Recent History Lesson | Syracusefan.com

Recent History Lesson

DoctahLexus

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I understand the people calling for Desko's head after last nights performance. A big part of me wants to join the angry mob, but there are some narratives popping up amongst the H0T Takes that I disagree with, namely this idea that the program has been not elite and struggling for a truly extended amount of time. I would like to just describe our recent years to show why I disagree. Could get long. Fair warning.

In 2015 we were an elite team. No question about it. We had a championship game run in 2013 that suprised me, having lost such an elite class in 2011 and struggling so much in 2012. But once again we had some star power to replace, namely Jojo Marasco and Luke Cometti. Desko and co. worked their magic in the form of two common sources for us the past 10-15 years, transfers and OCC. We managed to land one of the most highly tauted recruits out of high school, Nicky Galasso from UNC, and OCCs star player Randy Staats. They helped us along to a solid campaign in 2014 with our team safely securing a home game in the tourney. There we were upset by Bryant, and a big weakness on that years team stood out, faceoffs.

In 2015 our problem area was addressed with excellent results. Desko and co. found the talented Ben Williams. Him along with our 2014 transfers, and long time local product studs rice and donahue, took the team to number 1 in the nation, and not win every game by one goal number 1 a la 2017. I'm talking dominating Duke uva easily beating Hopkins, crushing Lyle and connor fields' Albany team, with only two losses, both on the road. We had probably the most depressing defeat of my time as a fan that year, Hopkins in the quarters. It was so depressing because of how good we were all season and how one game could take it all away. I truly thought we were going to win it all that year and so did many pundits and writers. This was 4 years ago.

Even worse was that we had a rebuild on our hands that looked just as bad as 2011. 5 of our top 6 scorers were gone. Rice, who is an all time top player nearly on the level of the Powells and gates (in my opinion), was gone. Staats was gone. Our entire elite starting middie line was gone. It seemed like we were destined for another 2012 season. However, it turned out our 2015 team was so loaded that even the players outside of the top 6 were good enough to play with anyone in the country. Two scarcely mentioned 2nd line guys, Tim barber (another OCC product) and Sergio salcodo, stepped up in a huge way. And once again Desko and Co. landed an elite transfer. This time it was a UMass star player who we passed on out of high school, Nick Mariano. And we still had a healthy Ben Williams. I haven't mentioned defense much for length reasons but we found another excellent local product Nick Melon. The team once again was dangerous. We lost a couple close games on the road to Hopkins and Duke, but still had plenty of quality wins. Only for a couple games did the lost talent seem to show. We got crushed by an excellent notre dame team and lost to a mediocre Cornell. We still safely got a home tournemant game and handily defeated Albany. That year we lost to one of the very very few teams I would say has outclassed us consistently in recent years, Maryland. They had a level of talent not unlike us in 2015 and went on to lose a heartbreaker in the finals.

2017 we tried to mimic our 2015 results with our new found talent now fully developed seniors. However now there were some gaps, gaps that were not as well reloaded as recent years. Donahue was gone, along with barber, and Jordan Evans couldn't quite match his success as the lead qb at attack. Ben Williams was not healthy and his percentages suffered. Nick melon our promising defensive prodigy was out for the season and we lost our best close d guy, brandon Mullins, to graduation.

Despite these obstacles we managed to lose only 1 game in the regular season and spend a few weeks at number 1. Albeit we were probably not the best team like in 2015, but clearly we were towards the top. We had help from yet another solid transfer in Brendan bomberry. We easily secured a home game in the tourney and beat the team 1 year away from a dominant championship season on our home turf. It was a close one, but we looked like the better team and won fair and square. That year our strength was our middies, and we had an unfortunate match up against a team win the best d middies in the nation. We suffers another q final defeat in a year that looked like we could go farther.

OK. NOW we finally get to a truly bad year, like in 2012. We lost a boatload of talent. Our 2 senior ssdms, our best d pole, our 3 top scorers, our elite fogo, our goalie, and finally, based on my knowledge of the team, for the first time since 2012, desko does not have the answers. There is no elite transfer, no occ stud, no local product prodigy, desko makes a bad call red shirting a future star who decides to transfer, and all of this finally starts to show. We get crushed by good teams early in the season, and even late we still lose a couple heartbreakers and lose to teams like Cornell now toting the next Kevin rice in Jeff teat, or Michael Krause of uva.

Then we reach last night. And finally things truly feel different. There appears to have been no strong rebound that happened again and again in years past. Nobody stepping up to match all the recent success after an off year. A hurt promising freshman stud doesn't help but it doesn't explain away the loss. There appears to be a true lack of discipline and failure in landing recruits and transfers. If you're reasoning for #firedesko is how grim things NOW appear to be, then I'm right there with you. But if you're including in your H0T Takes some vague platitudes about how we have been bad for a long time now, then i urge you to look at recent years objectively, and I think you will find that we have been a solid successful program in the 2010s, and recent past disappointments had silver linings that last year going into this year do not seem to have. Just remember that orange success was not as long ago as it may feel right now.

I love this city and I love this team. Let's try and turn it around. Go orange!
 
I understand the people calling for Desko's head after last nights performance. A big part of me wants to join the angry mob, but there are some narratives popping up amongst the H0T Takes that I disagree with, namely this idea that the program has been not elite and struggling for a truly extended amount of time. I would like to just describe our recent years to show why I disagree. Could get long. Fair warning.

In 2015 we were an elite team. No question about it. We had a championship game run in 2013 that suprised me, having lost such an elite class in 2011 and struggling so much in 2012. But once again we had some star power to replace, namely Jojo Marasco and Luke Cometti. Desko and co. worked their magic in the form of two common sources for us the past 10-15 years, transfers and OCC. We managed to land one of the most highly tauted recruits out of high school, Nicky Galasso from UNC, and OCCs star player Randy Staats. They helped us along to a solid campaign in 2014 with our team safely securing a home game in the tourney. There we were upset by Bryant, and a big weakness on that years team stood out, faceoffs.

In 2015 our problem area was addressed with excellent results. Desko and co. found the talented Ben Williams. Him along with our 2014 transfers, and long time local product studs rice and donahue, took the team to number 1 in the nation, and not win every game by one goal number 1 a la 2017. I'm talking dominating Duke uva easily beating Hopkins, crushing Lyle and connor fields' Albany team, with only two losses, both on the road. We had probably the most depressing defeat of my time as a fan that year, Hopkins in the quarters. It was so depressing because of how good we were all season and how one game could take it all away. I truly thought we were going to win it all that year and so did many pundits and writers. This was 4 years ago.

Even worse was that we had a rebuild on our hands that looked just as bad as 2011. 5 of our top 6 scorers were gone. Rice, who is an all time top player nearly on the level of the Powells and gates (in my opinion), was gone. Staats was gone. Our entire elite starting middie line was gone. It seemed like we were destined for another 2012 season. However, it turned out our 2015 team was so loaded that even the players outside of the top 6 were good enough to play with anyone in the country. Two scarcely mentioned 2nd line guys, Tim barber (another OCC product) and Sergio salcodo, stepped up in a huge way. And once again Desko and Co. landed an elite transfer. This time it was a UMass star player who we passed on out of high school, Nick Mariano. And we still had a healthy Ben Williams. I haven't mentioned defense much for length reasons but we found another excellent local product Nick Melon. The team once again was dangerous. We lost a couple close games on the road to Hopkins and Duke, but still had plenty of quality wins. Only for a couple games did the lost talent seem to show. We got crushed by an excellent notre dame team and lost to a mediocre Cornell. We still safely got a home tournemant game and handily defeated Albany. That year we lost to one of the very very few teams I would say has outclassed us consistently in recent years, Maryland. They had a level of talent not unlike us in 2015 and went on to lose a heartbreaker in the finals.

2017 we tried to mimic our 2015 results with our new found talent now fully developed seniors. However now there were some gaps, gaps that were not as well reloaded as recent years. Donahue was gone, along with barber, and Jordan Evans couldn't quite match his success as the lead qb at attack. Ben Williams was not healthy and his percentages suffered. Nick melon our promising defensive prodigy was out for the season and we lost our best close d guy, brandon Mullins, to graduation.

Despite these obstacles we managed to lose only 1 game in the regular season and spend a few weeks at number 1. Albeit we were probably not the best team like in 2015, but clearly we were towards the top. We had help from yet another solid transfer in Brendan bomberry. We easily secured a home game in the tourney and beat the team 1 year away from a dominant championship season on our home turf. It was a close one, but we looked like the better team and won fair and square. That year our strength was our middies, and we had an unfortunate match up against a team win the best d middies in the nation. We suffers another q final defeat in a year that looked like we could go farther.

OK. NOW we finally get to a truly bad year, like in 2012. We lost a boatload of talent. Our 2 senior ssdms, our best d pole, our 3 top scorers, our elite fogo, our goalie, and finally, based on my knowledge of the team, for the first time since 2012, desko does not have the answers. There is no elite transfer, no occ stud, no local product prodigy, desko makes a bad call red shirting a future star who decides to transfer, and all of this finally starts to show. We get crushed by good teams early in the season, and even late we still lose a couple heartbreakers and lose to teams like Cornell now toting the next Kevin rice in Jeff teat, or Michael Krause of uva.

Then we reach last night. And finally things truly feel different. There appears to have been no strong rebound that happened again and again in years past. Nobody stepping up to match all the recent success after an off year. A hurt promising freshman stud doesn't help but it doesn't explain away the loss. There appears to be a true lack of discipline and failure in landing recruits and transfers. If you're reasoning for #firedesko is how grim things NOW appear to be, then I'm right there with you. But if you're including in your H0T Takes some vague platitudes about how we have been bad for a long time now, then i urge you to look at recent years objectively, and I think you will find that we have been a solid successful program in the 2010s, and recent past disappointments had silver linings that last year going into this year do not seem to have. Just remember that orange success was not as long ago as it may feel right now.

I love this city and I love this team. Let's try and turn it around. Go orange!
I couldn’t agree more and absolutely lov this post!
 
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter

Give me your social and credit card info and I can make that happen. Just strong coffee, nothing to do, and things on my mind this Saturday.
 

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