Orange report: Getting inside

July 9, 2008
The Sports Xchange

Getting inside · Strategy and personnel · Notes, quotes

For the second consecutive year, the Orange wound up in the NIT. That wasn't any less disappointing to the players, but it was a very different crew in 2007-08. And a very different future may be in store in coming years.

The 2006-07 squad that lost in the NIT quarterfinals was a senior-dominated crew that left campus never having quite reached its potential. The 2007-08 team, on the other hand, was nothing but potential. By the time the Big East season began, injuries left Paul Harris as the only starter in the playing rotation from a year ago, and even he had switched from forward to guard.

Only seven scholarship players were available to Boeheim for much of the Big East slate. Of those, four were freshmen, one a sophomore, one a redshirt sophomore who missed last season with an injury, and the seventh a junior college transfer from that powerful European hotbed of Belgium. Conventional wisdom was that the team would have problems against deep, experienced squads.

Instead, the Orange became strong contenders for the NCAA Tournament after beating Georgetown at home on Feb. 16. That left Syracuse at 17-9, 7-6 in the Big East, with a victory over a top 10 team.

That's when the bus ran out of gas. Syracuse went on a three-game losing streak, capped off by a five-point loss to Pitt where the Orange shockingly blew an 11-point lead with less than four minutes to play at home. An opening-round loss in the Big East tournament knocked Syracuse to the NIT, and another blown lead against UMass dropped 'Cuse out of that tournament in the quarterfinals for the second year in a row.

Despite that, the future looks bright. Though Donte Greene's decision to turn pro after his freshman year deprives the team of one of its biggest offensive threats, everyone else is back next season, and with the return of Eric Devendorf and Andy Rautins, the Orange will have one of the deepest backcourts in the country. If Greene doesn't sign with an agent and decides to change his mind and return to school, Syracuse will enter 2008-09 as one of the favorites in the Big East.