The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team achieving success in March is certainly nothing new, but the way they’re getting it done, and the regular seasons preceding it, definitely is.
For the second time in three seasons, and third in five, Syracuse has reached the sweet sixteen as a double digit seeds, massive underdogs, instead of doing so as overwhelming favorites. This fact is certainly reflective of the 2021 NCAA Tournament as a whole- unpredictable like your favorite casino games. As Jay-Z once rapped “I put my money on the longshots,” and if you followed that path, you probably saw a nice payoff from the first weekend of March Madness.
It’s been a bad year for blue bloods in college basketball this regular season and that continued into the first two rounds of March Madness where many of the higher seeds got eliminated. Three of the four #3 seeds were knocked out, along with half the #2 seeds and one of the #1 seeds.
Syracuse (18-9) did their part, knocking off #3 seed West Virginia in the round of 32 by a score of 75-72. The #11 seeded Cuse were a big underdog in the first round as well, where they absolutely obliterated #6 seed San Diego State 78-62. The Orange now have (+5000) odds to win it all, giving them the 13th best odds out of the 16 teams left in the field.
They’ll take on the #2 seed Houston Cougars (26-3) at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse on Saturday. The game tips off on TBS at 9:55 EST. Brian Anderson, Jim Jackson and Allie LaForce will be on the call.
As expected, the Syracuse Orange are big time underdogs, priced at (+220) while the Cougars are backed at (-260). The Orange’s odds of winning the Midwest Regional are very long at (+650), but there is one team that’s a bigger long shot, #12 seed Oregon State at (+800).
That’s the beauty of the NCAA Tournament though! Especially this year’s edition of March Madness, it’s a fun and wild like a casino. Since head coach Jim Boeheim took over the Syracuse Orange program in 1977, they’ve won one national title, been to three title games, five Final Fours, seven Elite Eights and 20 sweet sixteens.
Asked if this appearance was one of the sweetest of his career, due to his son Buddy Boeheim being a part of the the team and the team getting off to a bad start this season, the Cuse coach said: “This is a pretty good one. There’s no doubt this is a pretty good one.”
“We’ve had to overcome a lot. Yeah, it’s been a battle this year. It’s been a real grind. We had a lot of guys up and down.”
This current Syracuse Orange team is very similar to the #10 seeded side that won the Chicago Regional in 2016. Michael Gbinijie led the way as they first squeaked by #11 seed Gonzaga 63-60 at the United Center on a wonderful spring Friday night.
Two days later, they overcame a massive second half deficit to top seeded Virginia, with the Cavaliers then ranked as #4 in the nation, and the net cutting party was on.
The very first question that Jim Boeheim faced in his post-West Virginia presser was about this 2016 team, and any similarities/differences between that team and the current one.
Boeheim completely evaded the question, ignored the topic, and gave a very long answer which just focused on the current team. With his response completely useless, in relation to the topic, we’ll just move on to something else he said, later in the session.
A reporter, who also happens to be a Syracuse student, asked him about all the criticism that the program has faced this year, and the last.
His response was the industry standard coachspeak “I’m not aware of it, I don’t hear it” kind of thing. It’s almost always never true, but coaches love to propagate the myth.
When Boeheim did so, it was at least in an entertaining and interesting way.
“My father taught me a long time ago, you’ve got to do what you think is right, and that’s it,” the often crusty curmudgeonly coach answered.
“You don’t listen. And if you’re a coach at Syracuse for 45 years, everybody has an opinion about what we should do or shouldn’t do or that we should be better or not.
Maybe the next coach will be better. That’s great. I’ll be happy to see that. But I do not worry about what anyone says in Syracuse. I learned a long time ago. ”
“My guidance counselor in eighth grade told me, Jim, you’re not going to please everybody. He must have known I was going to be a coach.”
Whatever he’s doing, it works, so he should just definitely keep up the same approach.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.