Brent Axe and some other blogger.

After countless hours on the air at Syracuse's The Score 1260am "On The Block", and all those hours being simulcast on Time Warner Cable, Brent Axe is leaving his show. While he's not traveling too far (becoming  a "community engagement specialist" at Syracuse.com) he still won't be on the air every day like he was. And so, because of that, we say congratulations on many stories broken, interviews given, callers taken, e-mails read, and opinions broadcast. So we just wanted to take a few seconds here at Orange::44 to say thanks for all the entertainment and for inviting me on the program the many times over the years to talk sports or the law. And also for all the times in person and on the phone we talked about sports and other things. We look forward to still seeing you around the Dome and maybe one of these days at the bar to buy you that beer. But the radio listeners, Mookie lovers, and advocates of MANTOMAN defense have all lost. But at least you won't be leaving completely and we wish you nothing but the best.

Marrone should have some more tricks up his sleeves this season.

I'm briefly checking back in to mention a couple quick things. Football is a bit over a month away and we here at Orange::44 are already jonesing bad for it. While we will have our usual in depth preview articles that we always do come the middle of August, I was asked by the College Football Zealots to do a preview for their great site. They have already torn through many of the teams that make up the BCS and now Syracuse. You can check out my early preview here. Also check out the other previews on their site. It is a must for college football fans.

We also want to give a big congratulations to SU's own Bud Tribbey who was nominated for the 2010 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team. Apparently the "most prestigious off-the-field honor in college football", we couldn't be happier for Bud. Syracuse Football has always done a lot for the Syracuse community as a whole and it's nice that an exceptional student can be recognized for that work. Good luck and congratulations to Bud. The full information about the award and the other nominees can be found here.

Orange::44 is still on our standard summer relaxed schedule for new content (unless someone in the Big East catches a charge), however we'll be back very soon. We have our standard Big East Prospectus planned for next month, along with the standard coverage of the start of the new season. John will be back with his Monday Morning Quarterback column, and we will both be back with new podcasts in the coming year. I'm sure I'll rejoin Sean of Nunes/Magician on the airwaves again as well. It should be another fun year in store for Orange::44 and you fine readers. Until then, enjoy your summer.

Five years, still no name on the header.

It is no small feat. Considering that this is the internet age of “what have you done for me lately” and the pursuit for the latest and coolest thing, anything lasting online past a year is probably a fairly big deal now. Yet we here at Orange::44 have endured. Not only that, but it has seen a complete turnover at the top, which seems kind of stupid for something as trivial as a sports blog dedicated to Syracuse University Athletics. Yet it happened. Because it has been five years we just can’t gloss over it.

“The Glaude”, Matt Glaude to be exact (now at Hoya Suxa), started this whole internet affair back on March 12th of 2005. Seems like forever ago at this point. I was in the home stretch of my senior year at Syracuse, loving life as the basketball team was cruising with Gerry McNamara and Hakim Warrick rolling through the Big East. Then the Catamounts ruined my March, and the first part of my April as well. Gus Johnson just HA HAAAAAA’ed all over my dream of a long NCAA Tournament run my senior year. I mention all of this for one reason, that a big part of me moving on with my senior year was Matt Glaude’s musings on the subject and Orange::44.

I met Matt my freshman year and I’d like to think we had a friendship based on mutual respect but I’m guessing he thought I was a dumb freshman and I knew him as a cool senior who had his act together. Every so often he’d come back and I’d see him and we’d talk but it wasn’t anything earth shattering. Then he started this notebook. I read it often, and often I laughed my ass off. Then he put out an open call to write for Orange::44. In April of 2006 since I still lived in Syracuse at the time I figured what the hell, I’ll write for this blog thing, whatever a blog was. I joined up with a couple other people and somehow I was the one to last. It’s especially interesting since I was probably the least funny one and I’m also guessing I had the worst grammar at the time.

