SWC75
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11/26-27/1976 Tip-Off Classic, Springfield, Ma.
Jim Boeheim began his career as a head coach in the same two, were 29 years later, he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The first game was against Harvard, (a great trivia question) and the score was 75-48. JB was 1-0!!! But then he lost the title game to West Virginia, 78-83. JB was 1-1. Harvard wound up 9-16 while the Mountaineers were 18-11.
JB: 1-1 and 1 second place finish.
12/28-29/76 Maryland Invitational, College park Maryland
We blew out Duquesne 116-86 to get us another confrontation with Lefty Driesell. We’d already broken the glass ceiling against Louisville, beating the Cardinals 76-75 in Freedom hall on a twisting lay-up by Cliff Warwell. Now to finally get the Terps! Not yet. They sent us home with our tails between our legs, 85-96. They would also beat us in the first Carrier Classic that was held in the Dome in 1980. We finally beat them in the second round of the 2004 NCAA tournament, (and twice since!). Duquesne went 15-15 that year. Maryland, 7-1 and ranked 16th at the time, slumped to 19-8. Syracuse went 26-4, losing only at St. Bonaventure and in the Sweet 16 to UNC Charlotte. We wound up ranked #6, our highest ranking ever.
JB: 1-1 Cumulative: 2-2 with 2 second place finishes.
12/29-30/1977 Lobo Classic, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Mississippi State was the second best team in the SEC that year to national champion Kentucky. They had an outstanding center, 6-10 Ricky Brown, to match up against our own 6-10 guy, Roosevelt Bouie. But we beat them, 76-66. Then we played the host team, new Mexico, which was having quite a run of success under Coach Norm Ellenberger. Their arena was known as “The Pit” and was a house of horrors for visiting teams. Their fans had such confidence in their team that they had a tradition of standing and clapping until their team scored their first basket. Albuquerque is a mile above sea level and teams tended to wilt as the game went on, not being used to the thin air. SU appeared to be succumbing to that when they fell behind in the second half. I remember Joel Mareiness commenting on how winded the SU players looked as JB called a time out after a Lobo run. But somehow we clawed our way back into the game. And then made the plays down the stretch to win it 96-81 and win our first in-season tournament, (besides the Carrier Classic, the first of which we’d won at the beginning of that month) in 14 years. Mississippi State finished 18-9 and New Mexico 24-4 and ranked #12. SU had a strong 22-4 regular season, then lost by a point to St. Bonaventure in the ECAC playoffs and by another point to Western Kentucky in the first round of the NCAAs to finish 22-6 and unranked.
JB: 2-0 Cumulative: 4-2 with 1 win and 2 second places
12/22-23/1978 Kentucky Invitational, Lexington, Kentucky
We were ambitious to prove we belonged with the elite programs so we went to Kentucky to take on the Wildcats. Unfortunately, we had to play Lou Henson’s Illinois team first and lost,.74-77. But Kentucky also lost, to Texas A&M, 69-73, so Syracuse took on Kentucky in the consolation game< 9and the most the fans went home). We again came up short to national power, 87-94. Illinois went 19-11, Kentucky 19-12 and Syracuse 26-4. We were ranked #8 but fell in the sweet 16 to Pennsylvania.
JB: 0-2 Cumulative: 4-4 with 1 win and 2 second places
12/28-29/1979 Rochester Classic, Rochester, NY
We were less ambitious in the final year of the Louie and Bouie Show, just traveling down the Thruway to play in the Rochester Classic. But Villanova made the same move, along with their excitable coach, Rollie Massimino. We brushed aside Cornell 99-64 and then beat the Wildcats 92-84 for the title. Nova won what was known as the Eastern 8 at the time, (it’s now the Atlantic 10), with a 23-8 record. We beat them again in the round of 32, 97-83. Cornell finished 5-19. SU lost only one of its first 22 games, by one point at Old Dominion on a shot that came after the final buzzer but was allowed by the refs anyway and reached our highest ranking to date, #2. We lost in the Sweet 16 to Iowa, 77-88 and wound up 26-4 and ranked #6.
JB: 2-0 Cumulative: 6-4 with 2 wins and 2 second places
12/28-29/1984 Rochester Classic, Rochester NY
The attitude on the Hill in the early 80’s was clearly that they already had the Carrier Classic: why seek out another tournament? The only other in-season tournament the Orange played in from 1980-1986 was this little trek down the Thruway to dispose of Detroit 77-63 and Duquesne 75-60. The Titans went 16-12 that year and the Dukes 12-18 while SU was 22-9 and ranked #15 in both polls. We lost to Georgia Tech in the Round of 32 that year.
JB: 2-0 Cumulative: 8-4 with 3 wins and 2 second places
In 1986 SU got adventurous and went to Hawaii for the first time, playing in something called the Hawaii Loa Classic, beating Wichita State 83-69 and the host team 107-89. (Hawaii Loa is a small school on the windward side of Oahu.) But that was not a true tournament. It was just a double-header. But the University Administration was becoming convinced of the recruiting virtues of going to exotic places to play in tournaments.
The next year we played in the “Tip-Off Classic” in Springfield, just had we had to open JB’s first year. But it was no longer a four team tournament. Instead it was a single game, the one we lost in overtime to North Carolina, 93-96, on the same day the football team was closing out its 11-0 season against West Virginia in the Dome.
11/27-30/87 Great Alaska Shoot-Out, Anchorage, Alaska
We beat the home team, Alaska-Anchorage 95-76 and Alabama-Birmingham, (then a pretty good program under Gene Bartow, 79-63. Then we met an unheralded Arizona team that had been 18-12 the previous year and got handled by them 69-80, amid some jeering from their bench and some dismissive comments by their players after the game. One of them was Kenny Lofton, who became a baseball player and showed up in Auburn playing for the Astro’s farm team and was roundly booed by fans who remembered his comments at the Great Alaska Shoot-Out. The Wildcats went 35-3, were ranked #2 and lost to Oklahoma in the national semi-final. Alaska-Anchorage finished 24-10 that year and was the runner up in the NCAA Division II tournament. UAB went 18-15. Syracuse, ranked #1 to start the season, wound up 26-9 and ranked #9, losing to Rhode Island in the round of 32.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 10-5 with 3 wins and 3 second places
11/18-11/28/1988 Big Apple NIT, New York, NY
The NIT committee finally got smart and realized they would never be a pre-eminent post season tournament again so: why not has a tournament at the beginning of the season? It was a huge affair with the first two rounds played on college campuses and then the final two rounds in New York. Syracuse is such a draw in New York City that they were naturally invited to the inaugural tournament- and we, very memorably, won it. We pounded two one-time NCAA champions, LaSalle (92-76) and Wyoming (107-61. Then we played a much more recent champion, Indiana, the team that had nipped us at the buzzer just a year and half before for their 5th title, (instead of our first), Bobby Knight’s Indian team. And we absolutely blew their doors off, 102-78, with Dick Vitale going crazy over plays like Sherman Douglas’ famous “hike” pass to Stevie Thompson , the length of the court for a dunk. It was anti-climactic but almost tragic when, after all that, we had to play a very big and very strong Missouri team in the final. We had to fight through the trees to claw out am 86-84 overtime win to become the first ever winner of the Big Apple Nit, a high point in SU basketball history. LaSalle had a strong team that year with Lionel Simmons, going 26-6. Despite that record, they weren’t ranked and went out in the first round of the NCAAs. Wyoming was a 14-17 team. Indiana had one of their better teams, winning the Big Ten with a 15-3 conference record and going 27-8 overall. They were ranked #8/#6 in the two polls and lost in the Sweet 16 to Seton Hall. Missouri finished second to Oklahoma in the Big 8 but went a strong 29-8 with a #6/#8 national ranking. They lost a rematch with the Orange, 83-80, in the Sweet 16. Syracuse had what may still consider to have bene our best-ever team with Derrick Coleman, Billy Owens, Stevie Thompson and Sherman Douglas and lost in the Elite 8 to Illinois, 86-89. They then lost to Michigan by 2 in the National Semi-Final and Michigan won the national c title in overtime over Seton Hall, a team we’d beaten three times. We were 30-8 and ranked #7/#9. This tournament had the best field of any in-season tournament we’ve ever played in and we won it!
