We need to go back to the big east

[Cusefan0307]

While I'll preface this by saying financially we cant go back, but moving to the ACC is the worst thing that could have happened to the bball program. We had an identity in the Big East, we had a rivalry that was the second biggest rivalry in the sport, we knew who we were. In the ACC we're just another middling-to-bad program that has no identity.

The identity was JB actually went out on the road to watch elite prospects. He stopped doing that and sent his 30 year old assistant to do all the hard work.

 

[Willy75]

UConn would pay SU $50mm to trade conference affiliations. And on a financial basis that would be a home run deal for them.

 

[syrBossHogg]

JB might try to coach again if we went back to the Big East lol (It's not happening)

 

[Orangefizz]

I don’t think it’s realistic to go back to the big east but here’s how I’d configure the conference if we did return after the ACC breaks up. Obviously Notre Dame would be all sports but football, and if Notre Dame joined another conference, the big east could backfill with Richmond

 

[tbonezone]

UConn would pay SU $50mm to trade conference affiliations.

well basketball school driven duke won the ACC football crown .

 

[phil77]

No thank you

 

[Newhouser]

Nice point that unfortunately will never happen.
Syracuse just doesn't fit in the ACC.

And one thing missing...we had one of the greatest rivalries in sports.
Last night they talked up Duke-UNC.
Syracuse-G-town was right there with them.
We may still play them...but it's not close to the same since we're in different conferences.

and since they stink too.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Nice point that unfortunately will never happen.
Syracuse just doesn't fit in the ACC.

And one thing missing...we had one of the greatest rivalries in sports.
Last night they talked up Duke-UNC.
Syracuse-G-town was right there with them.
We may still play them...but it's not close to the same since we're in different conferences.

Syracuse-Georgetown was relevant when it was JB vs Thompson.

You put anybody else in charge of those schools, and it's just another game.

 

[Lukeyloo]

The identity was JB actually went out on the road to watch elite prospects. He stopped doing that and sent his 30 year old assistant to do all the hard work.

While I agree that JB slacked off in recruiting, I believe, even with that, we still would've had an easier time bringing in good recruits by merely still having that perceived hierarchy in the BE and the all-time great rivalry with Georgetown. Recruits want to be part of something like that.

 

[Lukeyloo]

Syracuse-Georgetown was relevant when it was JB vs Thompson.

You put anybody else in charge of those schools, and it's just another game.

While the OG head coaches are what made the rivalry, if both teams continued to have success after those coaches left then it would still be viewed as a great rivalry. UNC Duke is still good because the programs are good. It's about the results on the court.

 

[Cusefan0307]

While I agree that JB slacked off in recruiting, I think, even with that, we still would've had an easier time bringing in good recruits by merely still having that perceived hierarchy in the BE and the all-time great rivalry with Georgetown. Recruits want to be part of something like that.

We still recruited well into the ACC with Lydon, Mali, Howard and Battle...It was after that the bottom fell out. Georgetown is still there and they suck. It hasn't helped them. While they are on the upswing this year the bottom fell out for Nova after Wright left. Winning is dependent on good coaching. We haven't had that in a decade. And no 17 year old prospect cares about the old Georgetown battles from 2013 when they were 4 years old let alone the battles from 1990.

 

[Eric15]

I dont know all the ins and outs, but i know the move was all about football and money. But leaving the acc destroyed syracuse basketball. We had a good regular season the first acc year, and a miracle final 4 run in 2016. But other than that just a complete and utter disaster.

We’re an east coast team. We have a huge alumni/fan base in the tri state area. What games can we go to??? Nova in philly? Nope. Seton hall in newark? Nope. St johns at the garden? Nope. Jimmy v classic at the garden? Nope. Big east tournament at the garden? Nope.

I cant help but think leaving the big east affected recruiting. We just dont belong in the acc. We had a legacy in the big east. We had TRADITION. That matters. Now we got nothing.

This really sux. Even if we stunk, if we were playing providence and villanova and st johns and uconn and seton hall in february id still watch. Big east tournament id still watch. But virginia? Cal? SMU???? Duke unc ohh great we’ll lose by 30. Wake forest lol. Wheres the acc tournament this year? Who knows and who cares

Im so disgusted. I loved syracuse basketball i loved the big east. And i miss both terribly. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

I agree that the Big East in terms of belonging and nostgalia felt much better. That is undeniable.

But we simply couldn't stay for as you implied, football and money. What happens to football if we stay in the Big East? Do we go independent and just play a random smorgasbord schedule?

I personally would love to play 2 or 3 out of UConn/Nova/Seton Hall/St Johns/Providence in the non-conference slate every single season. There should be no reason we can't do that.