I eventually went off to law school, so the grammar got better. Syracuse eventually got worse at a lot of things, so I got bitter. Somehow Matt let me keep going. I eventually wrote more and more and he wrote less. Finally one day he wanted to scrap the whole thing and I wanted to keep going so instead of moving on to something else, I asked him if I could take over this site. He agreed. He moved on to speak of the evils of Georgetown and I kept going here. Since November of 2007 I’ve been at the helm of this thing and it’s been pretty great. Occasionally I’ve enlisted my good friend John Brennan to write some things, but it’s mostly been me plugging along.

Rarely do you go five years without some pretty notable memories from your time doing something. Because of this blog I’ve been interviewed by Brent Axe on The Score 1260 in Syracuse, Matt McClusky on WNER 1410 in Watertown, and yes even The Daily Orange. I’ve stirred some stuff up on occasion, and had a dust up with a certain former beat writer. And in between we’ve seen some extraordinary moments in Syracuse sports including a six overtime game win over a rival, a big time win over Rutgers in football last year, and a game tying goal with four seconds left in the National Championship, to go on and win two back to back.

But it isn’t just games we write about. Over the long history of Orange::44 and the over 1,100 articles published we have covered a lot of topics. They range from coaching changes, uniform changes, curling, the National Spelling Bee, various tragedies, holidays, Big East Tournaments, campus projects, campus events, television and movie references, and other items of interest to Syracuse fans and alumni. I’ve discovered the joy in both the mundane moments, along with the spectacular and lucky ones.

Things have changed since we started. When this started Facebook was barely taking hold, no one used Twitter, and no one did videos or podcasts really. To “break news” I got a text message from someone in the know, and then went from there. While bloggers generally have a bad wrap for not being held accountable, we at Orange::44 tried to uphold a higher standard by always using our real names and providing general responses to critical feedback, as well as trying to confirm things we said that we were reporting to be facts as best we could. I hope that has been clear through the years. When we weren’t being ridiculous on purpose that is.

Because I’ve taken off a couple years from the celebration of the anniversary of this notebook I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out some of my favorite articles over the past two years. I pointed out some of the best from our first two years here, and celebrated our third birthday here, but we’ve done a lot since then.

Coaching Rumor of Interest
This article blew up my blog for a while and got me intertwined by Donnie Webb, the former football beat writer for the Post-Standard. It resulted in my writing this open letter to him as well. I maintain I had enough sources at the time, and so did Brent Axe, who stated it on his show as well. Either way, it still remains one of the most commented item on this blog.

The Inaugural Big East Blogger Roundtable - 12/3/2008
While this isn’t an article, it was the first time we put several well known Big East Bloggers together in a roundtable online which was a really good time for all of us I think. I’ll have to do that again sometime I guess.

Sleep: That's Where I'm A Viking!
Part of our catalog here is occasionally just posting a picture with a small paragraph because the photo does most of the work. In this case a good friend of mine just happened to be in the right place at the right time to get a picture of a sleeping Greg Robinson leaving town after being fired. We’ll miss you for your press conferences and awesome sayings, but not for the coaching.

The Official Hoya Hater Certification Test
I may hate Connecticut with a burning passion, but even I know what rivalry pays the bills around here and for Syracuse fans. I developed a test for the big game in the Carrier Dome in February of 2009 to illustrate the pretenders from the true haters. I think it truly works. You be the judge.

The Glaude Dancing
This one isn’t even an article. It is our good friend Matt Glaude celebrating a Syracuse trouncing of Duke in the National Semi-final game in Boston in the 2009 NCAA Tournament. He was too busy dancing to the music to notice I snuck in the filming. Here’s hoping he does the same in a parking lot in Baltimore in May. A moment of true jubilation… and booze.

Troy Nunes Is A Podcast Magician
Sean from Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician and I had been doing a back and forth Q&A for a long time. Then we decided to try it in podcast form. From the comments we’ve gotten you loyal readers seem to enjoy it as well. Frankly I am not quire sure that many other people could just yammer on for around 45 minutes on a somewhat regular basis about Syracuse like we do. We do it so you don’t have to.

Carrier Dome Beer Public Service Announcement
Orange::44 Correspondent John Brennan and I look good in suits. We also both have law degrees. I guess that’s why it seemed natural to stage our own video in the wake of the anti-wave video the SU Blogosphere took part in. The result was our video advocating that the Carrier Dome return to letting individuals purchase four beers at a time. It didn’t work, but hey Pat Campbell retired. It was clearly the public pressure we put on him.

Interview With Rich Kimball, Maine Play-By-Play Announcer
We are used to doing Q&A’s with lots of blogs around here. But it isn’t often we get to do one with a genuine professional. Rich Kimble, the radio man for the Maine football team was nice enough to respond to my questions. Hat tip to my good friend Chris Sedenka for setting it up for me.

The Tampa/DC Travelogues
Part of the attraction of blogs is getting a different experience than you would from reading the game recap in a paper. As much as I enjoy seeing games I also enjoy traveling. When they combine good fun is usually had. I traveled to Tampa to see Syracuse take on Florida and John traveled to DC to see Syracuse play Georgetown. Often the best stories happen around a game even if the game is great itself.

It was hard to pick some of my favorites, but that is just a small sampling of some of the momentous occasions over the past couple of years.

I do want to give some thanks and shoutouts as well. First and foremost I have to thank Matt. He issued his thoughts on starting this blog a couple of weeks ago here. It’s vintage Matt, as you are now used to at Hoya Suxa. He’s always been hilarious, but he’s also a really nice person, devastatingly funny, and very sharp. I’m grateful he had enough faith in my so-so writing abilities back then to let me come aboard and then take over. It was against most of his inclinations I’m sure. I also want to thank John Brennan. We were acquaintances in high school and became great friends and roommates at Syracuse. He’s become the person I bounce various blog ideas off of and usually the one I’m at a game with. I couldn’t have continued with Orange::44 without his occasional and vital help and for that, along with the time since 2001, its thanks. I have to give it up to Sean at Nunes/Magician who has become an excellent blogging ally and occasional partner in crime. It started with mutual respect, turned into a weekly back and forth, and now a podcast. But he really is the best around right now and I’d like to think that our blogs complement each other well. I’m glad he didn’t tell me to take a hike when I first e-mailed him. To the other SU bloggers out there a big thanks. I’m looking at you Idiots, Cuse Country, Jameson, Cuse Orange, The Fizz, Chuck, Poncho, and all the others that have come and gone. You fine folks make it fun to banter, argue, and write in our orange world. Keep it up folks. Big thanks to Axe and Matt Mc not only for having me on their programs but just being cool people. I’ve talked to Axe many times in person and electronicly and he never had to be nice to me, John, or our little blog but he is and we thank him for that. Same with Matt. He had me on his show for lacrosse in the beginning. Not exactly a giant ratings getter. Thanks for continuing to have me on. I look forward to the live broadcast from Baltimore in May. Thanks to all of the Twitter followers out there who follow me, respond, and interact. It continues to make things entertaining, just to have fun talking to people about sports and Syracuse things. Finally thank you to the readers of Orange::44. Your time is valuable and that you take even a minute out of any of your days to stop by our little notebook and read what the hell I have to think about something a trivial as a basketball game or a coaching change at Syracuse University is humbling and amazing. I never got into blogging for the recognition but it is certainly much appreciated. To anyone else that has stopped by or I may have forgot, thanks for joining us and thanks for making this blogging thing interesting. Finally, thanks to all the crying children out there. You keep us in business every football season.

I got into blogging because I was bored and wanted to be more creative. I never thought it would evolve to what it has become today; an almost daily occurrence in my life. Occasionally I need to step back but I have yet to run out of things to talk about or do in terms of this notebook so I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. The original and continuing mission is to chronicle the daily disaster that is Syracuse University Athletics. We all know that isn’t stopping so neither will we. Another five years is too much to guarantee, but we’ll still be here, plugging along, doing it for free, advertisement free, and for little recognition or appreciation. That’s the way we like it. It’s a good time and a way to be creative and vent frustration. That’s all I ever wanted it to be. I’m grateful for all the extra that’s come along with that though. Thanks again for joining us here. UConn… you suck! Georgetown still sucks. And as always GO ORANGE!

The second best basketball tournament in the nation.

I've been too busy with real life, being mopey about losing to Georgetown, and making plans for the Big Dance to recap the past couple of days in the Tourney. However, Sunday and Monday we will catch you up will full recaps of the best conference in the country, as well as the standard postgame reactions from Georgeotown, some bracket analysis of Syracuse's road to be announced Sunday night, lacrosse news as Syracuse takes on Georgetown today, as well as a week long celebration all next week of Orange::44's 5th Anniversary, the oldest exclusively Syracuse blog on the internet. Big doings around here as we hunker down for a magical March run. So enjoy some green beer, watch Selection Sunday, and get ready for some cool shit going down from us very soon.

Couldn't be happier my prediction was wrong. GO ORANGE!

And for your Big East win pleasure...

Thank you seniors!

Congratulations on 800 wins Jimmy!

James Arthur Boeheim did something that few coaches have done. He has won 800 games. Luckily for Syracuse fans, he’s done it consistently over the years, winning a championship along the way, and earning the reputation of one of the best coaches in the nation. He does it by beating the University at Albany 75 to 43.

The leading scorer for Syracuse was Arinze Onuaku with 14 points. He also had four rebounds. He played well on the inside and was able to easily body other players around and get good position for shots. He played well and should continue to do so in the non-conference. God is he a horrific free throw shooter still though. First official shot of the season and he air balled it badly.

Wesley Johnson, Scoop Jardine, and Kris Joseph all had 12 points. Jardine looked good coming off the bench for Syracuse and played really well with the ball. Jardine and Johnson had four assists each. They all played well on the offensive end. Johnson also led the team with eight rebounds.

Freshman Brandon Triche had a nice game as well. In 25 minutes of play he had eight points, five rebounds and three assists. He also hit one of two from long range, to account for 50% of Syracuse’s three point baskets. He tried to force a lot of inside passes, and thus let the team with six turnovers, but that will happen with a freshman in his first game. It almost begged the question: Is this team too unselfish?

Andy Rautins had a coooooold day from the floor. He was 0-6 and 0-4 respectively. He also went down with an ankle injury and left the game and did not return. He will probably not play tomorrow night, but it looks like just a fairly serious sprain, and nothing lasting. His defense was superb before he left the game however.

The play inside was solid from both Onuaku and Rick Jackson. He had ten points and five rebounds. This was the best part of the game for Syracuse as outside shooting was null and void, and Syracuse was clearly bigger and stronger than Albany.

The shooting was ice cold from behind the arc. Syracuse was 2-17 on the day. Just a dreadful shooting performance. From the floor overall was not so bad, as Syracuse shot 48% from the floor. Additionally, they limited Albany to 27%.

The 2-3 Zone looked outstanding tonight, and that is something we did not see in the preseason. I’m glad we have scrapped the man-to-man defense for the moment as the zone is working much better and they seem to play it better. I’m sure the man defense will come as the season progresses, but right now the zone is the way to go.

This team looked pretty good in their opener, and far more serious than against Le Moyne in their preseason gaffe. Your full box score is here. Either way this team played well for Jimmy and he earned his 800th career victory, and all the well deserved accolades that go with a milestone of that magnitude. I saw 700, I saw 800, and I hope I can see 900 as well.

And now a new feature in the postgame reactions. A one tweet analysis from Orange::44 Correspondent John Brennan (@JBren): Great defense, good inside game, awful from 3, congrats Jimmy, and oh shit Andy.