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 14-5 with 4 wins and 3 second places
The next three years, Syracuse participated in the ACC-Big East challenge in lieu of traveling to a tournament, with one notable exception. .
11/23-25/1990 Maui Classic, Maui, Hawaii
In the first of three successful visits to this tournament, we swept by Toledo 84-68 and Iowa State 83-67 to set up another confrontation with Indian. We were ranked #13/#16 and the Hoosiers #8 in both pre-season polls. We beat then 77-74 in a game I remember as not being quite that close most of the way. It was Jim Boeheim’s second victory over Indiana and Bobby Knight since losing the national titles game to them. In fact, he’s owned both of them ever since. He’s 4-1 vs. Indiana, including another Maui win and crushing them when they were the top seed in the region in 2013. He’s also 4-1 vs. Knight, including a 35 points victory over his Texas Tech team in the 2005 JK Sports Classic in New York. Nut he’d trade those fours for that one. Indian wound up 29-5 and shared the Big Ten title with Ohio State. They were #3 in the final rankings but lost in the Sweet 16 to Kansas. Toledo went 17-16 and Iowa State 12-19. This was the Billy Owens team that was ranked #7/#8 in the final poll, won the Big East title outright only to blow a huge lead to Villanova in the first round of the BET and then get knocked off by Richmond in the first round of the NCAAs. A double one and done in the post season for one of our best teams. Ouch and Ouch.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 17-5 with 5 wins and 3 second places.
The Carrier Classic was our only tournament the next three years.
11/16/94 pre-season NIT, Syracuse NY
Yes, this was played in Syracuse but I’m including it because it wasn’t supposed to wind up there. Syracuse was supposed to win in the first two rounds at home and proceed to New York, as they had done in 1988. This game was not played in the Carrier Dome because that Dome was set up for high school football playoff games, (Where were our priorities?) Instead, it was played at Manley Field House, where the women’s team played and where the men had played until that fateful day in 1980 when John Thompson announced he had “officially closed” the place, to the ire of Syracuse fans. This was a wonderful opportunity to partially heal that wound: at least we could say that we won the last men’s game at Manley. .
All we had to do was beat a George Washington, (not Georgetown- that would have been too perfect) team that went 18-12 in the previous year and got 18-14 this year: the sort of team we’d grown used to brushing aside in these tournaments. But the Colonials would not be brushed aside. The game was tied 41-41 at the half and the ‘Cuse fell behind in the second half, eventually by 9 with 2:01 left to play. In the grand tradition, hordes of Syracuse fans got to leave and filled the cramped isles of the lesser Dome. Dick Vitale was shouting into his microphone and waggling his finger at the leaving fans. Michael Lloyd, playing the game of his life, led a miracle comeback and tied the game with a bank shot at the buzzer, 93-93. But we ran out of gas in the overtime period, losing 104-111. Manley Field House was closed- to the men- for good now, with two straight losses there.
Had we won that game, we would have had another home game, possibly in Manley, against Canisius, then gone to New York to face Ohio U. and the New Mexico State for the championship had we kept winning. The field clearly wasn’t what it was in 1988 and this was a very winnable tournament, (Ohio U. won it), if only we could have pulled out that first game.
SU responded with a 14 game winning streak but would end the season with another frustrating loss, to defending national champion Arkansas in the Round of 32, 94-96, also in overtime, thanks to Lawrence Moten calling a time out at end of regulation that we didn’t have. We wound up 20-10 but ranked #17.
JB: 0-1 Cumulative: 17-6 with 5 wins and 3 second places.
12/28-30/1995 Rainbow Classic, Honolulu, Hi.
You can’t beat us on Maui but you can in Honolulu. We beat Lou Henson’s last Illinois team, 75-64 and whacked Rhode Island, 92-66, gaining revenge for previous NCAA tournament defeats, (but hardly equal revenge). Then we met the #1 ranked team in the country, John Calipari’s Massachusetts. We proved no match for them, going down very hard 42-65.
Three months later, the Minutemen, who had defeated #1 Kentucky 92-82 in their opening game of the year to take that spot and then maintained that rank all through the season, lost the rematch with Rick Pitino’s Wildcats in the national semi-finals 74-81. Waiting for the Wildcats in the championship game was none other than the Syracuse Orangemen, who lost by almost the same margin, 67-76, in a very credible performance. We wound up 29-9 and ranked #3, (they had a poll after the tournament).UMASS was 35-2 and ranked #2. Illinois was 18-13 and Rhode Island 20-14.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 19-7 with 5 wins and 4 second places.
11/28-30/1996 Great Alaska Shootout, Anchorage, Alaaka
We closed the previous season with a credible performance against Kentucky and opened this season with an incredibly bad performance against the Wildcats, a freshman-filled team getting crushed 53-87 in one of the worst performances of the Boeheim Era. And this was probably Jim’s worst team, finishing 19-13 with a dismal loss to Florida State before 5,000 people in the Carrier Dome in the first round of the NIT. The 1981-82 team finished 16-13 but Leo Rautins was out for 7 games with an injury. The 2014-15 team finished 18-13 but I’d like their chances against the ’96-97 bunch. But that team matured over four years and when the freshmen were seniors, they had one of our best teams.
After the Kentucky loss, we beat Maine, (85-65), and UNC-Greensboro, (73-56), neither of them exactly a feather in our caps. They went 11-20 and 10-20, respectively. The Wildcats went all the back to the national title game but lost 79-84 in overtime to Arizona, the came back to win another national title in 1998. A pretty good run. They were 35-5 and ranked #2 in 1997.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 21-8 with 5 wins and 4 second places.
12/24-26/1997 Puerto Rico Holiday Classic, Bayamon, PR
We struggled by St. Louis 67-64 and Texas Christian, (coached by the obnoxious Bill Tubbs, who had given everyone and earful when his Oklahoma team came in the Carrier Dome and beat us in 1983), 82-78. But once again there was a team in the field we were no match for. Michigan mopped the floor with us, 61-93 in the final.
We might have played them again in the NCAAs because they were bracketed with us in the Southern region but UCLA beat them in the round of 32, while we made it to the Sweet 16. Ha-Ha. But we found ourselves in the most loaded regional of all time. Syracuse, Duke, UCLA and Kentucky. Duke beat us while Kentucky beat UCLA and then Duke to move on toward their second title in three years. We were 26-9 and ranked #13 in the final poll. Michigan was 25-9 and ranked #17. Ha Ha. St. Louis was 22-11 and TCU 27-6 and ranked #25. They lost in the first round of the NCAAs to Florida State. Ha-Ha.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 23-9 with 5 wins and 5 second places.