 

[FasterCuse]

Anyone that thinks we should have stayed in the Big East can't see the forest through the trees.

 

[Eric15]

Causation, not coincidence.

Be honest, was the OP your favorite post in board history?

 

[sufan59]

Yeah I miss the Big East. In a perfect world, we can be Big East Basketball members and ACC Football members. That is not reality. Syracuse would've been beyond crazy not to take the ACC offer. Football matters and basketball matters too. Football gets priority, it's just the way it is. I've written about it before, smart business would be prioritizing women's basketball over men's lacrosse, there is more money to be made in women's basketball, but yeah men's lacrosse is a huge deal for Syracuse. We can't run the deficits UConn runs and even they are looking for lifelines to a power conference. I do believe it's a lot more likely we are closer to getting on the other side of this successfully than moving further down. The main problem today is coaching on game day, it's always been a problem from the day Autry took over, but there was things to kind of run cover for it, not this season. FWIW, Autry will leave Syracuse putting Syracuse in a better position to succeed than when he inherited the program as crazy as it sounds. Syracuse has come a long way in modernizing the program in the last 3 years. Unfortunately, modernizing the program only makes you more attractive to the next guy if you aren't producing successful gameday results.

 

[Cusefan0307]

The truth is we were better than UConn for almost the last decade of us being in the BE and the first year in the ACC. We just didn't take care of business late into March.

 

[tbonezone]

we joined the ACC in 2013. since then we've had 9 NBA draft picks. (last in 2020 and only one JG still in the league). duke and unc together will have that many this year.
so yes i'd say we have a serious recruiting problem to compete in the ACC.

 

[Archimedes]

NIL happening was more important than the regional challenges.

The old system, where players didn't get paid, was better for SU and CNY.

The new system is better for the big money state schools.

 

[Jeremy L.]

Thing that sucks about all of this is we all know the move was for money…but the fans don’t get any kickback on that besides stadium renovations (which we still complain about).

All we want is success in football and basketball. Right now we have partial success for football and hoops is a disaster.

As much as I love lacrosse, nobody outside of NY and the DMV gives a damn about the sport, compared to schools with hockey or baseball.

And us as fans have to wait this whole thing out without any sort of confidence the school can put out successful programs in this era.

It’s frustrating as hell to just watch this team get boat raced while our friends over in Storrs who we all like to laugh at are dominant.

But yeah, ACC football money! Money that the fans don’t get to see

 

[nccusefan]

There are plenty of reasons for the decline a Syracuse basketball but moving to the ACC isn’t one of them.

Syracuse was put on probation and lost scholarships.

Other teams used Boeheim’s age to recruit against him. Boeheim was being out worked in recruiting by other coaches, sending assistant coaches to recruit against head coaches.

We used zone defense which worked great when teams had 1-2 shooters. Offenses have changed where teams have 3-4 shooters on the court. This defense also required us to have superior length and athleticism which we haven’t had in a while.

For years we have a very basic offense which works well with superior athletes and upper classmen who have played together. It gives players a lot of freedom and allows for playmakers to make plays but lacks structure and doesn’t create easy shots for players.

Players are now getting NIL that has favored large state schools with large alumni bases that tend to be more local. State schools rarely run the athletic department like a business and frequently subsidize athletics. OSU won the national championship last year but lost $28 million dollars. It paid off for them as they set records for revenue the following year. Syracuse University doesn’t run the athletic department department like that and that likely doesn’t pay off of OSU if they didn’t have the on field success.

Syracuse is also a mid market city in an area that is dominated by professional sports. Whether you are talking about game attendance, tv viewership, or corporate sponsorship Syracuse is at a disadvantage to many of these schools in areas with limited professional options. Western NY has the Bills and Sabers while NYC has the Giants, Jets, Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, Devils, and Red Bulls.

The weakness of the the move to the ACC wasn’t so much geography as it was the TV contracts the ACC signed. The long term TV contract and grant of rights was seen as huge plus to the stability of the league when Syracuse joined. It now has been surpassed by other leagues who have renegotiated multiple times since then.

If Syracuse hadn’t joined the ACC back then we would be in a worse place. The Big East couldn’t function with some schools playing football and others not playing. Syracuse was not going to abandon football and we likely would have ended up in the Big12 or even worse ConferenceUSA or the American Conference. We have almost no historical ties to those schools. The games would be harder to travel to and the university would have significantly less money to invest into Athletics.

 

[RedtheGOB]

Wait until people see the big east get 4 bids this year and then fewer and fewer each year after that.

Then wait until UConn jumps ship and then it becomes a 1 bid midmajor league with tha St. John’s billionaire buying Pitino the league championship every year.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Thing that sucks about all of this is we all know the move was for money…but the fans don’t get any kickback on that besides stadium renovations (which we still complain about).

