Agree with the original post had our loss came before UK's we would be number 1 right now.
Heck had Fab not sat out we could have been number one almost all season.
This is one thing that annoys me a little. Ohio State got a complete pass when Sullinger was injured and they lost. The headlines were that Sullinger was out, and oh, by the way, Ohio State lost. They still had a lot of number one votes after their loss. With us, it was all Notre Dame storming the court. We still have two devoted fans in the media, but every other vote shrank up instantly, even without Melo.
Nobody seems to mention that we had probably the worst game to lose our biggest man. Cooley is a good player, but he dominated our two light weight back ups and that wouldn't have happened against Melo. When a 270 pound man pushes on a 215 pound man, it just doesn't look as much like a foul as when he pushes a guy his own size. The second half of the game was a terrible half for Syracuse rebounding. Cooley was most of that, with 6 offensive rebounds and 17 points. Melo would have blocked a couple and prevented a couple of those rebounds, and Syracuse comes all the way back. Who knows if the amazing barrage of threes would have happened in the first half with Melo there, but the second half when we were coming back, Cooley was able to beat up our skinny guys and win the game for ND almost single handedly.
In all three games where Melo was out, we were absolutely dominated inside. Most of us thought that Christmas and Keita were decent players who could help in the middle, these games proved us wrong.
Syracuse is undefeated with Melo and would be undefeated if Melo had been suspended a game later. Not many media members (and aside from a thread a few days ago, none of them) have noticed that our most important player was out for that game.