11/23-25/1998 Maui Classic, Maui, HI
Back to Maui and another victory and another spanking of Bobby Knight. We played Chaminade in the opener- the same school that had famously upset #1 Virginia in this tournament 1982. No upset here, 82-44. Then we beat- Ha-Ha- Michigan 58-46. We had an easy time with Indian in the final 76-63. I remember Preston Shumpert and Tony Bland shooting the lights out. The tam came home to many congratulations. Everyone thought we had a heck of a team- everyone except Jim Boeheim, who warned everybody that this team was far from being good yet. Coaches….
Then we lost to Ohio U. in the first round of the Carrier Classic, the only time we’d ever lost in the semi-final of that less than classic tournament. It was a sign of things to come as the team, after an 6-0 start, stumbled to a 15-12 finish, losing to Oklahoma State and the dazzling Doug Gottlieb in the first round of the NCAAs. The scary thing is that this year’s team somewhat reminds me to that one, with its dependence on hitting three pointers, as well as winning a tournament in an exotic place and then coming home to stink up the joint. Chaminade, a Division II team, went 13-14. Michigan was 12-19. (Ha-Ha). Indian went 23-11and lost in the Round of 32, a round father than we made it. Ha- Ha to us.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 26-9 with 6 wins and 5 second places.
In 1999 we hosted the NABC Classic in the Dome, a four team tournament we won by beating Princeton and Wisconsin. Since it was held in Syracuse, it was basically the same as the Carrier Classic, (which we won three weeks late rover Richmond and St. Joseph’s), so I’m excluding it form this sample. I’m looking at tournaments we had to travel to, (or would have in the case of the 1994 Pre-Season NIT).
11/23-25/2000 The Great Alaska Shoot-Out, Anchorage, Alaska
The third time was the charm for SU in the 49th state. We whipped DePaul, 92-84, Ohio State 77-66 and Missouri 84-62 to win the tournament with ease. By now this board was in existence, (although at a different site than now), and many of the older members fondly remember staying up into the wee hours in the chat room on the night of the final talking about our victory and our hopes for the team and about a thousand other things, fueled by the adrenaline the victory had pumped into us.
The team had plenty of adrenaline, too, starting 15-1 before slumping with a 5-6 stretch. We then won four in a row until Preston Shumpert got poked in the eye against Pitt in the BET and we lost by a point in overtime. Pitt’s been poking us in the eye ever since. Kansas blew us out in the second round of the NCAAs and we finished 25-9 and ranked #18. DePaul was 12-18, Ohio State 20-11 and Missouri 20-13.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 29-9 with 7 wins and 5 second places.
11/12-23/2001 Pre-Season NIT, New York, NY
We were back in the “beginning of the season” NIT and took care of business in the first two rounds in the Dome, beating Manhattan 78-58 and DePaul 74-60. Then, in MSG, we upset #15/#12 Michigan State, 69-58. We were ranked #21/#20. I remember Craig Forth having a big game and making some great passes from the top of the key through the Spartan defense for some easy baskets. The commentators were ga-ga over him. I never saw his pass like that the rest of his career. We beat Wake
Forest in the Final. We lept to #12 in the country in the next poll.
Unfortunately it was another SU team that looked great in a tournament and then fell apart as the season progressed. We started 9-0. Then came JB’s prostate surgery and Mike Hopkins’ actual debut as coach of the team, which featured two losses in three games. Then we rallied to a 16-2 record, only to slide to a 7-11 finish for a 23-12 record overall. We wound up in the NIT, where we made the “Final Four” and had a chance to be the first team to win both the pre- and Post-season NITs.
Then we came out in the wrong uniforms against South Carolina. We had to switch to a strange looking hybrid of colored pants and white shirts. Who said uniforms don’t matter? We lost that one 59-66 and then lost the consy to Temple 54-65. It would have been comical if it was funny. It was a sad way to end a once-promising season.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 32-9 with 8 wins and 5 second places.
In 2002, we participated in the Coach’s vs. Cancer Classic in MSG to start the season. For this year only, the event was a non-tournament, just a quadruple-header featuring 8 top teams. We lost to Memphis 63-70, causing us to wonder if those two blue-chip freshmen, Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara, would help us all that much. They would.
We were in no regular season tournaments, or even any special events in 2003-4, for some reason.
11/11-19/2004 Coaches vs. Cancer, NY, NY
We were back in the C vs. C but now it was a full tournament, just like the Pre-season NIT, with two games in Syracuse, where we mined Northern Colorado for a 104-54 win and survived Princeton’s slow-down, 56-45. Then we went to New York and beat Mississippi State 71-58 before gaining revenge on Memphis, 77-62 in the final. We again got off to a rip-roaring start, 20-1, only to fade to a 7-6 finish, the last of those six being the shocking loss to Vermont in the first round of the NCAAs. We wound up 27-7 but only ranked #21. Northern Colorado was an 8-21 Division II team, (exactly who you want in the first round if you want the favored team to advance). Princeton went 15-13 that year, pretty much what you’d want in the second round. Mississippi State was 23-11 and lost to Duke in the Round of 32. Memphis, still coached by John Calipari, stumbled to a 22-16 NIT season.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 36-9 with 9 wins and 5 second places.
11/8-18/2005 2K Sports College Hoop Classic, NY, NY
This was actually the same tournament as Coaches vs. Cancer. They just re0named it, (there’s a new Coaches vs. Cancer tournament that has been inaugurated since). Cancer had messed with JB and JB was determined to mess with it. We brushed aside Bethune-Cookman 68-37 and Cornell 67-62 in the Dome, then went to new York to face Bobby knight’s new team Texas Tech. We absolutely crushed them. 81-46. I remember thinking that our opponents in the finals must have been really intimidated by that performance. That would be Florida, who would win the next two national championships. The Gators chomped on us 70-75. We came home to get knocked off by Bucknell but then win the next 12 in a row to go 15-2. Then we folded our tents, losing 9 of 13, including a bizarre game in Chicago against a 12-15 DePaul team that hit everything they threw at the basket, 69-108, the worst defeat of JB’s career. We went to new York on the underside of the NCAA bubble and somehow won the BET in a series of miracle finishes keyed by GMAC but again went out in the first round of the NCAAs when he couldn’t play, losing to Texas A&M. We finished 23-12.
JB: 3-1 Cumulative: 39-10 with 9 wins and 6 second places.
In 2006, we were in the Black Coach’s Association Invitational in the Carrier Dome and the Jimmy V. Classic in New York. Neither was a real tournament. The BCAI was a round-robin, with double-headers on consecutive evenings. We beat St. Francis AND Pennsylvania. The Jimmy V was a single game, a loss to Oklahoma State.
