I've stayed away from the blog for way too long, but the start of college basketball season is enough to make me blow off the dust.
I love college basketball, especially with the new format where the selection committee chooses the men's Final Four teams. Yes, the tournament was great, especially with games all day and night the first weekend, but football rules, and so why not decide the champion the same way football does? Also, since the champion can be decided in just one weekend, that's more time to concentrate on what really matters -- spring football practice and NFL draft previews. (Every minute Dick Vitale gets on ESPN is one less that Mel Kiper Jr. gets, after all.)
For me, the big question isn't just what four teams the committee picks (Vitale, of course, will have 27 teams in the Final Four), but which team will get the automatic ACC bid. As a Syracuse fan, I obviously hope it's the Orange, but they always seem to find a way to mess up, and it looks like Duke is being tipped as the team to beat in the league this year.
But maybe the ACC will get two. Why not? After all, the league has Duke, Syracuse, North Carolina, Louisville and Virginia, among others, but there are no easy outs in the conference. You try going to any of those arenas and win. In any other league, losing to one of the lesser teams is a huge upset; in the ACC, it's just a testament as to the awesomeness of the league.
What other league can say that? Maybe the Big 10, especially now that they've imported Maryland from the ACC. Perhaps you can pencil the league in for a Final Four spot, but I wouldn't use Seth Davis' Sharpie ... just in case.
I know Kentucky's the top-ranked team in the preseason, they went to the final last year and the Wildcats' end-of-the-bench walk-on is probably a low first-round NBA pick, but other than Florida and Kentucky, the league hasn't been any great shakes lately. Probably the best thing for an SEC resume is a close loss to an ACC team. (There is no truth, however, to the started-by-me rumor that, to keep ratings up, ESPN plans to replay the entire football season on the SEC Network in lieu of basketball, complete with alternate ending in the unlikely event that a team from some other conference is allowed in the college football playoff and dares to actually win the thing.)
What about UConn? After all, they won the national title last year! Yeah, but did they really deserve it? All they did was win a bunch of games at the end of the year. Big deal! If they were the team in New England worth having and had the sterling academics of a school like North Carolina, the Huskies would be in the ACC and not the American.
At least the American and maybe the Big Ersatz are on the fringes of the conferences good enough to send a team to the Final Four if everything goes right. Those other conferences should feel happy that their champions will be allowed in the NIT, which will continue. After all, the ACC teams not picked for the Final Four need something to do.
(In case you're wondering about the women, will anyone beat UConn? There is the question of this season.)
Let the games begin!
Showing posts with label syracuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label syracuse. Show all posts
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Syracuse lost, and I'm not feeling so good myself
Tyler Ennis' three-pointer clanged off the rim -- to my mind the second bad decision he had made in the last two possessions -- and with it Syracuse's season had come to an end at the hands of Dayton.
And I proceeded to yell profanities (OK, only one in particular) in combination with "chokers" and various other forms of low regard, all while pounding my fist into my thigh multiple times hard enough so that I think it frightened my wife.
As it's one of the few parts of my anatomy with any muscles, my thigh was fine, not even a bruise, yet my rage remained unabated.
"Ennis needs to go to the NBA right now so he doesn't screw up anymore," I thought. "And take that overrated C.J. Fair and his disappearing act with him. And I'm so happy to see Trevor Cooney remember the scrub that he is. Maybe I should have called on Big Orange"
I even allowed myself some sacrilege.
"Maybe Jim Boeheim ought to retire. He hates being in the ACC, anyway."
In fact, I was so upset at how horribly Syracuse had played in a game they would have won going away if the Orange had even been mediocre, I even let a few bad calls slide, which isn't something I normally do.
My pal FortyFourist (and by pal, I mean guy I sometimes converse with on Twitter, since we don't actually know each other) has been trying to keep the angry masses at least somewhat at bay since last night, although I don't know how much success he has had.
I eventually calmed down long enough to watch Wisconsin complete its comeback against Oregon, and then had a good night's sleep. I still think Ennis messed up royally at the end, but he did have a great year in what I'm sure will be his only year in Syracuse, and while I think being in the ACC will cause Boeheim to retire earlier than he had planned, I don't actually want it to happen.
However, I'm not backing off Fair's disappearing act, and Cooney has to figure out a way to do something on offense if teams actually ... what's the word I'm looking for ... guard him.