We are serious about lacrosse... and tailgating.

It was only two weeks ago Syracuse won a record 11th National Championship. Some would say tenth, but even the NCAA is selling shirts that say 11 so we’re going with that. As promised I would have the mega awesome recap. Uniquely however, rather than boiling down the Final Four in my usual prose and text written in this space here (you can read my Final Four and Championship recaps), I bring it to you in living video and in pictures. We start with the recap from the people that brought you the games; ESPN. From SU Alumnus Dave Ryan and Quint Kessenich, they called another Final Four in the booth together and bring you the official recap.


Next, we hit the Youtubes to see some compiled game footage, as the miracle actually happened.


Then the fine folks at Inside Lacrosse got a camera in the hands of injured player Spencer Van Shaak to give you a behind the scenes look at the team.


The IL folks obviously had the access, so they got some great interviews of players. Be sure to check out the end of Jovan Miller’s interview. He throws some trash talk Quint’s way.
















Finally, we have the official SU Athletics’ DOCTOR Gross Propaganda Machine Celebratory Video. Trademark pending. Highlighted by the inspirational ol’ ball coach, the legendary Roy Simmons II.


Check out my personal photograph album from the weekend right here. Feel free to log on and comment if we’re actually friends on Facebook. If you feel like reading a couple great articles, both from Syracuse Alumni, check out Dave Ryan's recap here, and a great article on the Syracuse Mystique from Inside Lacrosse Editor John Jiloty here. It was an epic weekend and the best 30 seconds of lacrosse I have ever been a witness to. It makes it all the better that it was for the National Championship. The epic and magical 11th National Championship, making Syracuse the definitive elite program of the last decade and of all time. If you aren’t into Syracuse Lacrosse what are you waiting for?

Oh, and one more time… The Glaude!

Also, just to briefly change gears, NBC 3's Alex Dunbar did a great report on the progress of the Melo Center. Check that out here.

The Syracuse Orange Blogger Awards were this week. The SOB’s give out awards based on several categories for this past basketball season. The voters are members of the Syracuse blogging community and they also unveiled the awards on all of our various websites. The full wrap up and list of winners can be found right here at Nunes/Magician.

SU took a hit in the street cred department this week when Chris Basile, a walk on with the football team, was charged with felony burglary in the second degree and misdemeanor petit larceny. Awesome. He allegedly broke into a Winding Ridge apartment at 5:30 in the morning. Something more as the story develops.

I was on Matt Mc’s Sport Fix this past Monday talking lacrosse, lacrosse, and lacrosse. I talked about the Siena match, the overall bracket, I picked my Final Four, and even some upsets. Check the right side of the site and click on May 4th. I’m in around the 18 minute mark.

Finally, like I said I’ve been busy. I had finals all this week that took up all of my time. However I am done with Law School. In that spirit, this weekend is Syracuse’s graduation ceremonies. Therefore to all of my friends still at Syracuse that are graduating, and to all Syracuse students graduating this weekend, congratulations to you and best of luck to you in the future.

And Sunday is Mother’s Day as well, so thanks Mom. Love you.

Sorry folks, your team just keeps on losing.

This was without question the most important game of the season. Everyone, from fans to the media, agreed that this game was make or break for both the Georgetown Hoyas and the Syracuse Orange. Thus, it was time to get some sweet redemption at home, or roll over and decide to be back on the dreaded bubble that Syracuse has made home the past two seasons. It went to overtime, but Syracuse ended up on top 98 to 94.