11/12-23/2007 NIT Season Tip-Off New York, NY
This is the same NIT as the Big Apple NIT and the Pre-season NIT. We beat Siena (97-89) and St. Joseph’s (72-69). Then we went to New York where Ohio State and a big 7 footer named Kosta Koufos awaited. We had no answer for him and lost 65-79. We beat Washington in the consolation game, 91-85. That year was a very bumpy ride, full of injuries. We lost to Massachusetts in the Dome- twice, 100-107 in November 28 and again on March 25, when we blew a 24 point second half lead, 77-81. That was an NIT game ended one of our most dismal seasons, 21-14. Siena was 23-11 and tied for the MAAC championship. St Joe’s was 21-13. Ohio State went finished 24-13and Washington was 16-17.
JB: 3-1 Cumulative: 42-11 with 9 wins and 6 second places.
11/16-22/2008 O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic, Kansas City Missouri
Can’t they come up with a better name than that? Whatever happened to the Holiday Festival, the Quaker City Classic, the Rainbow Classic and the Great Alaska Shootout? This also started with two games in the Dome, wins over LeMoyne 85-51 and Richmond 76-71. Then we went to Kansas City to play Florida and Kansas, who had won the last three national championships. We beat them both, 89-83 and 89-81 in overtime, one of our best tournament victories. LeMoyne was 20-11 in Division II. Richmond was 20-16. The Gators were 25-11 and went to the NIT while Kansas won the Big 12 at 27-8, was ranked 10th and lost to Michigan in the Sweet 16. We had a strong year at 28-10 and were ranked 12th after losing to Blake Griffin and Oklahoma in the Sweet 16. But the only thing that is really remembered from this season is the 6 overtime win over Connecticut in the BET.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 46-11 with 10 wins and 6 second places.
11/9-20/2009 2K Sports Classic New York, NY
We waltzed past Albany and Robert Morris in the Dome, 75-43 and 100-60. In New York, the unranked Orangemen shocked #13 California 95-73 and defending national champion North Carolina 87-71. Neither game was even close. Even we couldn’t quite believe it. But this was one of our best teams, finishing 30-5, ranked #8 but losing to Butler, 59-63 in the Sweet 16. To this day I believe that if Arinze Onuaku had not been injured in the BET, we’d have gone all the way as Butler barely beat us without him and they only lost the title game when a half-court shot rimmed out. This was one of five Syracuse teams to achieve a #1 ranking. Albany was another ideal first round opponent: 7-25. Robert Morris seems like an ideal second round opponent but they were actually pretty good that year: 23-12 and lost in overtime to Villanova in the first round of the NCAAs. Cal went 24-11 and lost to Duke in the second round of the NCAAs. The Tar Heels stumbled to a 20-17 NIT season. None of those team wound up ranked.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 50-11 with 11 wins and 6 second places.
11/16-27/2010 Legends Classic, Atlantic City, New Jersey
We beat Detroit 66-55 and William and Mary 63-60 in the Dome, then Michigan 53-50 and Georgia Tech 80-76 in Atlantic City. We finished 27-8 and ranked #18 and lost to Marquette 62-66 in the Round of 32. Detroit was 17-16. William and Mary was 10-22. Michigan was 21-14 and lost to Duke in the Round of 32. Georgia Tech was 13-18. We’ve been in better tournaments but a win is a win. None of them were ranked.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 54-11 with 12 wins and 6 second places.
11/14-25/2012 NIT Season Tip-Off, New York, NY
The Orange won the in season NIT again, beating Manhattan 92-56 and Albany 98-74 in the Dome and then Virginia Tech 69-58 and Stanford 69-63 in MSG. None of those teams were ranked at time and this was the SU team that had the greatest regular season, going 30-1 with the only loss being when Fab Melo was suspended. As great as Kentucky was that year, we were ranked #1 for five weeks. Unranked teams were no match for us. Of course Gab got suspended again and we lost to Ohio State in the elite 8 and wound up 34-3, our best numerical record ever. We were ranked 5th. Manhattan went 21-13. Albany was 19-15. Virginia Tech was 16-17. Stanford went 26-11 and won the post season NIT. None of them were ranked in the final poll.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 58-11 with 13 wins and 6 second places.
We were a part of three special events in 2012-13, none of them true tournaments. The “Battle on the Midway” on the aircraft carrier was a single game vs. San Diego State. There was an SEC-Big East Challenge where James Southerland beat Arkansas. (That’s another thing we have been good at in the JB era: we were 5-0 all time in conference “challenge” matches until losing to Wisconsin in overtime at the Dome this year). Then we were in something called the “Gotham Classic”, a weird name because three of the four games were in the Dome. WE beat Canisius and Detroit in the Dome, then traveled to MSG to lost to Temple, then came back home again to beat Alcorn State. Those were just four scheduled games that came under the umbrella of the “Gotham Classic”. There was no bracket or championship game.
11/25-27/2013 EA Sports Maui Invitational, Maui, HI.
A third trip to Maui and a third win. We beat Minnesota 75-67, California 92-81 and 18th ranked Baylor 74-67 for the title. This was the SU that got off to our greatest start at 25-0 and achieved our third #1 ranking in five seasons. But it was also the team stopped scoring and 6 of its last 9 games to finish 28-6 and ranked only 14th. The field was good. Minnesota went 25-13 and won the NIT. Cal was 21-14. Baylor went 26-12 and lost in the Sweet 16. They wound up ranked #18.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 61-11 with 14 wins and 6 second places.
11/14-21/2014 2K Sports Classic, New York, NY.
We had no problem, (as we were not supposed to) with Kennesaw State (89-42) and Hampton 65-47 before moving on to MSG, where California finally beat us after several recent losses, 59-73. We then beat Iowa 66-63 in the consolation round. We struggled to an 18-13 record under the cloud of NCAA restrictions. Kennesaw State went 10-22. Hampton was 17-18 but won their conference tournament and got to the Round of 64 after beating Manhattan in a play-in game before losing to Kentucky by a semi-respectable 56-79. Cal didn’t have a big season despite final beating us, finishing 18-15. (They’d lost the 2K title game to Texas 55-71.) Iowa went 22-12 and made it to the round of 32, where they lost to Gonzaga, so that was a pretty good win. But none of those teams were in the Top 25 at the end of the season.
JB: 3-1 Cumulative: 64-12 with 14 wins and 6 second places.
11/25-27/2015 Battle 4 Atlantis
We beat Charlotte, 83-70, as expected and then upset of Big East rival Connecticut 79-76 and Texas A&M 74-67. But they wouldn’t let the team take Atlantis back on the plane with them.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 67-12 with 15 wins and 6 second places.
JB has won:
The Battle 4 Atlantis 2015
The Coaches vs. Cancer, (now the 2K College Sports Classic) 2004, 2009
The Great Alaska Shoot-Out in 2000
The Legends Classic 2010
The Lobo Classic in 1977
The Maui Invitational in 1990, 1998 and 2013
The O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic 2008
The Preseason NIT in 1988, 2001, 2012
The Rochester Classic in 1979 and 1984
That’s 15 of 26 tournaments, (.577) in which he’s won 67 of 79 games (.848, well above his .748 winning percentage in all games). If you look at the 24 Carrier Classics and the 1999 NABC Classic, which were entirely in the Dome, JB won 21 of those tournaments (84%) and won 46 of 50 games (92%). Add those numbers together and you have 36 victories in 51 tournaments (.705) and 113 of 129 games (.876).
