, 62-46. It was on to the Big Apple. We were finally going win the NIT and avenge ’81?
Ah…no. The wrong uniforms showed up and we were dressed all in white, just like our opponent, Sou8th Carolina. At halftime, we switched to practice jerseys and it looked it. It seems every time we mess with classic uniforms, we pay the price. WE lost to the Gamecocks, 59-66 and looked bad, (in more ways than one) doing it. Then we played a “why-are-we-here” consolation game against Temple and lost that one, too, 54-65.
The next year all of our dreams came true. The follow-=up to that wasn’t a strong one. GMAC drilled 43 point to avert a first round defeat to BYU in ’04. Then we were one and Done in both ’05 and ’06. At least it was in the NCAAs. Then came 2007. We were 22-10 and 11-7 in the big east on selection Sunday. But Arkansas, whom the NIT had already penciled in as the second seed of their Southern Regional, was suddenly snapped up by the NCAAs and we were left out. The NIT made us the second seed in their Southern Regional. We beat South Alabama, 79-73 and San Diego State 80-64 in the Dome and were looking pretty good. But because we had Arkansas’ seeding, we had to go on the road to play at our future ACC brethren, Clemson, where we lost 70-74.
The next year we belonged in the NIT. The team had been crushed by injuries. We got down to 6 scholarship players, one of whom, (Scoop Jardine) had a stress fracture he didn’t report to the coaches because he knew the team needed him. So he played in pain. We stumbled to a 19-13 record. The Boeheim bashers were at their high water mark, saying that “the game has passed him by” and suggesting that he be “eased into retirement”. Those were the polite ones. It was paid to read the board after a loss. The team responded by beating Robert Morris, (87-81) and Maryland (88-72) in the Dome and then built up a 24 point second half lead on Massachusetts, a team that had beaten us during the regular season. I really felt we were finally going to do it: Win the NIT! And that would shut up the Boeheim bashers.
The lead started slipping away, as it has in so many other games. But it was such a large lead and I kept looking at the clock, waiting for it to win the game for us. But the clock can’t make plays and, amazingly that gigantic lead completely disappeared and morphed into a 77-81 defeat. I don’t think I even looked at the basketball board until the next season.
We won 28 games the next season, including the epic 6 overtime win over Connecticut. Then one of our beast teams went 30-5 and might have gone all the way except we lost our starting center to injury just before the tournament started. In the ‘off’ year of 2011 we went 27-8. Then came 2011-12, we then had a dream-sequence 30-1 regular season, with the only loss coming when Fab Melo was temporarily suspended. We were ranked #1 for a month before that. We looked forward to a confrontation to the other #1 team that year, Kentucky, for all the marbles. Then Melo was suspended again. We went to the Elite 8 without him but it was another “What might have been” season. We went to the Final Four the next year and started the following season 25-0 and achieved our third #1 ranking in five years. The Boeheim Bashers were hiding behind the Blue Curtain.
Then it all fell apart again. A 25-0 team lost a home game to a 7-19 team, (again, the uniforms seemed to be a factor). We stumbled to 28-6, round of 32 finish. Then came self-imposed probation and an 18-13 record. We had the same record the next year and lost to Pitt in the first round of the ACCT. We were 18-14 with an 9-10 conference record and got picked for the NCAAs, over the protest of many, (like Doug Gottlieb)). We won our way to the Final Four to silence most of the critics.
This year we were 18-14 and 10-9 in the conference but were left out and we find ourselves in the NIT once more. We’ve beaten UNC Greensboro 90-77 in the opener and now play Ole Miss. The field looks flat as a pancake. We can beat or lose to any of them. Can we finally win this thing? Stay tuned.
