Cuse wrap up featuring the sports bigamist

Dan got the ball rolling, with a well thought out, interesting piece on his beloved Washington Nationals. I’m not sure to interpret this as him being (justifiably) disgusted by the end of the Red Sox 2011 season, which was graciously narrated to him by a humble, well spoken Steve DePaulis…or if Dan is higher on the Nats this year than the Sox. Either way, between his shameful love for both Syracuse and Ohio St basketball, and his Sox/Nats love triangle, I think that TLC is chomping at the bit for its newest reality show Dan McKeever Sports Bigamist. Each episode he will waffle back and forth between keeping his allegiance to his hometown roots, and getting caught up in the flash and bright lights of his new life. The first episode will show a well dressed, bearded Dan watching a heated intramural handball game at a prestigious High School in the DC area. During the game, he will talk about the thought process that goes into rooting for another team, when you already have a favorite team in that sport. In this episode he decides that he will become a huge fan of this DC area team, while always repping his own handball team White Chocolate, ultimately deciding that he will root for the DC team, unless somehow White Chocolate improbably found some of the old members (and brought some others back from the dead), reunited, and played the DC team, in which case Dan would “just root for a good game.” The season finale would be a dramatic one on one interview of his thought process during the Ohio St v. Syracuse Elite Eight game in 2012. Here’s a brief excerpt of the interview:

Mike Tirico: Dan, Syracuse fans have had a lot of disappointment over the years. Keith Smart, Richmond, the Moten timeout, Vermont, Texas A&M, The DeShaun Williams era, and perhaps worst of all, losing their starting center twice in three years the week before the tournament starts, and in each of those years Syracuse was arguably the best team in the country. Orange fans live in a miserable city, with some of the world’s worst weather, crime rates, and a lousy economy. Syracuse basketball is all these people have really. What do you say to them as you sit here wearing an Ohio St Final Four hoody, the very team that just dealt the death blow to your “favorite team.”

McKeever: I would say that WE TAKIN THE CHIP. LETS GO SULLY LETS GO!!! GO NATS!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel that is a proper segue to put the bow on this years’ edition of the Orange. In the big picture, I would call the regular season the perfect storm. Heading into this campaign, the Orange obviously had some talent. In my own opinion, I felt like it was a team that had five players who would be third or fourth options on great teams, and five guys who were either freshman or wild cards. Those I included in the first group were Scoop Jardine, Triche, Kris Josesph, CJ Fair, and Sutherland (who I was actually kind of high on). Those guys were all good college players, that each had their own flaws. The main issue I had with this group of five, was that the only one of the group that could consistently create his own offense, was also historically its worst decision maker-Scoop. The other four thrived in transition, yet seemed to settle for jump shots in the half court (or dribble off their feet ** KJ**, or go nowhere when they tried to dribble**Triche**) , when ironically, there were all streak shooters at best.

The other five guys included Dion, Fab, Christmas, Carter Williams, and Keita. Of this five, the only two I thought could be remotely useful this year were Dion, coming off his 18 point game against Marquette in the tourney last year, and Carter Williams, who had tons of hype out of High School. Before the season started, I would have bet my life that Dubroff would have been the Big East Defensive player of the year before Fab Melo would have been. Yet, as the season started, it became apparent early that Fab and Dion were not the same handicapped looking bums that we had all watched the year before. Them both turning into NBA quality players out of nowhere obviously changed the entire dynamic of this season and its expectations. Of great importance, Dion could create his own shot.

Other factors that helped the Orange, were developing a knack to win close games, and a surprisingly easy Big East schedule (at least compared to some years past) when their toughest road games turned out to be not so tough (thank you UCONN, NOVA, and Regular Season Lousiville for under achieving) and the teams at the top of the league were home games (Marquette, Geargetown). Being honest with ourselves, this was probably the easiest BE schedule that Syracuse has played in at least five years.

This is not to say that Cuse wasn’t an elite team, because for most of the year, they were either the best or second best team in the country. Fab Melo’s defensive evolution was the most important factor on this team’s success. He allowed the top of the zone to be ultra aggressive, and to stay out on shooters, knowing that Fab could erase any mistake that got by. Everything with this team revolved around the fact that it was the best defense in the country. Having the best transition game in the country only complimented this fact, since the zone caused multiple run outs each game. If the game was close at the end, the Orange had five capable guys on the floor, and one guy-in Dion-who could get his own shot off anytime he wanted to. Ultimately this was a talented team filled with surprising breakouts, a great defense that ignited its strength on offense, and some favorable breaks in the schedule. Our result was a team that entered the tourney 32-2.