In the pre-Boeheim Era we won 1 of 24 tournaments, (.042) and 26 of 58 games (.448)
Jim Boeheim began his career as a head coach in the same two, were 29 years later, he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The first game was against Harvard, (a great trivia question) and the score was 75-48. JB was 1-0!!! But then he lost the title game to West Virginia, 78-83. JB was 1-1. Harvard wound up 9-16 while the Mountaineers were 18-11.
JB: 1-1 and 1 second place finish.
12/28-29/76 Maryland Invitational, College park Maryland
We blew out Duquesne 116-86 to get us another confrontation with Lefty Driesell. We’d already broken the glass ceiling against Louisville, beating the Cardinals 76-75 in Freedom hall on a twisting lay-up by Cliff Warwell. Now to finally get the Terps! Not yet. They sent us home with our tails between our legs, 85-96. They would also beat us in the first Carrier Classic that was held in the Dome in 1980. We finally beat them in the second round of the 2004 NCAA tournament, (and twice since!). Duquesne went 15-15 that year. Maryland, 7-1 and ranked 16th at the time, slumped to 19-8. Syracuse went 26-4, losing only at St. Bonaventure and in the Sweet 16 to UNC Charlotte. We wound up ranked #6, our highest ranking ever.
JB: 1-1 Cumulative: 2-2 with 2 second place finishes.
12/29-30/1977 Lobo Classic, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Mississippi State was the second best team in the SEC that year to national champion Kentucky. They had an outstanding center, 6-10 Ricky Brown, to match up against our own 6-10 guy, Roosevelt Bouie. But we beat them, 76-66. Then we played the host team, new Mexico, which was having quite a run of success under Coach Norm Ellenberger. Their arena was known as “The Pit” and was a house of horrors for visiting teams. Their fans had such confidence in their team that they had a tradition of standing and clapping until their team scored their first basket. Albuquerque is a mile above sea level and teams tended to wilt as the game went on, not being used to the thin air. SU appeared to be succumbing to that when they fell behind in the second half. I remember Joel Mareiness commenting on how winded the SU players looked as JB called a time out after a Lobo run. But somehow we clawed our way back into the game. And then made the plays down the stretch to win it 96-81 and win our first in-season tournament, (besides the Carrier Classic, the first of which we’d won at the beginning of that month) in 14 years. Mississippi State finished 18-9 and New Mexico 24-4 and ranked #12. SU had a strong 22-4 regular season, then lost by a point to St. Bonaventure in the ECAC playoffs and by another point to Western Kentucky in the first round of the NCAAs to finish 22-6 and unranked.
JB: 2-0 Cumulative: 4-2 with 1 win and 2 second places
12/22-23/1978 Kentucky Invitational, Lexington, Kentucky
We were ambitious to prove we belonged with the elite programs so we went to Kentucky to take on the Wildcats. Unfortunately, we had to play Lou Henson’s Illinois team first and lost,.74-77. But Kentucky also lost, to Texas A&M, 69-73, so Syracuse took on Kentucky in the consolation game< 9and the most the fans went home). We again came up short to national power, 87-94. Illinois went 19-11, Kentucky 19-12 and Syracuse 26-4. We were ranked #8 but fell in the sweet 16 to Pennsylvania.
JB: 0-2 Cumulative: 4-4 with 1 win and 2 second places
12/28-29/1979 Rochester Classic, Rochester, NY
We were less ambitious in the final year of the Louie and Bouie Show, just traveling down the Thruway to play in the Rochester Classic. But Villanova made the same move, along with their excitable coach, Rollie Massimino. We brushed aside Cornell 99-64 and then beat the Wildcats 92-84 for the title. Nova won what was known as the Eastern 8 at the time, (it’s now the Atlantic 10), with a 23-8 record. We beat them again in the round of 32, 97-83. Cornell finished 5-19. SU lost only one of its first 22 games, by one point at Old Dominion on a shot that came after the final buzzer but was allowed by the refs anyway and reached our highest ranking to date, #2. We lost in the Sweet 16 to Iowa, 77-88 and wound up 26-4 and ranked #6.
JB: 2-0 Cumulative: 6-4 with 2 wins and 2 second places
12/28-29/1984 Rochester Classic, Rochester NY
The attitude on the Hill in the early 80’s was clearly that they already had the Carrier Classic: why seek out another tournament? The only other in-season tournament the Orange played in from 1980-1986 was this little trek down the Thruway to dispose of Detroit 77-63 and Duquesne 75-60. The Titans went 16-12 that year and the Dukes 12-18 while SU was 22-9 and ranked #15 in both polls. We lost to Georgia Tech in the Round of 32 that year.
JB: 2-0 Cumulative: 8-4 with 3 wins and 2 second places
In 1986 SU got adventurous and went to Hawaii for the first time, playing in something called the Hawaii Loa Classic, beating Wichita State 83-69 and the host team 107-89. (Hawaii Loa is a small school on the windward side of Oahu.) But that was not a true tournament. It was just a double-header. But the University Administration was becoming convinced of the recruiting virtues of going to exotic places to play in tournaments.
The next year we played in the “Tip-Off Classic” in Springfield, just had we had to open JB’s first year. But it was no longer a four team tournament. Instead it was a single game, the one we lost in overtime to North Carolina, 93-96, on the same day the football team was closing out its 11-0 season against West Virginia in the Dome.
11/27-30/87 Great Alaska Shoot-Out, Anchorage, Alaska
We beat the home team, Alaska-Anchorage 95-76 and Alabama-Birmingham, (then a pretty good program under Gene Bartow, 79-63. Then we met an unheralded Arizona team that had been 18-12 the previous year and got handled by them 69-80, amid some jeering from their bench and some dismissive comments by their players after the game. One of them was Kenny Lofton, who became a baseball player and showed up in Auburn playing for the Astro’s farm team and was roundly booed by fans who remembered his comments at the Great Alaska Shoot-Out. The Wildcats went 35-3, were ranked #2 and lost to Oklahoma in the national semi-final. Alaska-Anchorage finished 24-10 that year and was the runner up in the NCAA Division II tournament. UAB went 18-15. Syracuse, ranked #1 to start the season, wound up 26-9 and ranked #9, losing to Rhode Island in the round of 32.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 10-5 with 3 wins and 3 second places
11/18-11/28/1988 Big Apple NIT, New York, NY
The NIT committee finally got smart and realized they would never be a pre-eminent post season tournament again so: why not has a tournament at the beginning of the season? It was a huge affair with the first two rounds played on college campuses and then the final two rounds in New York. Syracuse is such a draw in New York City that they were naturally invited to the inaugural tournament- and we, very memorably, won it. We pounded two one-time NCAA champions, LaSalle (92-76) and Wyoming (107-61. Then we played a much more recent champion, Indiana, the team that had nipped us at the buzzer just a year and half before for their 5th title, (instead of our first), Bobby Knight’s Indian team. And we absolutely blew their doors off, 102-78, with Dick Vitale going crazy over plays like Sherman Douglas’ famous “hike” pass to Stevie Thompson , the length of the court for a dunk. It was anti-climactic but almost tragic when, after all that, we had to play a very big and very strong Missouri team in the final. We had to fight through the trees to claw out am 86-84 overtime win to become the first ever winner of the Big Apple Nit, a high point in SU basketball history. LaSalle had a strong team that year with Lionel Simmons, going 26-6. Despite that record, they weren’t ranked and went out in the first round of the NCAAs. Wyoming was a 14-17 team. Indiana had one of their better teams, winning the Big Ten with a 15-3 conference record and going 27-8 overall. They were ranked #8/#6 in the two polls and lost in the Sweet 16 to Seton Hall. Missouri finished second to Oklahoma in the Big 8 but went a strong 29-8 with a #6/#8 national ranking. They lost a rematch with the Orange, 83-80, in the Sweet 16. Syracuse had what may still consider to have bene our best-ever team with Derrick Coleman, Billy Owens, Stevie Thompson and Sherman Douglas and lost in the Elite 8 to Illinois, 86-89. They then lost to Michigan by 2 in the National Semi-Final and Michigan won the national c title in overtime over Seton Hall, a team we’d beaten three times. We were 30-8 and ranked #7/#9. This tournament had the best field of any in-season tournament we’ve ever played in and we won it!