All we want is success in football and basketball. Right now we have partial success for football and hoops is a disaster.

As much as I love lacrosse, nobody outside of NY and the DMV gives a damn about the sport, compared to schools with hockey or baseball.

And us as fans have to wait this whole thing out without any sort of confidence the school can put out successful programs in this era.

It’s frustrating as hell to just watch this team get boat raced while our friends over in Storrs who we all like to laugh at are dominant.

But yeah, ACC football money! Money that the fans don’t get to see

ACC Football money is what funds the Women's and "Non-Revenue" sports.

Without football money, there would be no soccer, or field hockey, or rowing, etc...

Unlike our friends at UConn (who are STATE funded), Syracuse just can't cry to Albany everytime the Athletic Dept has a budget shortfall.

So when people sneer that we chased an ACC Football Paycheck, I reply "YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT WE CHASED AN ACC FOOTBALL PAYCHECK".

Because there was no other choice. It was either $40 million a year from the ACC, or maybe $7 million a year from the American Conference.

Orphaning football, or demoting it to FCS level was never an option.

 

[SU94]

While I'll preface this by saying financially we cant go back, but moving to the ACC is the worst thing that could have happened to the bball program. We had an identity in the Big East, we had a rivalry that was the second biggest rivalry in the sport, we knew who we were. In the ACC we're just another middling-to-bad program that has no identity.

In the Dome era, SU football was hot/good when the Dome was new or newish. Although it received a nice makeover in recent years, it is not nearly as unique as it was in the 80s and early 90s.

Meanwhile, SU hoops was top notch until moving to the ACC. But that also coincided with JAB (who I have great reverence for) got old and let it go. It is painful, but undeniable that this happened.

Syracuse hoops and football were at or near the focal points of the Big East. Figurately as leading/winning programs, but also literally, as the Dome was the leading venue within the conference. Simply geography also plays a role here.

Currently, in the ACC, the Dome is good or mid (as the kids say). In terms of Q rating, it is surpassed by Cameron Indoor, Dean Dome, Clemson's Memorial Stadium, Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium (downtown location), Notre Dame Stadium, Doak Campbell Stadium. And others.

But geographically, we are also an outlier, aka on the perimeter of the conference (the northernmost boundary). Go look at the conferences, most schools that thrive or succeed over the course of time are located nearer the center of their conference and/or have some geographical advantages. There are exceptions, of course, but I think that Penn State football has struggled with some of these issues too (plus they are perverted toward children, but that is a story for another day).

And then, there are the daunting financials, namely the downside of being a mid-sized private school as opposed to a land grant state institution. Remember, we compete directly in the ACC (and that has been a struggle), but also against schools outside of the ACC. More daunting.

The best solution that I see, and it is nothing novel, is that we find the next Coach Mac and the next JAB and pair them together for 8-10 years. Concurrently, like the 80s. I think and hope we are halfway home with Fran on board. And while I very much wanted Adrian to be the answer on the hoops side, it appears change is coming.

The Money and NIL investment is important too, but to me, that is not why we are struggling at this very moment.

Let's support Fran, let him cook, and have JW and Alex Kline get to work in the coming weeks.

 

[sufan59]

Wait until people see the big east get 4 bids this year and then fewer and fewer each year after that.

Then wait until UConn jumps ship and then it becomes a 1 bid midmajor league with tha St. John’s billionaire buying Pitino the league championship every year.

Yeah I'm with you there, all you have to do is see UConn who is making visible shifts to invest in their football program again. I hope we end up in the same conference as them, our rivalry generates interest and interest generates money. People site that the basketball schools have a major advantage since they don't have to allocate money in the rev share allotment to football. The problem is they aren't making even close to the money they need too in order to take advantage of that. BTW, I'm pretty sure the rev share allotment is going to be higher for basketball in the ACC than the SEC and Big Ten, not sure about the Big 12. I do think the Syracuse Basketball job is attractive beyond reasons of the brand and historical prestige. Fran is super important for leading the football program right now with the drive and vision to make up for disadvantages from a rev share standpoint as being at a school that puts more value into basketball than the average power conference school. As bad as the last football season ended post Angeli, Fran did start as a first time head football coach with a 13-4 record, 6-3 in conference headlined by wins against Miami and in Death Valley at Clemson. Fran made changes way beyond the main reason the season derailed. With Fran it's not about patching a mistake, but how to patch it and find way to become better from it and turning it into an advantage.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I don’t think it’s realistic to go back to the big east but here’s how I’d configure the conference if we did return after the ACC breaks up. Obviously Notre Dame would be all sports but football, and if Notre Dame joined another conference, the big east could backfill with Richmond

Oh look another conference realignment post. DRINK.