Skipping over all of the fluff of the first three tournament games, there’s a few points I want to make about the Ohio St game.

Bad officiating was a factor, NOT the reason that Syracuse lost

Make no mistake about it, this was about as poorly an officiated game as I’ve ever seen, aside from an intramural game from 2005 where J Mills and I combined for nine fouls in the first half of a game before I got T’d up, thrown out, and suspended for the next game. The best analysis of the game came from Gerry McNamara, who summed things up well declaring “we thought that Aaron craft was allowed to play defense one way, while everyone else on the floor was held to a different standard.” Amazingly spot on, from someone who’s offered about as many memorable quotes to date as my daughter Juliet has. He was right though. How in a game where four Syracuse players had at least four fouls, was Aaron Craft allowed to do his ADD defense on the Syracuse guards without picking up a foul for the first 30 minutes of the game? Almost comically, he was whistled for five fouls over the next seven minutes despite not changing a single thing in the way that he played defense over the first thirty minutes. By the time he picked those cheapies up it was too late for Syracuse anyways.

Syracuse plays zone, and I can only think of a handful of times all year where anyone on the team has been in foul trouble, let alone the whole team. Other gripes I have include but are not limited to:

-The rare double whammy of Triche having a ridiculously bad block charge call go against him to wipe a three point play off the board (the defender was moving AND in the restricted circle), which was compounded when the ref T’d Jimmy B up for reacting how every coach in America reacts about ten times a game when the refs blow a call.

-The foul called Against Keita where Sullinger falls backwards untouched, and got his shot blocked. Probably the most important call of the game to go against Syracuse. Not only was it an indefensibly bad call, but it came at a huge spot in the game when Cuse had all the momentum, and would have started a fast break the other way as Sully laid his fat self on the hardwood.

Those two calls were the most egregious that stick out, and obviously changed this game. Thing is Syracuse was down 1 with the ball with five minutes left, so that’s not WHY Syracuse lost. Syracuse lost for three reasons

1) They were without the Big East defensive player of the year
2) Their top two scorers played terrible games
3) They didn’t take advantage of Sullinger’s foul trouble


In regards to point number one, just imagine if OSU didn’t have Aaron Craft on Saturday. That’s pretty much what you take away from Syracuse when you lose Fab. Mckeever and I were emailing before the game last Friday, and said that anyone who thinks that Syracuse is better off without Fab Melo (as many fans said after Cuse won the first three games of the tourney) doesn’t know basketball. When we look back on the 2011-12 Orange, Fab Melo was the single most important player on that team. When Fab went down, Cuse’s ceiling went from ‘National Champs’ to ‘miraculously make the Final Four’ and they almost did. It’s like Johns said to me right after we found out Fab was ineligible, “ it just sucks that we’ll never know what could have been.” You can’t put it any better than that. Fab’s absence allowed Sulliinger to pretty much do what he wanted, despite Keita and Rakheem giving everything they had. A recent scouts take on Sullinger was that the one thing he struggles with is legitimate size. It would have been very interesting to see how that matchup would have played out.

Not to be forgotten is that Syracuse blew about 10-15 great looks/layups that they normally make. The two main culprits were Joseph and Waiters, who each missed layups that they haven’t missed all year. You can’t state how hard it is to watch your best players have games like that, when it wasn’t really the defense that forced them into it. They truly just missed shots. That’s got to be hard for the players and coaches to live with.

Watching the game with a good chunk of my family, we all agreed at halftime the game was over. Cuse caught the break of all breaks on Sullinger’s second foul. For Cuse to win that game minus Fab, they needed to be at least plus five over that fourteen minute stretch where Sullinger wasn’t on the floor. Instead it was dead even, and fat boy got to rest the whole first half. Devastating, and Boehiem stated after the game that the aforementioned stretch was what cost them the game.

Just like 2010 after the Butler game, the feeling right now for any Syracuse fan is unsettling. Once again, everything seemed to go wrong at the wrong time. When I think about the 2009-10 team, I only have two memories. One was ballroom dancing in the upper levels of the Dome during the record setting game against Villanova, and the other is watching an Arinze-less Syracuse team lose to a far less talented Butler team in the Jazz’s mostly empty arena, knowing that Duke won the title that year, and that we were so much better than Duke that year. It’s slightly different this season, because it would have taken at least an A- game out of Syracuse to beat Kentucky this year. The principle is the same though, our starting center cost we the fans a chance to make our miserable lives in Central New York about 10% better with a trip to New Orleans. On the bright side, at least Dan has a team to cheer on this weekend.

*I’m predicting 98 wins and a division title for the Yankees this season