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 14-5 with 4 wins and 3 second places
The next three years, Syracuse participated in the ACC-Big East challenge in lieu of traveling to a tournament, with one notable exception. .
11/23-25/1990 Maui Classic, Maui, Hawaii
In the first of three successful visits to this tournament, we swept by Toledo 84-68 and Iowa State 83-67 to set up another confrontation with Indian. We were ranked #13/#16 and the Hoosiers #8 in both pre-season polls. We beat then 77-74 in a game I remember as not being quite that close most of the way. It was Jim Boeheim’s second victory over Indiana and Bobby Knight since losing the national titles game to them. In fact, he’s owned both of them ever since. He’s 4-1 vs. Indiana, including another Maui win and crushing them when they were the top seed in the region in 2013. He’s also 4-1 vs. Knight, including a 35 points victory over his Texas Tech team in the 2005 JK Sports Classic in New York. Nut he’d trade those fours for that one. Indian wound up 29-5 and shared the Big Ten title with Ohio State. They were #3 in the final rankings but lost in the Sweet 16 to Kansas. Toledo went 17-16 and Iowa State 12-19. This was the Billy Owens team that was ranked #7/#8 in the final poll, won the Big East title outright only to blow a huge lead to Villanova in the first round of the BET and then get knocked off by Richmond in the first round of the NCAAs. A double one and done in the post season for one of our best teams. Ouch and Ouch.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 17-5 with 5 wins and 3 second places.
The Carrier Classic was our only tournament the next three years.
11/16/94 pre-season NIT, Syracuse NY
Yes, this was played in Syracuse but I’m including it because it wasn’t supposed to wind up there. Syracuse was supposed to win in the first two rounds at home and proceed to New York, as they had done in 1988. This game was not played in the Carrier Dome because that Dome was set up for high school football playoff games, (Where were our priorities?) Instead, it was played at Manley Field House, where the women’s team played and where the men had played until that fateful day in 1980 when John Thompson announced he had “officially closed” the place, to the ire of Syracuse fans. This was a wonderful opportunity to partially heal that wound: at least we could say that we won the last men’s game at Manley. .
All we had to do was beat a George Washington, (not Georgetown- that would have been too perfect) team that went 18-12 in the previous year and got 18-14 this year: the sort of team we’d grown used to brushing aside in these tournaments. But the Colonials would not be brushed aside. The game was tied 41-41 at the half and the ‘Cuse fell behind in the second half, eventually by 9 with 2:01 left to play. In the grand tradition, hordes of Syracuse fans got to leave and filled the cramped isles of the lesser Dome. Dick Vitale was shouting into his microphone and waggling his finger at the leaving fans. Michael Lloyd, playing the game of his life, led a miracle comeback and tied the game with a bank shot at the buzzer, 93-93. But we ran out of gas in the overtime period, losing 104-111. Manley Field House was closed- to the men- for good now, with two straight losses there.
Had we won that game, we would have had another home game, possibly in Manley, against Canisius, then gone to New York to face Ohio U. and the New Mexico State for the championship had we kept winning. The field clearly wasn’t what it was in 1988 and this was a very winnable tournament, (Ohio U. won it), if only we could have pulled out that first game.
SU responded with a 14 game winning streak but would end the season with another frustrating loss, to defending national champion Arkansas in the Round of 32, 94-96, also in overtime, thanks to Lawrence Moten calling a time out at end of regulation that we didn’t have. We wound up 20-10 but ranked #17.
JB: 0-1 Cumulative: 17-6 with 5 wins and 3 second places.
12/28-30/1995 Rainbow Classic, Honolulu, Hi.
You can’t beat us on Maui but you can in Honolulu. We beat Lou Henson’s last Illinois team, 75-64 and whacked Rhode Island, 92-66, gaining revenge for previous NCAA tournament defeats, (but hardly equal revenge). Then we met the #1 ranked team in the country, John Calipari’s Massachusetts. We proved no match for them, going down very hard 42-65.
Three months later, the Minutemen, who had defeated #1 Kentucky 92-82 in their opening game of the year to take that spot and then maintained that rank all through the season, lost the rematch with Rick Pitino’s Wildcats in the national semi-finals 74-81. Waiting for the Wildcats in the championship game was none other than the Syracuse Orangemen, who lost by almost the same margin, 67-76, in a very credible performance. We wound up 29-9 and ranked #3, (they had a poll after the tournament).UMASS was 35-2 and ranked #2. Illinois was 18-13 and Rhode Island 20-14.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 19-7 with 5 wins and 4 second places.
11/28-30/1996 Great Alaska Shootout, Anchorage, Alaaka
We closed the previous season with a credible performance against Kentucky and opened this season with an incredibly bad performance against the Wildcats, a freshman-filled team getting crushed 53-87 in one of the worst performances of the Boeheim Era. And this was probably Jim’s worst team, finishing 19-13 with a dismal loss to Florida State before 5,000 people in the Carrier Dome in the first round of the NIT. The 1981-82 team finished 16-13 but Leo Rautins was out for 7 games with an injury. The 2014-15 team finished 18-13 but I’d like their chances against the ’96-97 bunch. But that team matured over four years and when the freshmen were seniors, they had one of our best teams.
After the Kentucky loss, we beat Maine, (85-65), and UNC-Greensboro, (73-56), neither of them exactly a feather in our caps. They went 11-20 and 10-20, respectively. The Wildcats went all the back to the national title game but lost 79-84 in overtime to Arizona, the came back to win another national title in 1998. A pretty good run. They were 35-5 and ranked #2 in 1997.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 21-8 with 5 wins and 4 second places.
12/24-26/1997 Puerto Rico Holiday Classic, Bayamon, PR
We struggled by St. Louis 67-64 and Texas Christian, (coached by the obnoxious Bill Tubbs, who had given everyone and earful when his Oklahoma team came in the Carrier Dome and beat us in 1983), 82-78. But once again there was a team in the field we were no match for. Michigan mopped the floor with us, 61-93 in the final.
We might have played them again in the NCAAs because they were bracketed with us in the Southern region but UCLA beat them in the round of 32, while we made it to the Sweet 16. Ha-Ha. But we found ourselves in the most loaded regional of all time. Syracuse, Duke, UCLA and Kentucky. Duke beat us while Kentucky beat UCLA and then Duke to move on toward their second title in three years. We were 26-9 and ranked #13 in the final poll. Michigan was 25-9 and ranked #17. Ha Ha. St. Louis was 22-11 and TCU 27-6 and ranked #25. They lost in the first round of the NCAAs to Florida State. Ha-Ha.
