Syracuse Orange Blogger Awards: Best Syracuse-Related Online Video

If you haven’t won an Otto yet this year, your window of opportunity is closing fast. They’re flying off the shelves faster than the West Virgina NIT Championship T-Shirt. And now I have the honor of presenting the award for the ‘Best Syracuse-Related Online Video’.

Just a few years ago, the only ‘video’ you could see of Syracuse was nightly on SportsCenter’s Top 10 or by owning your very own National Championship DVD. Thanks to YouTube, we can (not that we do…) spend our entire day watching Syracuse ‘content’ online from game highlights to tributes to past teams to press conferences to vintage fights to people just generally making asses of themselves.

In a season that featured both amazing performances and general ridiculousness, it was fitting that the two nominees for best video represented these two aspects of the Orange and their fans.

Both DutchHart from Getting Back to ‘03 and Howie from Sports Night With Howie Mansfield nominated Paul ‘The Hustle’ Harris’ monster dunk to end the half against Villanova in March.

Harris drives from beyond the NBA arc to slam it home (with Will Sheridan narrowly avoiding the Royal Ivey treatment). I’m just waiting for next year when ‘Best Paul Harris Dunk’ is an SOBA category of its own. Beyond the fact that it was a great dunk, the video serves as a reminder that at least once in the 06-07 season did we have the ball with less than 20 seconds left and not turn it over to our opponent. I will now conveniently forget that we ended up losing this game to the Wildcats.

While Harris’ amazing performance was enough to get him nominated for this Otto, general ridiculousness won out in the end. The Otto for Best Syracuse-Related Online Video goes to:

NIT Bracket Challenge Winners

I don’t have time to update the brackets and scoreboard, but here are the final results from the Inaugural Cuse Country NIT bracket Challenge:

• 4th place: Matt D, with 37 points
• 3rd place: msprague, with 45 points
• 2nd place: Gross Incompetence with 47 points
• WINNER: Jesco Jr with 49 points

Each of the above participants will receive an NIT Apple Patch; Gross Incompetence will get a copy of the 1989 NIT program; and Jesco Jr will receive a brand-new copy of National Invitation Tournament, a book/photo essay about the history of the NIT. Complete descriptions of the prizes can be found in this post. One note: upon receiving the prizes, I discovered that the 1990 program is actually from the preseason NIT, so I tossed that out.

Oh, and the winner of the “Person who had the most points while also picking Syracuse to win it all” is Cuse Country’s own Ech1 with 35 points. Sir, your Winnebago will be on its way shortly.

Thanks everyone for playing! Let’s not do it again next year!

Syracuse Orange Blogger Awards – Favorite Game

It’s my turn to pass out an amusingly named S.O.B. Award! (Much thanks to Getting Back to ’03 for the handoff.) I get the honor of announcing the Otto for Favorite Game.

Not unlike Best Freshman and Best Senior, this category has a pretty obvious answer. Unless someone is biased towards a game they saw in person that happened to be very exciting, or if for some reason you really hate South Florida and get chills every time we beat them, my guess was that most would lean towards that final home game against Georgetown. That said, the old rivalry with UConn proved to have some legs even in a down year for the Huskies. Some voters still took enough satisfaction in seeing the pained look on Calhoun’s face to rank it above the win that should have vaulted us into the NCAAs. Here’s the rundown:

• DutchHart from Getting Back to ’03: “Georgetown”
• Howie from Sports Night: “Win over UConn at home.”
• Ray over at OrangeHoops: “Georgetown”
• Matt from Orange44: “Connecticut v. Syracuse. Syracuse finally won a game that I attended. The fact that Connecticut was terrible this year is pointless; the fact that the ‘Matt Glaude Streak of Defeat’ is over is of great importance.”
• My Cuse Country co-contributor Josh: “Georgetown, though a runnerup vote for Rutgers just because it was one of only two wins I saw in person (the other was UNC-Charlotte) and the atmosphere at the RAC is great.”
• My Cuse Country co-contributor Tim: “It’s hard not to pick the G’Town game here, although it loses points for the false hope it engendered.”
• Sean from Troy Nunes Etc: “The Georgetown game. I know, its easy to say now but I just had a feeling it was gonna be a good game for us. Home crowd, Georgetown, Syracuse was playing for their lives, Georgetown was sitting pretty…it was the perfect storm for a memorable victory.”

For the record, my vote goes to the Holy Cross game on November 27th. At that point we were 7-0 and looking great. From that point on the season was nothing but an endless shit storm of disappointment and heartbreak.

But amongst the serious votes, the tally is 5 votes for the Georgetown game and 2 for the UConn game in the Dome. So the winner is:

72-58 over the Georgetown Hoyas!

Laying the hammer down on an eventual Final Four team on Senior night is something worth savoring; I can’t argue with this pick, though Tim does bring up a good point about its bittersweet nature given what was to come.

Check in at 4 PM for the next S.O.B. award over at Orange44.

Jonny Flynn is probably better than Josh Wright

The McDonald’s All-America game was last night, and I just saw that a Jonny Flynn dunk made SportsCenter’s top ten plays of the night. It was the only highlight from the game that made the list. The dunk was pretty sick, reminiscent of Paul Harris’ against San Diego State in terms of form, position on the court, and where his opponent was. Except that Flynn is only 6 feet tall and he was dunking over Michael Beasely, who’s 6’9″ and was the overall star of the game.

