Is This The Worst Week In Syracuse Athletics History?

by Sean Keeley on Nov 5, 2009 2:03 PM EST Comment 13 comments

At first glance, you'd say no. But if I asked you try and pinpoint another one that trumps it...it's tough, right? You can think of really bad days. There's been plenty of really horrible days. But entire weeks of suckitude? That's impressive.

The one thing to keep in mind is that we don't even have the right perspective at the moment to say this is one of the worst weeks ever. What is Syracuse football snowballs into something that can catch fire and goes to a bowl game? Then don't we look back at Mike Williams' leaving as a good thing? A Ewing-theory-esque blessing. And what is the SU basketball team uses the LeMoyne loss as motivation to improve and ends up making a nice run in the NCAA Tournament? Then we have to discredit this loss slightly, right?

Give you an example...in 2008, Donte Greene officially signed with an agent and Mike Williams' was initially kicked out of SU in the same week. Bad week! But we came to learn than we were somewhat better off without Donte and Williams' eventually returned (for a while) so you can't look back on that week as a truly bad one.

I did some digging in the archives and I think I found two recent weeks that seem to hold up as truly bad ones on par with this current week.

August 27th, 2007 - While playing for Canada, Andy Rautins tears his ACL, which would cause him to miss the entire '07-'08 season for SU.

August 31st, 2007 - With much excitement in the air, Syracuse promptly gets blown out by Washington, crushing the hopes of SU fans that this would be a good season. It wasn't.

September 6th, 2008 - Syracuse loses at home to Akron. Yes, Akron.

September 13th, 2008 - Instead of honoring Ernie Davis and The Express, Syracuse gets embarrassed on national television by longtime rival Penn State at home. Also on this day the Ernie Davis statue is unveiled...and it's discovered to be strewn with Nike logos and incorrect attire. The story becomes a national embarrassment and it takes months for the corrections to be made.

Amazing that #2, which I think is probably the winner, was also the same week The Express premiered in Syracuse. Of all the weeks, how did THAT one end up so terrible?

Can you think of any other weeks, either recently or from the past, that might be up for consideration?

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December 18 2004 – Syracuse hires DOCTOR Daryl Gross

December 21, 2004 – SU Football gets blown out by GT

In hind sight, this may be the worst week.

by ryanwk628 on Nov 5, 2009 2:31 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Fair dinkum

Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.

by Sean Keeley on Nov 5, 2009 3:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

8 days end of Feb - Beg of March 2002

Losing the last three games of the season, including the Jimmy B court dedication, and missing the big dance sucked. It was the apex of Shumpert/Williams gate and it was evident that Theus wasn’t gonna hang around. Not to mention the court dedication game loss was to g-town.

Even the post-script sucked because if you see the panoramic collector’s print of the dome during a basketball game (a la “the 48-yard line”), you’ll notice it’s from that G-town game, while we’re losing. Also after trying to save face by making a run the NIT, we lost to the blasted Richmond Spiders…again.

That night I ran outside of Shaw Hall with my 01-02 Bball poster, stabbed it onto the tree branch, and lit it on fire. Then the RA came out and made me douse it lest I get written up.

Or course the post-post script wasn’t bad, we won the Championship the next year.

The 'Cuse is in tha house, oh my God oh my God.

by StrawHatGuy on Nov 5, 2009 2:43 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Also, here's a reach-back for Sean.

How about the McNabb-led team that started 1-3 in 1997, lost Spotwood for the season, then needed a last-second pick-6 to beat Tulane to avoid going 1-4.

People who have hind-sighted affection for Coach P forget stretches like that.

The 'Cuse is in tha house, oh my God oh my God.

by StrawHatGuy on Nov 5, 2009 2:47 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

God I remember that

classic Coach P suckitude

Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.

by Sean Keeley on Nov 5, 2009 3:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Tebucky Jones had that pick six, right?

~K
"As the governor of Louisiana once said, the only way Chris Kelsay can lose his job is if he got caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

by Kurupt on Nov 5, 2009 5:32 PM EST via mobile up reply actions 0 recs

Mine's a little Simpler

Despite nothing else of relevance going on at the time I recall, I was the most frustrated I’ve ever been at an SU team when we lost to Pitt at home in 2008, which put us out of our misery in the pursuit to get back to the big dance

by bgood0310 on Nov 5, 2009 4:12 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

That was a bad one

Lots of frustrating hoops losses over the last 6-7 years

Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.

by Sean Keeley on Nov 5, 2009 4:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The week spent watching Ark make the finals

After the Moten non-timeout was pretty bad too.

The 'Cuse is in tha house, oh my God oh my God.

by StrawHatGuy on Nov 5, 2009 5:36 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Do we really need to do this?

Is it really necessary to dredge up all these painful memories?

Also, I can’t believe no one has mentioned Keith Smart yet…

Oops…too soon?

by DMF on Nov 5, 2009 6:22 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Too soon

But that would be one of the worst days, not weeks.

Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician - The Syracuse blog that cares.

by Sean Keeley on Nov 5, 2009 6:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

In reality

we lost a player who was gonna bolt after the season during a rebuilding year that has little chance of even breaking even and lost a game that dosent count for anything. Not that big a deal long term.

by ryanwk628 on Nov 5, 2009 8:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Agree

Still… how often can you have a football/basketball combo of bad news?

One sport doozies aplenty:

Some of you may remember a few people being arrested for rape in the early 1980’s following a BE tourney loss. Good times there.

The home loss to Navy in 2006 tournament.

Basketball probation.

In 1993, the football team lost consecutive games by a score of 92-0. Not exactly a crisp two games. Almost G-Rob-esque.

The 62-0 loss to Va Tech was a huge downer. Even G-Rob didn’t ever give up 62 points in a game. Of course, most people felt too sorry for him to keep pouring it on all game. Anyway, coming off the McNabb era…. just a giant symbol that things were not going to be the same.

by ezcuse on Nov 5, 2009 11:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs