Since we won our only title

[SWC75]

The skill on offensive from every player on that team was amazing. From AO being pretty much automatic within 5 feet of the basket, to Wes' athleticism, to Scoop's ball handling, to the shooting of Rautins. I could keep going...

I call that the "Noah's Ark" team because we had two of everything: Arinze and Rick were excellent inside scorers. Andy and Wes were strong outside shooters. Kris, Scoop and brandon could drive through the defesne to score. We had two point guards. It was also a good defensive team with Andy at the top of the zone, (our best ever there, IMO), and AO using his body to stop any drives into the lane. Wes was a great help defender with his blocked shots.

 

[SWC75]

Whatever. Regardless of what happens, nobody is taking away any championships. Even if they do, I still watched the games and saw them win them. I even caught a couple of them on your home court.

Syracuse fans are the only ones who think of SU as that one team that could have won the 2012 title had they not lost a key player. Carolina losing Kendall Marshall was a huge blow to a team that was a bonafide contender and had hung with Kentucky until the closing seconds when they played in Lexington. Having already lost their backup point guard earlier in the season made it even worse. Anyway, Marshall not only was the Cousy award winning floor general, but he was hitting outside shots at a regular clip before he went down. That UNC squad is still universally known as the team that potentially could have taken out UK, not Syracuse. 2010 is an entirely different matter. That Syracuse team was built to win title, and the field was there for the taking. It was a shame when Arinze went down.

We were ranked #1 for a month that season, (the only team besides Kentucky to be #1) and wound up with the same record: 30-1 in a better conference. Our only regular season loss was when Fab was suspended the first time. So I don't think it was just deluded SU fans who thought that, full strength, that team might have been a threat to Kentucky that year.

 

[omniorange]

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, I know. But 2010 was definitely our year. That team was beautiful to watch.

2012, as someone already said, would have been vacated anyway.

And last year, if only Rak was 75% of the player he was this year back then, that was a wide open tournament that anyone could have won.

Take into account 1987 and we should have at least 3 NCAA ships. The fact we don't is depressing.

At some point, karma has got to turn and be good to us for a change, right?

Cheers,
Neil

 

[doc05]

That season with Ennis we were executing extremely well down the stretch of games rather than actually playing very well IMO. Teams figured us out a bit, our shooting dropped off, Grant had back issues and we simply couldn't maintain the late game heroics. I don't think we were as good as it seemed through 25 games but also probably not as bad as it seemed down the stretch.

The point really was that the team was good enough to win in a very down year for college bball. They were certainly a flawed team that was "figured out", but given the lack of a true elite team out there, it's a team that had the potential to go far regardless.

 

[Millhouse]

And last year, if only Rak was 75% of the player he was this year back then, that was a wide open tournament that anyone could have won.

he was

 

[BuffOrange]

UConn seems to be the anti-syracuse, they have won two NCAA championships with the most pedestrian teams I have ever witnessed. Win a title when your the 9th best team in your conference - check. Win a title with a team playing out of the AAC who lost to SMU, twice - check.
Meanwhile Syracuse has managed not to win titles with multiple elite teams, including 2010 and 2012 when they went a combined 64-8.
Doesn't seem fair. Two, three weeks ago I was certain McCollough was staying and 'Cuse had a great shot at Bryant, I was so hoping for Syracuse to win the NCAA title so we could all thumb are noses at all those haters who piled on during this whole NCAA debacle.

The other thing is if you explained those resumes to an alien, they would reasonably have to assume that a major injury or suspension or whatever was involved in the reg. seasons.
Nope. Nothing like that.
They even played most of their tough games at home in 2011 in the 9th place unbalanced schedule. And they couldn't beat a Notre Dame team whose best player - Ben Hansboro - fouled out with 6min's left. At home. On Senior Day.
Also lost to L'ville by a combined 18,742 pts in 3 meetings in '14.
It's not believable.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, I know. But 2010 was definitely our year. That team was beautiful to watch.

2012, as someone already said, would have been vacated anyway.

And last year, if only Rak was 75% of the player he was this year back then, that was a wide open tournament that anyone could have won.

Take into account 1987 and we should have at least 3 NCAA ships. The fact we don't is depressing.

At some point, karma has got to turn and be good to us for a change, right?

Cheers,
Neil

we beat Kansas by three. That's one possession. I think we could have zero as likely as we "should" have three.

 

[Quazzum69]

Maybe there should be less emphasis on the tournament. That's like having a class where the grade is based on only one exam. That's not really a fair or accurate measure of how smart/good you are. I would take a bunch of 27-32 win years and conference championships and deep tourney runs (not championships) over bad seasons and a random tourney win.

I just don't think you can sufficiently describe a program by a couple of weeks in March that may or may not be rigged (it's rigged - we all know we got screwed against Ohio State and Michigan).

 

[HOFCeluck]

Maybe there should be less emphasis on the tournament. That's like having a class where the grade is based on only one exam. That's not really a fair or accurate measure of how smart/good you are. I would take a bunch of 27-32 win years and conference championships and deep tourney runs (not championships) over bad seasons and a random tourney win.

I just don't think you can sufficiently describe a program by a couple of weeks in March that may or may not be rigged (it's rigged - we all know we got screwed against Ohio State and Michigan).

lol

 

[Briancuse]

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, I know. But 2010 was definitely our year. That team was beautiful to watch.

2012, as someone already said, would have been vacated anyway.

And last year, if only Rak was 75% of the player he was this year back then, that was a wide open tournament that anyone could have won.

Take into account 1987 and we should have at least 3 NCAA ships. The fact we don't is depressing.

At some point, karma has got to turn and be good to us for a change, right?

Cheers,
Neil

There is no doubt in my mind that if Arinze doesn't get hurt we win it all. I still think Kentucky was a little better in 2012, but Fab's stupidity cost us a shot at them.

 

[omniorange]

he was

Not sure what games you watched, but Rak wasn't even 50% the player last year that he was this year. Biggest junior to senior jump I can recall in my years watching SU.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[skurey]

Rak would get one or two opportunities where he would showcase legit moves and then barely rim out a shot. All people paid attention to was the miss and assumed he wasn't good enough to warrant touching the ball. These people were wrong and were proven wrong this year.

 

[KCJax03]

The other thing is if you explained those resumes to an alien, they would reasonably have to assume that a major injury or suspension or whatever was involved in the reg. seasons.
Nope. Nothing like that.
They even played most of their tough games at home in 2011 in the 9th place unbalanced schedule. And they couldn't beat a Notre Dame team whose best player - Ben Hansboro - fouled out with 6min's left. At home. On Senior Day.
Also lost to L'ville by a combined 18,742 pts in 3 meetings in '14.
It's not believable.

Racks the brain really, after it happened in 2011 you would've assumed it was a once in a lifetime, against all odds occurrence. To accomplish that again in 2014, how could the same program manage to win a National Title two times in 4 years with mediocre teams?

It actually is when I realized how bad the talent level has dipped in college basketball and in a way it filled me with more hope for Syracuse. Have a team with one or two good players, get hot and the right time and you can string together 6 wins in March given there are very few truly great teams in the college game anymore.

 

[Dave85]

Connecticut won their second title.
North Carolina won their fourth.
Florida won their first and then their second.
Kansas won their third.
North Carolina won their fifth.
Duke won their fourth.
Connecticut won their third.
Kentucky won their eighth.
Louisville won their third.
Connecticut won their fourth.
and Duke won their fifth.

It all looks Orange to me!

 

[SWC75]

Maybe there should be less emphasis on the tournament. That's like having a class where the grade is based on only one exam. That's not really a fair or accurate measure of how smart/good you are. I would take a bunch of 27-32 win years and conference championships and deep tourney runs (not championships) over bad seasons and a random tourney win.

I just don't think you can sufficiently describe a program by a couple of weeks in March that may or may not be rigged (it's rigged - we all know we got screwed against Ohio State and Michigan).

This is an update of a post I made in February of last year:

We’re trying to win the ACC regular season championship. Then we’ll try to win the ACC Tournament. We’re also trying to win the national championship but that can only be won by winning the NCAA tournament. It made me wonder what things might have been like over the years if we had a regular season national championship and a post season national championship as we do with the conferences. Football used to base its national championship on the last regular season poll, (that ended in 1968: the first poll was in 1936). What if we looked at the team voted #1 in the last regular season writer’s or coach’s polls as the regular season national champion? You could argue that attaining and maintain a #1 ranking to the end of a 31 game regular season is as much of an accomplishment as winning a single elimination tournament over 6 games. You might argue that the latter is harder but it also has more freakish results. If you are voted #1 at the end of the regular season, that’s not a freak thing. Maybe we should recognize both.


In basketball, the writer’s poll began in the 1948-49 season, (I’ll call that 1949 for short), the coach’s in 1950-51, (which I’ll call 1951). Where there is a conference tournament, I’ll use the last poll before the conference tournament. Here are your “regular season national champions” (source: The ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, the ESPN website and SportsReference.com: College Basketball):

1949 Kentucky
1950 Bradley
1951 Kentucky and Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State)
1952 Kentucky
1953 Indiana
1954 Kentucky and Indiana
1955 San Francisco
1956 San Francisco
1957 North Carolina
1958 West Virginia
1959 Kansas State
1960 Cincinnati and California
1961 Ohio State
1962 Ohio State
1963 Cincinnati
1964 UCLA
1965 Michigan
1966 Kentucky
1967 UCLA
1968 Houston
1969 UCLA
1970 Kentucky
1971 UCLA
1972 UCLA
1973 UCLA
1974 NC State
1975 Indiana
1976 Indiana
1977 Michigan
1978 Kentucky
1979 Indiana State
1980 DePaul
1981 DePaul
1982 North Carolina
1983 Houston
1984 North Carolina
1985 Georgetown
1986 Duke
1987 UNLV
1988 Temple
1989 Arizona
1990 Oklahoma
1991 UNLV
1992 Duke
1993 North Carolina
1994 Arkansas
1995 UCLA
1996 Kentucky
1997 Kansas
1998 Duke
1999 Duke
2000 Cincinnati
2001 Stanford
2002 Kansas
2003 Arizona
2004 St. Joseph’s
2005 Illinois
2006 Connecticut
2007 Ohio State
2008 North Carolina
2009 Louisville
2010 Kansas
2011 Ohio State
2012 Kentucky
2013 Gonzaga
2014 Florida
2015 Kentucky

The NCAA tournament champions would also be national champions, just as the ACC tournament champions will also be ACC champions. Syracuse (in 2014) would thus (was) going for four championships this season: the ACC regular season and national regular season, (both of which could be won when we play our last regular season game vs. Florida State), the ACC tournament championship, which we would compete for the next week and NCAA title, which we could compete for over the final three weeks. They would all count and they would all matter. If we finish say, 36-1, (losing our first game in the Sweet 16), we would already have won a national championship. Someone else would then win the post season championship.

A composite list of national championships won, (“R” is a regular season title, “P” is the post season title):
Arizona R1989, P1997, R2003 (3)
Arkansas R1994, P1994 (2)
Bradley R1950 (1)
California P1959, R1960 (2)
CCNY P1950 (1)
Cincinnati R1960, P1961, P1962, R1963, R2000 (5)
Connecticut P1999, P2004, R2006, P2011 (4)
DePaul R1980, R1981 (1)
Duke R1986, P1991, R1992, P1992, R1998, R1999, P2001, P2010 (8)
Florida P2006, P2007 R2014 (3)
Georgetown P1984, R1985 (2)
Gonzaga R2013 (1)
Holy Cross P1947 (1)
Houston R1968, R1983 (2)
Illinois R2005 (1)
Indiana P1940, P1953, R1953, R1954, R1975, R1976, P1976, P1981, P1987 (9)
Indiana State R1979 (1)
Kansas P1952, P1988, R1997, R2002, P2008, R2010 (6)
Kansas State R1959 (1)
Kentucky P1948, R1949, P1949, R1951, P1951, R1952, R1954, P1958, R1966, R1970, R1978, P1978, R1996, P1996, P1998, R2012, P2012, R2015 (18)
LaSalle P1954 (1)
Louisville P1980, P1986, R2009, P2013 (4)
Loyola (Chicago) P1963 (1)
Marquette P1977 (1)
Maryland P2002 (1)
Michigan R1965, R1977, P1989 (3)
Michigan State P1979, P2000 (2)
North Carolina R1957, P1957, R1982, P1982, R1984, R1993, P1993, P2005, R2008, P2009 (10)
North Carolina State R 1974, P1974, P1983 (3)
Ohio State P1960, R1961, R1962, R2007, R2011 (5)
Oklahoma R1990 (1)
Oklahoma State (A&M) P1945, P1946, R1951 (3)
Oregon P1939 (1)
San Francisco R1955, P1955, R1956, P1956 (4)
St. Joseph’s R2004 (1)
Stanford P1942, R2001 (2)
Syracuse P2003 (1)
Temple R1988 (1)
Texas-El-Paso, (Texas Western) P1966 (1)
UCLA R1964, P1964, P1965, R1967, P1967, P1968, R1969, P1969, P1970, R1971, P1971, R1972, P1972, R1973, P1973, P1975, R1995, P1995 (18)
UNLV R1987, P1990, R1991 (3)
Utah P1944 (1)
Villanova P1985 (1)
West Virginia R1958 (1)
Wisconsin P1941 (1)
Wyoming P1943 (1)

 

[MadNY3]

Connecticut won their second title.
North Carolina won their fourth.
Florida won their first and then their second.
Kansas won their third.
North Carolina won their fifth.
Duke won their fourth.
Connecticut won their third.
Kentucky won their eighth.
Louisville won their third.
Connecticut won their fourth.
and Duke won their fifth.

Look, based on what took place on April 7, 2003, I said a lot of things just to get us that one.

And since then we've had Greg Robinson, Bernie Fine, Arinze's injury, Fab Melo, Bo"w"i.e. and highly questionable sanctions

Basketball gods, I think we're good now. Let's get two.

 

[NineOneSeven]

At the same time, there's certainly a few other teams that are probably saying that they're due for another...

Ucla, arizona

 

[SWC75]

At the same time, there's certainly a few other teams that are probably saying that they're due for another...

Ucla, arizona

Or Wisconsin.

 

[sdhusky]

not only were their 2011 and 2014 championship teams nothing special, they didnt have to beat any great teams in the championship game. no way last year's uconn team beats this year's wisconsin duke or kentucky teams. 2011 uconn beat a freakin 8 seed to win it.

What about not making a FF with Ray Allen? Or When Donyell couldn't sink a FT? Or When Tate George let the ball slip out his hands and we don't go to a FF? Or when we lost to George Mason with 5 players who got drafted?

Or when Dyson got injured with the #1 team in the country that still went to a FF without him? or when AJ Price got hurt? Or we played UNC in NC, TX in TX? Or lost a close one to MD when they won it all or lost a close one to UCLA when they won it all?

Fact is that while SU has been more consistent, UConn has had more dominant teams. We should have more NC and we do.

 

[two3zone]

Not sure what games you watched, but Rak wasn't even 50% the player last year that he was this year. Biggest junior to senior jump I can recall in my years watching SU.

Cheers,
Neil

He was never passed the ball. Seemed like he was in similar positions and fighting without the ball last year and his shooting percentage actually went down. He may have improved some, but not as drastic as the numbers indicate. If CJ was a senior this year and every play was an ISO play for him, Rak probably would have had similar numbers as last year.

 

[tbonezone]

curious how often do we finish the season with absolutely zero votes in the polls ?

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings/_/year/2015/poll/1

 

[omniorange]

He was never passed the ball. Seemed like he was in similar positions and fighting without the ball last year and his shooting percentage actually went down. He may have improved some, but not as drastic as the numbers indicate. If CJ was a senior this year and every play was an ISO play for him, Rak probably would have had similar numbers as last year.

So you are trying to tell us that one of the best passing point guards we have ever had wouldn't get Rak the ball, but this group of probably the worse passing guards maybe in the history of SU ball somehow managed it? Come on. Rak didn't fight for position enough to get open as he did this year and his questionable D last year forced BMK in the game and putting him on the bench.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[skurey]

Neil, do you actually believe that post?

 

[SWC75]

Rak showed some flashes of ability last year but if he had the skills he displayed this year, he would have gotten the ball a lot more. it would have made us a more versatile team and we wouldn't have finished 3-6 as we did.

 

[Dave85]

Wow we could have used us some Scoop Jardine last season.

It's funny you don't realize how much you miss a player until he's gone. Scoop was one of those players that did so many things that did not show up no the stat sheet. He was such a great leader during his tenure!