And I'm reminded again that one game, played by people I don't know and will most likely never meet, can cause such fervent emotion. (I'm sure Dayton fans are feeling the same level of emotion, but of joy and not anger).
Is it irrational?
Sure it is.
But that's sports.
And I proceeded to yell profanities (OK, only one in particular) in combination with "chokers" and various other forms of low regard, all while pounding my fist into my thigh multiple times hard enough so that I think it frightened my wife.
As it's one of the few parts of my anatomy with any muscles, my thigh was fine, not even a bruise, yet my rage remained unabated.
"Ennis needs to go to the NBA right now so he doesn't screw up anymore," I thought. "And take that overrated C.J. Fair and his disappearing act with him. And I'm so happy to see Trevor Cooney remember the scrub that he is. Maybe I should have called on Big Orange"
 |
| Rested and ready for a regional final that never came. |
"Maybe Jim Boeheim ought to retire. He hates being in the ACC, anyway."
In fact, I was so upset at how horribly Syracuse had played in a game they would have won going away if the Orange had even been mediocre, I even let a few bad calls slide, which isn't something I normally do.
@MichaelPawluk They couldn't overcome not being able to make shots and making stupid decisions.
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) March 23, 2014
@MichaelPawluk Shameful officiating was Aaron Craft manhandling Syracuse's guards two years ago. Tonight was 0-for-threes and bad decisions.
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) March 23, 2014
My pal FortyFourist (and by pal, I mean guy I sometimes converse with on Twitter, since we don't actually know each other) has been trying to keep the angry masses at least somewhat at bay since last night, although I don't know how much success he has had.
Tyler Ennis made about 4 bad plays ALL SEASON. If you want to crucify the kid for last night, you're missing the big picture. Badly.
— FortyFourist (@fortyfourist) March 23, 2014
I eventually calmed down long enough to watch Wisconsin complete its comeback against Oregon, and then had a good night's sleep. I still think Ennis messed up royally at the end, but he did have a great year in what I'm sure will be his only year in Syracuse, and while I think being in the ACC will cause Boeheim to retire earlier than he had planned, I don't actually want it to happen.
However, I'm not backing off Fair's disappearing act, and Cooney has to figure out a way to do something on offense if teams actually ... what's the word I'm looking for ... guard him.
And I'm reminded again that one game, played by people I don't know and will most likely never meet, can cause such fervent emotion. (I'm sure Dayton fans are feeling the same level of emotion, but of joy and not anger).
Is it irrational?
Sure it is.
But that's sports.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
And now it's all over
The first exposure to college basketball that I can remember was the 1984 Big East Tournament.
I was 11, and I hadn't ever seen anything like it. Cable TV was still fairly new back then, but we didn't live in a place that had it, anyway, but a local independent television station that's now a Fox affiliate carried the games. (At least I assume that's who it was. I can't imagine any of the other three stations we got showing it, and in later years the station would also show Celtics and Yankees games, which I watched religiously, even thought I hated the Celtics at the time.)
It was the year Syracuse's Pearl Washington put on a show before the Orangemen lost to Georgetown in the finals. I was enthralled, and it actually set the stage for a lot of my college basketball fan days since then: loving Syracuse, hating Georgetown and Syracuse mostly finding a way to blow it at the end, including tonight's epic collapse against Louisville.
In the years since, teams have come and gone, and some like TCU came and left before they ever arrived. But every March, Syracuse, Georgetown, Connecticut, St. John's, Villanova, Providence, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh and whoever else was in the league would gather at Madison Square Garden for the conference tournament.
It was my favorite team, in the best arena and the best tournament. How many tournaments have provided moments like Gerry McNamara's run, Kemba Walker's five games in five days or a six-overtime epic? And that's just Syracuse and UConn, and that's just since 2006? (By the way, I watched the entire six-overtime game. After two overtimes, I thought about going to bed; after four overtimes, I thought, "Screw it. I've put this much time into it, I might as well stay until the end.")
Of course, we've all known that it was all about to change in a big way. With Syracuse and Pitt leaving, how could it not? And then the Catholic 7 leaving ripped off any Band-Aid of thought that the conference might still look a little like the Big East we've grown to know and love. It was going to be, as Sean McDonough put it numerous times tonight, "the end of the Big East as we know it."
