When I last left the floor at the Xfinity Center, the Maryland men’s basketball team was celebrating a share of the Big Ten regular season championship. I had no idea that day would be the last time I would see that team play.
Two nights later, when I covered the NCAA Championship Game, and I had no idea that would be the last game I’d be courtside for this winter (Hofstra beat Northeastern 70-61). When I bought Shamrock Shakes from McDonald’s the next day, I was making mental notes of who was going to be the next week’s recipients.
The plug was pulled on this year’s NCAA Tournament that Thursday. The end of any season is heartbreaking; but in most cases, at least you’re aware that the final time you leave the floor was supposed to be the last game.
There are multiple reasons why I wanted to attend Syracuse University. The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications was the first, having been a breeding ground of broadcasting stars that included Marv Albert, Bob Costas, and Dick Stockton.
The second was the fact that the football team played major Division I football while the men’s basketball team was nationally ranked and competing in the Big East. The third was that there were student radio and TV stations that covered them alongside the “grown-up media.” For someone who had wanted to be the next Brent Musburger from when he was 14, this was the perfect blend.
The Orangemen (they’d change the nickname to a gender-neutral “Orange” in 2004) were fifteen months removed from losing to Indiana in the National Championship Game when I stepped on campus as a freshman; they still had two starters from that squad (believe it or not, stars stayed more than 1-2 years back then) in Derrick Coleman and Sherman Douglas (from Springarn High School in Washington, D.C.).
They had just signed top-flight recruit Billy Owens and were expected to contend not just for the Big East title, but for a national championship. They were also in the running to land point guard Kenny Anderson, so the sky was the limit.
Only Anderson rebuffed cold winters in Central New York for the warmth of Atlanta and Georgia Tech. Syracuse would lose to Illinois in the Elite Eight my freshman year (the Illini boasted Marcus Liberty, Nick Anderson and Kenny Battle), and that was as far as they’d get in the NCAA’s during my time there.
Despite winning the Big East my sophomore year (I painted my face orange and blue and was one of 33,015 on hand the day they beat Georgetown 89-87 in overtime) the Orangemen were bounced in the Sweet Sixteen by Minnesota. My junior year saw SU stumble as a No. 2 seed to Richmond 73-69; we were the first school to lose to a No. 15 seed and I received a ridiculous amount of grief from co-workers at a summer camp. I would get “Richmond remarks” for years, even after the Orangemen won the 2003 National Championship.
Douglas was long gone and so were Coleman and Owens by my senior year, and I was trading face-paint for a Marantz recorder and microphone as I was moving from watching the games in the stands to reporting on them from press row as well as the FM88 (now branded as WAER) and UUTV (now called CitrusTV) studios. There was still time for one more magical March: despite being seeded fifth, Syracuse would win the Big East Tournament, prevailing by three, four, and two points.
As I signed off at the end of our student radio broadcast, I was hoping to get another chance on-air during the tournament. Only I wasn’t on the schedule the following weekend and the Orangemen fell in overtime to UMass in “neutral” Worcester, Massachusetts. I didn’t know the Big East Championship was going to be my final game on the air; and what I wouldn’t have given for having to cut one more open or put one more scoreboard together.
Here’s to the next tipoff …
