SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 34,058
- Like
- 65,795
- We won, for the first time since Valentine’s Day. It clinches a winning record. “Yeah but the schedule was weak and the league stunk and we got blown out those four games in arow and we aren’t going anywhere and all the problems are still there and Boeheim’s still a crab apple and our NET ranking is 130 so we’re irrelevant and Boeheim might return so we’ll still be bad and maybe Joe Girard will too so our defense will stink and imagine if Quincy Guerrier and Kadari Richmond were on this team and etc. etc. etc. etc.
In this moment, I don’t care. We had 51 winning seasons in a row, a streak that made us special. If we hadn’t gotten our pockets picked at the end of the U of Miami game in the Dome last year, that streak might have been 53 now with the project of tying UCLA’s all-time record next year. That won’t happen but at least we are back on the right side of .500, which is where Syracuse University belongs. I said in my Football preview that last year was the first year the flagship programs of this school: football, men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse all had losing records in the same season and my goal for this year was to get all of them back on the winning track. I chose Bret Maverick as my Avatar because I was willing to gamble with a prediction that they would do so this year. Now it’s up to Gary Gait’s team to make that come true. And maybe we can still catch UCLA – in 2077! (Will Jim Boeheim still be the coach?)
- This was certainly Jesse Edwards’s greatest game He was the first SU player in 14 years to have 20 points and 20 rebounds in the same game with 27 and 20. And the guy who had that 14 years ago was Paul Harris, who had 29 points and 22 rebounds in the 6OT game against Connecticut in 56 minutes of play. Jesse played 40 minutes tonight. The last SU player to have “20-20 vision” in a regulation game was Derrick Coleman, who did twice in the 1989-90 season. Th’s 33 years ago. So it was a special performance. Jesse also had 5 steals and 2 blocks and fouled out poor Andrew Car, who couldn’t cover him. I have Jesse with 42 “net points”, 11 more NP than any SU player has had this season. (#2 was Jesse Edwards with 31NP vs. Georgetown and Boston College. #3 is Jesse Edwards with 30NP vs. Notre Dame. #4 is Jesse Edwards with 29 vs. Lehigh…oh, and Joe Girard who had 29 in the first Georgia Tech game). Maliq Brown had 21NP tonight – half Jesse’s total. Judah Mintz had 10NP tonight. Joe Girard had 4NP. That was it.
- Judah Mintz put on a great show in the first half, blowing by defenders with his whirling dervish moves and incredible bank shots for 13 points. As I watched that I decided that we won’t see Judah here next year. He was playing his way into the NBA. Then he got into it with the refs leaving the floor at halftime and cost his team a technical, which is not forgivable. And his second half was nothing like his first, although he did make a couple of key free throws at the end. So now I don’t know what to think.
- Maliq Brown quietly put together his best game since he scored 18 in the first Georgia Tech game, (6 weeks ago), with 8 points on 4 for 6 shooting, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, a block and two assists.
- Our defense rose from the grave in this game. We maintained good contact with their shooters. Wake tired to duplicate what Clemson, Pitt and Georgia Tech had done to us by launching 39 threes. Jim had said on his radio show that if they make 10-11 of them, we can win. If they are going to make 17 or 18 of them, we can’t. Wake made 10 of them and we could overcome that. And it wasn’t just a case of hoping they miss and tonight they did: if you get on the shooters from opening tip, you don’t let them get hot. If they are used to being defended, they not only will miss more of those shots but even when they have open shots, they are less likely to make them. If you start out letting them have open, shots, they will make and them and keep making them all night. Also: we have 13 steals as we didn’t just let them pass to open men but rather played the passing lanes aggressively.
- It was great to see Jerry, Hack, Carmelo and the rest all together again. I wonder if we’ll ever see something like that again. Gerry’s speech was particularly interesting. He showed the humor and passion that people admire in him. In his interviews he sounds like a coach, breaking the games down strategically. And tonight he sounded exactly like Doug Marrone and Dino Babers did when they were announced at halftime as SU’s new football coach. I think he wants to be this team’s next head coach and I wouldn’t mind if he was. I don’t know how they are going to work that because he’s not the senior assistant and the two guys ahead of him are African American, but he looked like he expects to get the job someday.
- The whole weekend was a marvelous experience for the 2003 team, the 2023 team, the school and the community and it came just when we needed it. The Watch Party was great and that and Carmelo’s speech at the end had to show this team what could be accomplished when they work together and they came out and were simply a different team than we’ve seen the last couple of weeks. It was the most compete game they’d played all season and must have made them feel much more a part of the SU tradition. Maybe that can carry over to whatever performances they have yet to give this season.