By now you have probably absorbed this win, so I will keep it brief. But we have to talk about some things in this game, starting with Kristof! being ejected. Frankly, I had no clue what happened in the Carrier Dome because of course Mike Veley did not tell the crowd the exact ruling of the referees. I have watched the video of him and I cannot believe that he elbowed the G’town player on purpose. From what I have heard, after the Big East saw the refereeing between Syracuse and UConn, they decided to call games tighter, especially over the back and elbows. Honestly, Devendorf and Kristof! caught more elbows in that UConn game than they probably have all season combined. So because Kristof! accidentally caught someone with an elbow on a bad swim move, he was tossed early on. Right off the bat some intensity was down because our raging Belgian was not around.

However, Flynn was cool under pressure. Except for that turnover at the end of regulation that almost ended my entire weekend prematurely mind you. He finished with 24 points, mostly off making 15 of 16 free throws. But he hit them when they mattered.

Devendorf played extremely well, hitting 5-9 from long range, earning 23 points overall. He also limited his turnovers to 1. Now that is what I’m talking about.

Arinze Onuaku looked “back” after genuinely sucking the last several games. He scored 15 points and banged down low with anyone that was unfortunate to guard him. More evidence of his return was 13 rebounds on a decent Georgetown team.

Rick Jackson, benefiting from Flynn’s expert passing, earned 13 points, most of which were easy buckets.

Harris had nine points and five rebounds in an alright game that was not to distinguished either way. At this point, not being a liability is good enough when your team gets a win. He also basically sealed the game after passing to Devendorf the length of the court to get those two easy points in overtime.

Andy Rautins had 13 points and was the show in the first half for Syracuse. He shot 5-9 overall before fouling out.

Overall the team played well on offense, but they only shot 3% better from the floor. The key difference that allowed Georgetown to get back into this game was soft perimeter defense. Georgetown started checking good threes and they went in, such as one with ten seconds left to tie the game. Syracuse won this game on free throws though. Syracuse made 26-34 (76.5%). That is about ten more than Syracuse had made in either of the last two games. And luckily Flynn was the one that too the most, only missing one.

A quick note about the fan behavior mentioned by compatriot Matt Glaude at Hoya Suxa. I have to echo his apology to the Georgetown fans that made the trip. That is not the kind of behavior that you should tolerate at a fine collegiate sporting event and I would like to apologize on behalf of the students and fans of Syracuse University. That being said, it helps that you do not instigate either.

Overall this was a good game to be at. While the place went silent when the game was tied, and I felt sheer terror when Flynn turned the ball over with four seconds left, the outcome was happy, and at this point in the year it was good enough. Syracuse has successfully bounced back at home, and avenged a loss to Georgetown, who has had quite the epic free fall and will probably not make the NCAA Tournament pending an equally epic run in the Big East Tournament. Syracuse is still on their way to getting even more revenge against Villanova this Sunday. Hopefully Syracuse will earn another revenge home win, and use that to propel them down the stretch. A stretch that could easily end 3-1 after Villanova.

I’d like to thank all my friends for coming out as it was Alumni Weekend. Special thanks to John, Erin, and Alex for being excellent roommates for the weekend. Also special congratulations go out to Chris and Abby, two of my dear friends who got engaged at Faegan’s this past weekend. I wish them nothing but the best. So ends my week of terrific Big East travels. I hope you enjoyed following the games and various goings ons like I did. Hopefully the future will bring more travels to chronicle right here at Orange::44.

Again stay tuned for the first lacrosse article of the season, and check back for coverage of the Villanova game this Sunday.

A special congratulations goes out to all the graduating seniors at Syracuse University. Today Syracuse has its 154th Commencement Ceremony with special guest and speaker Bob Woodruff. Your time on the hill has concluded and allow me to welcome you to the ranks of alumnus or alumna. Special congratulations go out to my good friends Erin, Melissa (better known as OGMG), Alex, Andrea, Casey, Jeff, and Jon. Syracuse is a special place and you should feel lucky to have had all of the wonderful experiences in the place you have called your home away from home the last few years. I feel lucky to have known you. Best of luck in the future from Orange::44!

PS - Don't worry if you cry at your last Senior Sunday.

PPS - Happy Mother's Day Mom! I love you.