(For one, Mrs. Last Honest, a Connecticut fan who still doesn't know what the Huskies did to be the one kid without a chair when the music stopped and thinks the program is in serious trouble unless the ACC finally decides to take them in, has already said she refuses to call the Catholic 7 plus however many members they add the Big East.)
And then I read this week's Sports Illustrated story about the end of the Big East to see this:
But still, it's hard when your wife talks about Syracuse in slightly bitter tones, especially considering that an athletic director at Boston College who did wonders to wreck his own program before retiring apparently kept UConn out of the ACC all by his lonesome. I don't blame her for it, but it's still hard.
And now, even though the Big East was likely always going to meet a bad end because it made all the wrong moves regarding football and money -- I've long thought that they should have seized their own bowl when the BCS first started, instead of being a floater that could easily be cut off -- it's also kind of hard to read that their leaving might have been the beginning of the end for the league.
So it was a little sad watching tonight's game (even though as I write this it's now early the next morning), even before but especially after Syracuse tossed up its massive fail of a second half. What I first discovered as an 11-year-old has ended.
Sure, I probably won't think about it when Syracuse plays at Cameron Indoor Stadium, North Carolina comes to the Carrier Dome or they hopefully kick the crap out of BC, but it'll probably hit home sometime next March, when instead of settling in to see the Orange at MSG, they'll be playing in Greensboro in front of crowds that will always see them as the outsider.
I was 11, and I hadn't ever seen anything like it. Cable TV was still fairly new back then, but we didn't live in a place that had it, anyway, but a local independent television station that's now a Fox affiliate carried the games. (At least I assume that's who it was. I can't imagine any of the other three stations we got showing it, and in later years the station would also show Celtics and Yankees games, which I watched religiously, even thought I hated the Celtics at the time.)
It was the year Syracuse's Pearl Washington put on a show before the Orangemen lost to Georgetown in the finals. I was enthralled, and it actually set the stage for a lot of my college basketball fan days since then: loving Syracuse, hating Georgetown and Syracuse mostly finding a way to blow it at the end, including tonight's epic collapse against Louisville.
In the years since, teams have come and gone, and some like TCU came and left before they ever arrived. But every March, Syracuse, Georgetown, Connecticut, St. John's, Villanova, Providence, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh and whoever else was in the league would gather at Madison Square Garden for the conference tournament.
It was my favorite team, in the best arena and the best tournament. How many tournaments have provided moments like Gerry McNamara's run, Kemba Walker's five games in five days or a six-overtime epic? And that's just Syracuse and UConn, and that's just since 2006? (By the way, I watched the entire six-overtime game. After two overtimes, I thought about going to bed; after four overtimes, I thought, "Screw it. I've put this much time into it, I might as well stay until the end.")
Of course, we've all known that it was all about to change in a big way. With Syracuse and Pitt leaving, how could it not? And then the Catholic 7 leaving ripped off any Band-Aid of thought that the conference might still look a little like the Big East we've grown to know and love. It was going to be, as Sean McDonough put it numerous times tonight, "the end of the Big East as we know it."
(For one, Mrs. Last Honest, a Connecticut fan who still doesn't know what the Huskies did to be the one kid without a chair when the music stopped and thinks the program is in serious trouble unless the ACC finally decides to take them in, has already said she refuses to call the Catholic 7 plus however many members they add the Big East.)
And then I read this week's Sports Illustrated story about the end of the Big East to see this:
“Syracuse’s departure would result in nothing less than a mutation in the conference’s DNA, the equivalent of North Carolina or Duke joining the Big Ten or SEC.”And this:
“That's why Syracuse's departure essentially finished the league. 'OK, BC left,' (Bill) Raftery says. 'Virginia Tech, Miami -- we can live without 'em. But 'Cuse leaving, that's the one that pierced everybody. Syracuse won the Oscar every year for interest, for reputation, and they always had a chance to win it all.'”My attitude about Syracuse -- seen through Orange-colored glasses, no doubt -- has always been that going to the ACC was what they had to do and what anyone else would have done, that in a world where football and the TV money that comes with it makes all the decisions, they had to get in the best place for themselves and that the ACC was that place. The thought of conference games with Duke and North Carolina didn't hurt, either.