17-14 (10-10 in conference) with 1+ to go
LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
In this moment, I don’t care. We had 51 winning seasons in a row, a streak that made us special. If we hadn’t gotten our pockets picked at the end of the U of Miami game in the Dome last year, that streak might have been 53 now with the project of tying UCLA’s all-time record next year. That won’t happen but at least we are back on the right side of .500, which is where Syracuse University belongs. I said in my Football preview that last year was the first year the flagship programs of this school: football, men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse all had losing records in the same season and my goal for this year was to get all of them back on the winning track. I chose Bret Maverick as my Avatar because I was willing to gamble with a prediction that they would do so this year. Now it’s up to Gary Gait’s team to make that come true. And maybe we can still catch UCLA – in 2077! (Will Jim Boeheim still be the coach?)
- This was certainly Jesse Edwards’s greatest game He was the first SU player in 14 years to have 20 points and 20 rebounds in the same game with 27 and 20. And the guy who had that 14 years ago was Paul Harris, who had 29 points and 22 rebounds in the 6OT game against Connecticut in 56 minutes of play. Jesse played 40 minutes tonight. The last SU player to have “20-20 vision” in a regulation game was Derrick Coleman, who did twice in the 1989-90 season. Th’s 33 years ago. So it was a special performance. Jesse also had 5 steals and 2 blocks and fouled out poor Andrew Car, who couldn’t cover him. I have Jesse with 42 “net points”, 11 more NP than any SU player has had this season. (#2 was Jesse Edwards with 31NP vs. Georgetown and Boston College. #3 is Jesse Edwards with 30NP vs. Notre Dame. #4 is Jesse Edwards with 29 vs. Lehigh…oh, and Joe Girard who had 29 in the first Georgia Tech game). Maliq Brown had 21NP tonight – half Jesse’s total. Judah Mintz had 10NP tonight. Joe Girard had 4NP. That was it.
- Judah Mintz put on a great show in the first half, blowing by defenders with his whirling dervish moves and incredible bank shots for 13 points. As I watched that I decided that we won’t see Judah here next year. He was playing his way into the NBA. Then he got into it with the refs leaving the floor at halftime and cost his team a technical, which is not forgivable. And his second half was nothing like his first, although he did make a couple of key free throws at the end. So now I don’t know what to think.
- Maliq Brown quietly put together his best game since he scored 18 in the first Georgia Tech game, (6 weeks ago), with 8 points on 4 for 6 shooting, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, a block and two assists.
- Our defense rose from the grave in this game. We maintained good contact with their shooters. Wake tired to duplicate what Clemson, Pitt and Georgia Tech had done to us by launching 39 threes. Jim had said on his radio show that if they make 10-11 of them, we can win. If they are going to make 17 or 18 of them, we can’t. Wake made 10 of them and we could overcome that. And it wasn’t just a case of hoping they miss and tonight they did: if you get on the shooters from opening tip, you don’t let them get hot. If they are used to being defended, they not only will miss more of those shots but even when they have open shots, they are less likely to make them. If you start out letting them have open, shots, they will make and them and keep making them all night. Also: we have 13 steals as we didn’t just let them pass to open men but rather played the passing lanes aggressively.
- It was great to see Jerry, Hack, Carmelo and the rest all together again. I wonder if we’ll ever see something like that again. Gerry’s speech was particularly interesting. He showed the humor and passion that people admire in him. In his interviews he sounds like a coach, breaking the games down strategically. And tonight he sounded exactly like Doug Marrone and Dino Babers did when they were announced at halftime as SU’s new football coach. I think he wants to be this team’s next head coach and I wouldn’t mind if he was. I don’t know how they are going to work that because he’s not the senior assistant and the two guys ahead of him are African American, but he looked like he expects to get the job someday.
- The whole weekend was a marvelous experience for the 2003 team, the 2023 team, the school and the community and it came just when we needed it. The Watch Party was great and that and Carmelo’s speech at the end had to show this team what could be accomplished when they work together and they came out and were simply a different team than we’ve seen the last couple of weeks. It was the most compete game they’d played all season and must have made them feel much more a part of the SU tradition. Maybe that can carry over to whatever performances they have yet to give this season.
17-14 (10-10 in conference) with 1+ to go
LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