I tried to find a clip on YouTube or on ESPN.com, but no luck. But if you catch any episode of SportsCenter today before a new Top Ten is formed with tonight’s games, you’ll probably see it. They usually run that segment towards the end of the hour, and I think Flynn was #3. The P-S ran a story on the game, and mentioned the dunk right off the bat. Apparently Flynn also hit a three with a minute to go to bring the east within 112-114, but they could get no closer. Flynn was the overall leader in assists for the game, but our other boy Donte Greene apparently did not distinguish himself.

Most importantly, Flynn is capable of throwing down monster dunks and hitting clutch threes. That in and of itself suggests he’ll be getting more PT than Wright next year.

Syracuse Orange Blogger Award for Ugly Ass Uniforms

Nike couldn’t be here to accept this award today, so I hope you won’t mind if I make a little speech on its behalf.

The ballots have been counted and the verdict is in: SU hoops bloggers really, really don’t like the new uniforms. Personally, I suspect our reaction has much to do with all the changes the unis have undergone since we won the national championship back in ’03. Why mess with success? True, we’d been rocking that style since the days of Ryan Blackwell. But this is the third change in four years. And it’s actually the second sartorial intervention this season; if you recall, some of the typefaces and other minor details were tweaked before the season began. Was it all really necessary?

If the Orange blogosphere is to be trusted, the answer is a resounding “Um, no.”

Here’s a sampling of the invective we directed at SU’s new, form-fitting attire:

Orange Ray of OrangeHoops: “Not nearly as bad as the promos led me to believe, but I’m still a fan of old school uniforms.”

Howie of Sports Night With Howie Mansfield: “I still hate them.”

Matt of Orange44: “Still hate them and I stick by this piece on the FanHouse.”

Josh of Cuse Country (represent!): “I think the white ones look good but the orange ones are tough to handle. And, I am still miffed that the word Syracuse appears nowhere on the jerseys.”

Yours truly: “They made Mookie look like The Thing (enormous, orange, etc.). Though there might be some intimidation factor there, I still think they look ridiculous.”

Sean of Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician: “Not as bad as I thought at first. All of this drama could have been avoided if they didn’t include those skin-tight undershirts with the uniform photos. You know…the thing no one wears anyway. That was what made the whole thing look silly. Without that, the jerseys are basic but nothing we can’t get used to.”

There was one lone dissenter in the group. DutchHart at Getting Back to ’03 apparently loved the new look. It takes guts (or blindness) to be the lone dissenter here, so our hats are off to him.

Next up: Best Syracuse-related Photo. Check it out over at Sports Night With Howie Mansfield at 3 p.m. EDT.

And the Otto goes to…

We here at Cuse Country have been at a loss for words since the SU hoops season ended last week (last month? a few months ago? it seems so long ago now…). But we’re coming back in full force through the end of this week, as we participate in the Official First Annual Syracuse Orange Bloggers Awards. Much thanks to Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Genius, your official home base for everything relating to the awards, for organizing everything.

Here’s our share: At 5 p.m. today, we’ll be presenting the results of the voting on the new uniforms. Tomorrow at 3 p.m., we’ll present the winner of the “Favorite Game” category. And on Friday at 3 p.m., we’ll hand out our very own version of an Oscar for the Best Syracuse-Related Internet Video.

So don’t forget to keep an eye on this space. And be sure to check out TNIAAM, Sports Night with Howie Mansfield, Getting Back to ’03, OrangeHoops and Orange44 for the rest of the awards.

a nod to Jeff Green, and a shudder about the future

Back in the last couple weeks of the season, when the debate over Big East MVP was still simmering, I suggested that it might be possible that Nichols not only deserved to be MVP but in fact was the league’s best player. I’m now willing to accept that I was completely wrong about that. I don’t know whether or not Jeff Green’s on-paper resume made him worthy of the MVP award, but I sure as heck know that he’s the league’s best player. What he’s done the past couple of games for Georgetown has been nothing short of outstanding, under the brightest possible lights and the toughest possible competition. He’s one of the more complete players I’ve ever seen, and his fundamentals are enough to make an SU fan cry. The discipline, willpower, and mental toughness that he and his Hoya teammates displayed tonight against UNC was a wonder to behold. They’re a borg-like machine on offense: executing you to death, never panicking, sticking to the plan no matter what, driving you into the ground. If I were Ohio State, I’d be shitting my pants right about now.

Which brings me to my point of concern. We’re witnessing the birth of a perennial national power this post-season, and they happen to live in our conference. UConn, Syracuse, and Pitt better get used to second place for a little while, assuming Green and Hibbert stay another year. Either way, given JT III’s youth and unbelievable coaching skills, Georgetown is going to be a monster for a long time, and it’s just another roadblock that SU is going to have to deal with. If we’re lucky, UConn will enter some sort of extended decline to make up for it…but I wouldn’t count on that.

*****

Don’t think I didn’t notice that the ACC got shut out of the Final Four for the second year in a row. Holla!

NIT Bracket Challenge Standings

It’s still anybody’s game! OK, well not anybody, but a lot of people still have a chance to win this thing.

Microcosm

The team starts slow, not playing their best, but getting away with it for the most part because the opponents are not playing that spectacularly; a couple of rough spots, nothing dramatic, but also nothing particularly outstanding from the Orange in this early period; then things start to get worse and worse, the fans cringe and worry; then suddenly, at the ‘tipping point’ when any more poor play would mean all will be lost, the team turns things around, starts playing much better, and makes a run; they play to their potential and look outstanding for this late burst, which looks like it will be enough to get them over the hump, but in the end they fall just short of their goal.

QUIZ: The preceding paragraph describes:

(a)    The Clemson game

(b)    The entire season

How it ends: Syracuse falls to Clemson

A chart showing who held the lead throughout the game, and by how much.

BANG IT HERE to see an archive of all the charts from this season.