But still, it's hard when your wife talks about Syracuse in slightly bitter tones, especially considering that an athletic director at Boston College who did wonders to wreck his own program before retiring apparently kept UConn out of the ACC all by his lonesome. I don't blame her for it, but it's still hard.
And now, even though the Big East was likely always going to meet a bad end because it made all the wrong moves regarding football and money -- I've long thought that they should have seized their own bowl when the BCS first started, instead of being a floater that could easily be cut off -- it's also kind of hard to read that their leaving might have been the beginning of the end for the league.
So it was a little sad watching tonight's game (even though as I write this it's now early the next morning), even before but especially after Syracuse tossed up its massive fail of a second half. What I first discovered as an 11-year-old has ended.
Sure, I probably won't think about it when Syracuse plays at Cameron Indoor Stadium, North Carolina comes to the Carrier Dome or they hopefully kick the crap out of BC, but it'll probably hit home sometime next March, when instead of settling in to see the Orange at MSG, they'll be playing in Greensboro in front of crowds that will always see them as the outsider.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Syracuse and Wisconsin cause some domestic anxiety
Of course Jordan Taylor's three-pointer was going to go in.
It didn't matter that between Syracuse's tight defense and Wisconsin being the latest team to completely foul up its late-game offense, the shot was an off-balance 25-footer, it was always going to go in.
After all, the Badgers were raining threes, including one I'm pretty sure was tossed up from my back yard 15 miles away from the TD Garden (an impressive feat, given the trees in the yard). And because it's Syracuse, for whom shooting free throws late in games is a decades-long adventure, Kris Joseph missed the front end of a one-and-one that would have given the Orange a three-point lead if he hit both.
I just knew it was going to slip away.
But Taylor's shot didn't go in, and neither did Mike Bruesewitz's follow. Somehow, Syracuse won.
And when it was over, my wife and I, in stereo, sagged from the edge of our seats to the back of the couch where we had sat on opposite sides all game ... me out of relief, her out of disappointment.
I'm a lifelong Syracuse fan, and my wife has a master's degree from Wisconsin, so we were on opposite sides, which is unusual unless Syracuse is playing her other team, Connecticut. Otherwise, we root for each other's teams, as I would have done going forward if Wisconsin pulled it out. (Fortunately, I didn't marry a Georgetown fan, and she didn't marry a Michigan State supporter.)
There wasn't any trash talk, other than me joking on the way to dinner that I wanted to go someplace that served badger, and her replying that she wanted to smash an orange. A friend of mine said he would have liked to have watched us watching the game, but I pooh-poohed it. After all, we watch the UConn-Syracuse games every year; we're used to it!
And then Wisconsin cut what had been a 10-point Syracuse lead just before halftime to six, and then they couldn't miss three-pointers. Still no trash talk, but excitement for her when another Wisconsin three went in, then for me when Syracuse scored to either take back the lead or extend it just a little bit.
It was like this the entire second half, as something started to set in:
This time, my team came out on top. I was thrilled they won, but more thrilled that it was over. Bring on someone neither of us can stand!
It didn't matter that between Syracuse's tight defense and Wisconsin being the latest team to completely foul up its late-game offense, the shot was an off-balance 25-footer, it was always going to go in.
After all, the Badgers were raining threes, including one I'm pretty sure was tossed up from my back yard 15 miles away from the TD Garden (an impressive feat, given the trees in the yard). And because it's Syracuse, for whom shooting free throws late in games is a decades-long adventure, Kris Joseph missed the front end of a one-and-one that would have given the Orange a three-point lead if he hit both.
I just knew it was going to slip away.
But Taylor's shot didn't go in, and neither did Mike Bruesewitz's follow. Somehow, Syracuse won.
I'm a lifelong Syracuse fan, and my wife has a master's degree from Wisconsin, so we were on opposite sides, which is unusual unless Syracuse is playing her other team, Connecticut. Otherwise, we root for each other's teams, as I would have done going forward if Wisconsin pulled it out. (Fortunately, I didn't marry a Georgetown fan, and she didn't marry a Michigan State supporter.)
There wasn't any trash talk, other than me joking on the way to dinner that I wanted to go someplace that served badger, and her replying that she wanted to smash an orange. A friend of mine said he would have liked to have watched us watching the game, but I pooh-poohed it. After all, we watch the UConn-Syracuse games every year; we're used to it!
