The good: they have four really good players. Arinze Onuaku was unstoppable in the low post. Jonny Flynn brilliantly ran the offense, dishing and driving and even shooting. Donte Greene had a bad shooting night, but he still scored 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds showing flashes of the inside-outside game that makes him such a tantalizing NBA prospect. And Paul Harris continued to contribute those little things, including two key baskets late in the game that ended a 10-2 run by Seton Hall.
And my favorite player on this team, Kristof Ongenaet, scored the first 6 points of the game for the Orange, then stepped aside to make room for everyone else. Still, his 10 points and 11 rebounds made for the first double-double of his career.
It's this kind of balanced play that has people thinking that if only SU could make it in to this year's field, maybe they could pull off an upset or two, something SU has never done under Jim Boeheim. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, Syracuse has never won a game against a team seed more than 2 spots higher. In 1996 they beat #2 Kansas as a #4, and in 2003, they beat #1 Oklahoma and #1 Texas, but never pulled off a major upset.
But they were the victim several times:
1986: #7 Navy over #2 Syracuse
1988: #11 Rhode Island over #3 Syracuse
1990: #6 Minnesota over #2 Syracuse
1991: #15 Richmond over #2 Syracuse
2004: #8 Alabama over #5 Syracuse
2005: #13 Vermont over #4 Syracuse
2006: #12 Texas ATM over #5 Syracuse
Now I grant you that SU was so good in the 80s and 90s that they had very few chances to pull off upsets, and many chances to get upset, but still that's 7 major upsets in 20 years, 3 in their last 3 tournament appearances.
Three final games and one championship over the same span should not be overlooked, however.
Getting back to this year's team, once again the horrible turnovers, especially late in games makes me doubt that this team could take care of the ball well enough to win a close game in the Big East or NCAA Tournament.
One thing that annoyed me about last night's game, the announcers kept referring to last year, saying Syracuse was better last year and didn't make it in, parroting Boeheim's whiny point that SU probably wouldn't make it in this year either.
But if you're a college basketball announcer shouldn't you be able to think critically enough to reject Boeheim's whiny bullshit?
The fact is last year Syracuse didn't get in because the strength of schedule was poor. This year Boeheim nutted up and scheduled some tough games out of conference. Even though SU lost almost all of them (Ohio State, Rhode Island, UMass) a SOS rating of 8, is very impressive to the selection committee.
The committee gives credit to teams that play a tough schedule because having a lot of tough games among members of the top conferences is the only way to fairly evaluate them. Also, they want to encourage teams to schedule good teams to make the sport more interesting.
Pizza Parlor Derek pointed out that Syracuse could be this year's Stanford which got in with a very high RPI of 65 and an 18-12 record because they played a lot of tough games. However, in their case they had several big wins including wins over UCLA and Washington State.
This is a reasonable argument but I think PPD failed to delve in deeply enough. This year's Stanford will likely be Arizona which despite a 16-12 record has the toughest schedule in the country and an RPI of 24. Also Kentucky is a contender to get in on these credentials, considering three of their non-conference losses were to North Carolina, Indiana and Louisville, much tougher than the SU slate. The only reason SU's SOS is rated tougher is because UK beat 5 teams with RPIs higher than 250, compared to zero by SU. But a top team is much more likely to lose when playing a top 15 team compared to a 26-50. Whereas both these teams should beat every opponent with an RPI over 100. UK also has 4 top 50 wins, compared to 1 for SU.
One other thing that SU has going against it, is the inevitable small-conference team that loses in the conference tournament but makes it as an at-large getting an underserving team from its conference in. Drake, Butler, South Alabama, Kent St. and Davidson are all teams from one-bid conferences that might get in as an at-large should they lose. Also Conference USA (Memphis and UAB), West Coast (St. Mary's and Gonzaga) and Atlantic 10 (Xavier and maybe St. Joe's, maybe Dayton) are two bid conferences that could get 3 teams possibly.
One thing SU has going for it, a relatively weak bubble field this year.
SU must beat Marquette and win at least 1 game in the Big East to have any chance to get in, 2 Big East wins and I think they're in.
1 comment:
Excellent analogy with Stanford last year and Arizona this year. I think if Kentucky can win a game or 2 in the SEC, they deserve to be in despite the awful early loses. They're clearly not the same team and should be considered one to the top 65 in the country.
SU sucks and if Seton Hall was even a little good, we'd have lost. Seton Hall is bad. SU's problems and weaknesses are the same virtually every year and that's the fault of the head coach.
We have to beat Marquette and or win 1 BE game. I think the committee will give in to Boeheim's bitching and let us in this year to appease him. We might deserve to be in too depending on other bubble teams, but 2 BE tourney wins may get us in too. Marquette plays shaky and facing them at home helps.
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