JB: 2-1 Cumulative: 23-9 with 5 wins and 5 second places.
11/23-25/1998 Maui Classic, Maui, HI
Back to Maui and another victory and another spanking of Bobby Knight. We played Chaminade in the opener- the same school that had famously upset #1 Virginia in this tournament 1982. No upset here, 82-44. Then we beat- Ha-Ha- Michigan 58-46. We had an easy time with Indian in the final 76-63. I remember Preston Shumpert and Tony Bland shooting the lights out. The tam came home to many congratulations. Everyone thought we had a heck of a team- everyone except Jim Boeheim, who warned everybody that this team was far from being good yet. Coaches….
Then we lost to Ohio U. in the first round of the Carrier Classic, the only time we’d ever lost in the semi-final of that less than classic tournament. It was a sign of things to come as the team, after an 6-0 start, stumbled to a 15-12 finish, losing to Oklahoma State and the dazzling Doug Gottlieb in the first round of the NCAAs. The scary thing is that this year’s team somewhat reminds me to that one, with its dependence on hitting three pointers, as well as winning a tournament in an exotic place and then coming home to stink up the joint. Chaminade, a Division II team, went 13-14. Michigan was 12-19. (Ha-Ha). Indian went 23-11and lost in the Round of 32, a round father than we made it. Ha- Ha to us.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 26-9 with 6 wins and 5 second places.
In 1999 we hosted the NABC Classic in the Dome, a four team tournament we won by beating Princeton and Wisconsin. Since it was held in Syracuse, it was basically the same as the Carrier Classic, (which we won three weeks late rover Richmond and St. Joseph’s), so I’m excluding it form this sample. I’m looking at tournaments we had to travel to, (or would have in the case of the 1994 Pre-Season NIT).
11/23-25/2000 The Great Alaska Shoot-Out, Anchorage, Alaska
The third time was the charm for SU in the 49th state. We whipped DePaul, 92-84, Ohio State 77-66 and Missouri 84-62 to win the tournament with ease. By now this board was in existence, (although at a different site than now), and many of the older members fondly remember staying up into the wee hours in the chat room on the night of the final talking about our victory and our hopes for the team and about a thousand other things, fueled by the adrenaline the victory had pumped into us.
The team had plenty of adrenaline, too, starting 15-1 before slumping with a 5-6 stretch. We then won four in a row until Preston Shumpert got poked in the eye against Pitt in the BET and we lost by a point in overtime. Pitt’s been poking us in the eye ever since. Kansas blew us out in the second round of the NCAAs and we finished 25-9 and ranked #18. DePaul was 12-18, Ohio State 20-11 and Missouri 20-13.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 29-9 with 7 wins and 5 second places.
11/12-23/2001 Pre-Season NIT, New York, NY
We were back in the “beginning of the season” NIT and took care of business in the first two rounds in the Dome, beating Manhattan 78-58 and DePaul 74-60. Then, in MSG, we upset #15/#12 Michigan State, 69-58. We were ranked #21/#20. I remember Craig Forth having a big game and making some great passes from the top of the key through the Spartan defense for some easy baskets. The commentators were ga-ga over him. I never saw his pass like that the rest of his career. We beat Wake
Forest in the Final. We lept to #12 in the country in the next poll.
Unfortunately it was another SU team that looked great in a tournament and then fell apart as the season progressed. We started 9-0. Then came JB’s prostate surgery and Mike Hopkins’ actual debut as coach of the team, which featured two losses in three games. Then we rallied to a 16-2 record, only to slide to a 7-11 finish for a 23-12 record overall. We wound up in the NIT, where we made the “Final Four” and had a chance to be the first team to win both the pre- and Post-season NITs.
Then we came out in the wrong uniforms against South Carolina. We had to switch to a strange looking hybrid of colored pants and white shirts. Who said uniforms don’t matter? We lost that one 59-66 and then lost the consy to Temple 54-65. It would have been comical if it was funny. It was a sad way to end a once-promising season.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 32-9 with 8 wins and 5 second places.
In 2002, we participated in the Coach’s vs. Cancer Classic in MSG to start the season. For this year only, the event was a non-tournament, just a quadruple-header featuring 8 top teams. We lost to Memphis 63-70, causing us to wonder if those two blue-chip freshmen, Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara, would help us all that much. They would.
We were in no regular season tournaments, or even any special events in 2003-4, for some reason.
11/11-19/2004 Coaches vs. Cancer, NY, NY
We were back in the C vs. C but now it was a full tournament, just like the Pre-season NIT, with two games in Syracuse, where we mined Northern Colorado for a 104-54 win and survived Princeton’s slow-down, 56-45. Then we went to New York and beat Mississippi State 71-58 before gaining revenge on Memphis, 77-62 in the final. We again got off to a rip-roaring start, 20-1, only to fade to a 7-6 finish, the last of those six being the shocking loss to Vermont in the first round of the NCAAs. We wound up 27-7 but only ranked #21. Northern Colorado was an 8-21 Division II team, (exactly who you want in the first round if you want the favored team to advance). Princeton went 15-13 that year, pretty much what you’d want in the second round. Mississippi State was 23-11 and lost to Duke in the Round of 32. Memphis, still coached by John Calipari, stumbled to a 22-16 NIT season.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 36-9 with 9 wins and 5 second places.
11/8-18/2005 2K Sports College Hoop Classic, NY, NY
This was actually the same tournament as Coaches vs. Cancer. They just re0named it, (there’s a new Coaches vs. Cancer tournament that has been inaugurated since). Cancer had messed with JB and JB was determined to mess with it. We brushed aside Bethune-Cookman 68-37 and Cornell 67-62 in the Dome, then went to new York to face Bobby knight’s new team Texas Tech. We absolutely crushed them. 81-46. I remember thinking that our opponents in the finals must have been really intimidated by that performance. That would be Florida, who would win the next two national championships. The Gators chomped on us 70-75. We came home to get knocked off by Bucknell but then win the next 12 in a row to go 15-2. Then we folded our tents, losing 9 of 13, including a bizarre game in Chicago against a 12-15 DePaul team that hit everything they threw at the basket, 69-108, the worst defeat of JB’s career. We went to new York on the underside of the NCAA bubble and somehow won the BET in a series of miracle finishes keyed by GMAC but again went out in the first round of the NCAAs when he couldn’t play, losing to Texas A&M. We finished 23-12.
JB: 3-1 Cumulative: 39-10 with 9 wins and 6 second places.
In 2006, we were in the Black Coach’s Association Invitational in the Carrier Dome and the Jimmy V. Classic in New York. Neither was a real tournament. The BCAI was a round-robin, with double-headers on consecutive evenings. We beat St. Francis AND Pennsylvania. The Jimmy V was a single game, a loss to Oklahoma State.