And then Wisconsin cut what had been a 10-point Syracuse lead just before halftime to six, and then they couldn't miss three-pointers. Still no trash talk, but excitement for her when another Wisconsin three went in, then for me when Syracuse scored to either take back the lead or extend it just a little bit.
It was like this the entire second half, as something started to set in:
This was a hell of a game, and one of our teams was going to lose it.I didn't want it to be my team any more than she wanted it to be hers. This was different than all the other games we've watched together. Someone's team was going to move on, and someone's was going to be done.
This time, my team came out on top. I was thrilled they won, but more thrilled that it was over. Bring on someone neither of us can stand!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Wishing Carmelo wasn't the bad guy
I wouldn't say they're cursed, but over the years, things just have a way of not working out for the Syracuse men's basketball team.
There was Richmond in 1991 and Vermont in 2005. (Apparently, Taylor Coppenrath, whose name I spelled wrong on Twitter earlier today ... sorry, oops ... is spending his time in Spain these days.) And you'll never convince me that the selection committee didn't just forget them one year. There have been others.
Oh yeah, and Keith Smart.
This year, the Orange departed from their usual routine by getting screwed up before the NCAA tournament, when it's their guy who washes out for eligibility reasons a few days prior to the first game.
But 2003 was different. There were no upsets, no slip-ups, as a freshman named Carmelo Anthony led my team to the title. Oh happy day!
(Side note No. 1. My wife and I were in Atlanta for the women's Final Four, and when Roy Williams dropped the s-bomb heard around New Orleans, she said, "He's going to North Carolina." Of course, he did.)
(Side note No. 2. My wife slept through the semifinal, but made it to the end of the final. I'd like to think it was because she wanted to celebrate with her husband, but I know it was because she wanted to see "One Shining Moment," of which she considers herself an connoisseur. But it never came on. I believe what happened is that the local CBS affiliate had the window for the game ending at midnight, and when the clock struck 12, they were gone. As I recall, there were many complaints.)
Even thought I don't follow the Knicks -- I started watching the NBA again after I moved to the Boston area, so I picked up the Celtics -- I'll always have love for Carmelo because of that championship. But he has made it hard for me lately.
First of all, there was his passive-aggressive treatment of Denver, where he spent the whole season saying he wanted out, but that he "would never go about it the way LeBron did it." I'm still not sure why talking your way out of town isn't as bad as finishing your contract and finding a new employer, but anyway ...
There was Richmond in 1991 and Vermont in 2005. (Apparently, Taylor Coppenrath, whose name I spelled wrong on Twitter earlier today ... sorry, oops ... is spending his time in Spain these days.) And you'll never convince me that the selection committee didn't just forget them one year. There have been others.
Oh yeah, and Keith Smart.
This year, the Orange departed from their usual routine by getting screwed up before the NCAA tournament, when it's their guy who washes out for eligibility reasons a few days prior to the first game.
 | ||
| Big Orange is not happy that Fab Melo is out of the tournament. |
But 2003 was different. There were no upsets, no slip-ups, as a freshman named Carmelo Anthony led my team to the title. Oh happy day!
(Side note No. 1. My wife and I were in Atlanta for the women's Final Four, and when Roy Williams dropped the s-bomb heard around New Orleans, she said, "He's going to North Carolina." Of course, he did.)
(Side note No. 2. My wife slept through the semifinal, but made it to the end of the final. I'd like to think it was because she wanted to celebrate with her husband, but I know it was because she wanted to see "One Shining Moment," of which she considers herself an connoisseur. But it never came on. I believe what happened is that the local CBS affiliate had the window for the game ending at midnight, and when the clock struck 12, they were gone. As I recall, there were many complaints.)
Even thought I don't follow the Knicks -- I started watching the NBA again after I moved to the Boston area, so I picked up the Celtics -- I'll always have love for Carmelo because of that championship. But he has made it hard for me lately.
First of all, there was his passive-aggressive treatment of Denver, where he spent the whole season saying he wanted out, but that he "would never go about it the way LeBron did it." I'm still not sure why talking your way out of town isn't as bad as finishing your contract and finding a new employer, but anyway ...
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