You guys again. Great.
After Syracuse's triumphant game against The Bye, Syracuse now heads down to "southern" Florida to take on a familiar foe. Familiar for the last few years of the dying Big East Football conference. Yet, Syracuse actually managed to lose to them more than not. And they weren't very good either. Syracuse was just way worse. THANKS GREGGERS. But Syracuse came back to win in their final conference game. Can Syracuse win again?
Syracuse comes in with a nice bit of momentum to this game. USF is desperate for a win. And it's the USF Homecoming. They'll be in a white out. Will that be enough for a team that isn't very good to overcome Syracuse? USF is great at running the ball. The Syracuse defense is good at stopping the run. The only X Factor really, is if QB Quinton Flowers can break off some big runs. He is a QB that runs quite a bit. But I'm not sure if that's because they give him a lot of designed runs, or if he's got a bit of the Happy Feet. Either way, he has playmaker potential. Which is why if Syracuse manages to stop the run, the game should be well in hand. Syracuse gets QB Eric Dungey back, as well has Hybrid Back Erv Phillips. All good news for the Orange, who played surprisingly tough against #8 LSU, and is otherwise undefeated. Syracuse has the potential to go 4-1 here. I called SU winning this game before the season started, and I have even more reason to like them in this game. Pending some crazy plays from USF, I like Syracuse to stop the run early, create a couple turnovers, and get a nice lead heading into the 2nd half. By then it may be too late for the Bulls. I'm taking SU 34 to 21.
This game will be available nationally on CBS Sports at 3:30. Check your local listings. I'll be in and out of the home office all day. Busy football slate of my own. John will be on the Tweets for sure. Enjoy the game, and let's see if SU can go 4-1.
Labels: Big East memories, Football, Preview
I feel the same way.
The folks at ESPN sent me a screener of the new 30 For 30 documentary Requiem for the Big East. I poured over it a couple of times now. And while it is incomplete, it is fantastic. Some thoughts on the documentary below.
- It was great seeing it put down on video and told from some of the people that were there the origins of the conference and how it was Gavitt's ideas and hard work that got the whole thing going.
- If you're a Syracuse, Georgetown, St. John's, or Villanova fan, you'll probably really enjoy seeing the various highlights and attention to those teams paid in the film. They book end the movie with shots from the Syracuse/Georgetown 2013 BET game, and they give a good chunk of time to Georgetown's early dominance, Villanova's surprise National Championship over Georgetown, lots of Lou Carnesecca old and current, and Chris Mullins.
- Lou Carnesecca looks old as all hell. But he's clearly sharp and still with it. It broke my heart when he said he wasn't that hurt about teams leaving the Big East except for Syracuse.
- A few talking heads, specifically Michael Wilbon, contradicts the main point in the documentary that football, capitalism, and the league's own success is what broke up the Big East. Wilbon, over a shot of Nancy Cantor, says it was greedy and weak minded school presidents. Judge for yourself.
- The documentary does a really great job of highlighting the important, as it turned out, of the league denying an invitation to Penn State to join. It was probably the first domino falling in terms of the conference breaking up. It just took a while for it to matter.
- It does a great job of showing all the big personalities that dominated the coaching ranks of the early days of the Big East.
- Sorry, no 6 OT talk. No real mention of UConn either to be fair. Despite the fact they won a few National Championships as a member. Jim Calhoun has a few talking head moments, but that's all from UConn. Same for Rick Pitino.
- They talk about the BET but they only talk about some from the early 80's. Obviously there have been some pretty good ones since then.
- There was one moment that really got me. They talk about the death of Dave Gavitt and how the day Mike Tranghese found out about Syracuse and Pittsburgh leaving was the day that he found out Gavitt had passed away. They then cut to Jim Boeheim talking about that and about how it's been his whole life. He clearly fights back a tear. The room I viewed the movie may have been very dusty that day.
- No real talk about Notre Dame, or Tranghese, or especially John Marinatto being competent enough to stop any of the expansion/raiding of the league. No one deserves a ton of blame but Marinatto was totally inept and Tranghese could have taken some other steps.
Labels: Basketball, Big East, Big East memories, Big East Tournament, Farewell Big East, Goodbye Old Friend, Preview
Syracuse - St. John's Postgame Reactions OR New York's College Team
0 Comments Published on 12.18.2013 by John Brennan
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| Reunited and it feels so good! |
Syracuse knocked off Binghamton on December 7 by a score of 93-65, then took a week off for final exams before continuing the quest through New York teams to establish DOC Gross's dream of state domination. That came to a head Sunday afternoon at the World's Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden. Syracuse is no longer in the Big East, and but for scheduling this game against St. John's, wouldn't otherwise have a regular season game in MSG. This game had a down-and-dirty Big East feel to it, which was exciting if not stressful. Syracuse held the lead or was no less than tied for the entire first half, but couldn't really find a way to pull away. The second half brought its own challenges for the Orange, the least of which included, well, a difficult time scoring. Four lead changes and four ties in the second half weren't quite enough for the Johnnies to put away Syracuse, who held on for the victory 68-63.
- Co-players of the game honors go to CJ Fair and Tyler Ennis, who each scored 21 points. CJ was 9-17 with five rebounds in 36 minutes. Ennis was 5-12 including an impressive 10-10 from the free throw line, with six assists, in 39 minutes.
- Jerami Grant gets honorable mention with another solid performance of 14 points on 5-7 shooting, a team-high seven rebounds, and a couple great highlights in 34 minutes.
- Trevor Cooney evidently played 27 minutes in this game. He has three rebounds and an assist to show for it. That's. It.
- Michael Gbinije. We need to find a way for you to be effective on this team. Let me know when you figure it out.
- D'Angelo Harrison (no known relation to BH) scored 21 points on 6-19 shooting. Also notable, he scored St. John's's (is that grammatically correct for possessive St. John's?) only three point goal.
- That Johnnies three-point percentage works out to 6.7%. But, who's keeping track?
- The teams tied at 33 rebounds.
- Syracuse is still struggling to find its free throw shooting since returning from Maui; 19-28 in this one for 67.9%.
- This officiating crew of Karl Hess, Michael Stephens, and Roger Ayers really gave this a Big East feel. And of course frustrated Orange fans.
With the win, Syracuse improved to 10-0 on the season, and earned a #2 ranking in both polls released on Monday.Up next is High Point University on Friday, former Big East foe Villanova the following Saturday, and Eastern Michigan on New Year's Eve, to round out the non-conference schedule.
Labels: Basketball, Big East memories, King Karl, Madison Square Garden