11/12-23/2007 NIT Season Tip-Off New York, NY
This is the same NIT as the Big Apple NIT and the Pre-season NIT. We beat Siena (97-89) and St. Joseph’s (72-69). Then we went to New York where Ohio State and a big 7 footer named Kosta Koufos awaited. We had no answer for him and lost 65-79. We beat Washington in the consolation game, 91-85. That year was a very bumpy ride, full of injuries. We lost to Massachusetts in the Dome- twice, 100-107 in November 28 and again on March 25, when we blew a 24 point second half lead, 77-81. That was an NIT game ended one of our most dismal seasons, 21-14. Siena was 23-11 and tied for the MAAC championship. St Joe’s was 21-13. Ohio State went finished 24-13and Washington was 16-17.
JB: 3-1 Cumulative: 42-11 with 9 wins and 6 second places.
11/16-22/2008 O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic, Kansas City Missouri
Can’t they come up with a better name than that? Whatever happened to the Holiday Festival, the Quaker City Classic, the Rainbow Classic and the Great Alaska Shootout? This also started with two games in the Dome, wins over LeMoyne 85-51 and Richmond 76-71. Then we went to Kansas City to play Florida and Kansas, who had won the last three national championships. We beat them both, 89-83 and 89-81 in overtime, one of our best tournament victories. LeMoyne was 20-11 in Division II. Richmond was 20-16. The Gators were 25-11 and went to the NIT while Kansas won the Big 12 at 27-8, was ranked 10th and lost to Michigan in the Sweet 16. We had a strong year at 28-10 and were ranked 12th after losing to Blake Griffin and Oklahoma in the Sweet 16. But the only thing that is really remembered from this season is the 6 overtime win over Connecticut in the BET.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 46-11 with 10 wins and 6 second places.
11/9-20/2009 2K Sports Classic New York, NY
We waltzed past Albany and Robert Morris in the Dome, 75-43 and 100-60. In New York, the unranked Orangemen shocked #13 California 95-73 and defending national champion North Carolina 87-71. Neither game was even close. Even we couldn’t quite believe it. But this was one of our best teams, finishing 30-5, ranked #8 but losing to Butler, 59-63 in the Sweet 16. To this day I believe that if Arinze Onuaku had not been injured in the BET, we’d have gone all the way as Butler barely beat us without him and they only lost the title game when a half-court shot rimmed out. This was one of five Syracuse teams to achieve a #1 ranking. Albany was another ideal first round opponent: 7-25. Robert Morris seems like an ideal second round opponent but they were actually pretty good that year: 23-12 and lost in overtime to Villanova in the first round of the NCAAs. Cal went 24-11 and lost to Duke in the second round of the NCAAs. The Tar Heels stumbled to a 20-17 NIT season. None of those team wound up ranked.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 50-11 with 11 wins and 6 second places.
11/16-27/2010 Legends Classic, Atlantic City, New Jersey
We beat Detroit 66-55 and William and Mary 63-60 in the Dome, then Michigan 53-50 and Georgia Tech 80-76 in Atlantic City. We finished 27-8 and ranked #18 and lost to Marquette 62-66 in the Round of 32. Detroit was 17-16. William and Mary was 10-22. Michigan was 21-14 and lost to Duke in the Round of 32. Georgia Tech was 13-18. We’ve been in better tournaments but a win is a win. None of them were ranked.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 54-11 with 12 wins and 6 second places.
11/14-25/2012 NIT Season Tip-Off, New York, NY
The Orange won the in season NIT again, beating Manhattan 92-56 and Albany 98-74 in the Dome and then Virginia Tech 69-58 and Stanford 69-63 in MSG. None of those teams were ranked at time and this was the SU team that had the greatest regular season, going 30-1 with the only loss being when Fab Melo was suspended. As great as Kentucky was that year, we were ranked #1 for five weeks. Unranked teams were no match for us. Of course Gab got suspended again and we lost to Ohio State in the elite 8 and wound up 34-3, our best numerical record ever. We were ranked 5th. Manhattan went 21-13. Albany was 19-15. Virginia Tech was 16-17. Stanford went 26-11 and won the post season NIT. None of them were ranked in the final poll.
JB: 4-0 Cumulative: 58-11 with 13 wins and 6 second places.
We were a part of three special events in 2012-13, none of them true tournaments. The “Battle on the Midway” on the aircraft carrier was a single game vs. San Diego State. There was an SEC-Big East Challenge where James Southerland beat Arkansas. (That’s another thing we have been good at in the JB era: we were 5-0 all time in conference “challenge” matches until losing to Wisconsin in overtime at the Dome this year). Then we were in something called the “Gotham Classic”, a weird name because three of the four games were in the Dome. WE beat Canisius and Detroit in the Dome, then traveled to MSG to lost to Temple, then came back home again to beat Alcorn State. Those were just four scheduled games that came under the umbrella of the “Gotham Classic”. There was no bracket or championship game.
11/25-27/2013 EA Sports Maui Invitational, Maui, HI.
A third trip to Maui and a third win. We beat Minnesota 75-67, California 92-81 and 18th ranked Baylor 74-67 for the title. This was the SU that got off to our greatest start at 25-0 and achieved our third #1 ranking in five seasons. But it was also the team stopped scoring and 6 of its last 9 games to finish 28-6 and ranked only 14th. The field was good. Minnesota went 25-13 and won the NIT. Cal was 21-14. Baylor went 26-12 and lost in the Sweet 16. They wound up ranked #18.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 61-11 with 14 wins and 6 second places.
11/14-21/2014 2K Sports Classic, New York, NY.
We had no problem, (as we were not supposed to) with Kennesaw State (89-42) and Hampton 65-47 before moving on to MSG, where California finally beat us after several recent losses, 59-73. We then beat Iowa 66-63 in the consolation round. We struggled to an 18-13 record under the cloud of NCAA restrictions. Kennesaw State went 10-22. Hampton was 17-18 but won their conference tournament and got to the Round of 64 after beating Manhattan in a play-in game before losing to Kentucky by a semi-respectable 56-79. Cal didn’t have a big season despite final beating us, finishing 18-15. (They’d lost the 2K title game to Texas 55-71.) Iowa went 22-12 and made it to the round of 32, where they lost to Gonzaga, so that was a pretty good win. But none of those teams were in the Top 25 at the end of the season.
JB: 3-1 Cumulative: 64-12 with 14 wins and 6 second places.
11/25-27/2015 Battle 4 Atlantis
We beat Charlotte, 83-70, as expected and then upset of Big East rival Connecticut 79-76 and Texas A&M 74-67. But they wouldn’t let the team take Atlantis back on the plane with them.
JB: 3-0 Cumulative: 67-12 with 15 wins and 6 second places.
JB has won:
The Battle 4 Atlantis 2015
The Coaches vs. Cancer, (now the 2K College Sports Classic) 2004, 2009
The Great Alaska Shoot-Out in 2000
The Legends Classic 2010
The Lobo Classic in 1977
The Maui Invitational in 1990, 1998 and 2013
The O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic 2008
The Preseason NIT in 1988, 2001, 2012
The Rochester Classic in 1979 and 1984
That’s 15 of 26 tournaments, (.577) in which he’s won 67 of 79 games (.848, well above his .748 winning percentage in all games). If you look at the 24 Carrier Classics and the 1999 NABC Classic, which were entirely in the Dome, JB won 21 of those tournaments (84%) and won 46 of 50 games (92%). Add those numbers together and you have 36 victories in 51 tournaments (.705) and 113 of 129 games (.876).
In the pre-Boeheim Era we won 1 of 24 tournaments, (.042) and 26 of 58 games (.448)
