The big news this Saturday is that Billy Owens will have his jersey retired during the Syracuse-Marquette game. Between that and the fact that this is an immensely important game for the Orange in terms of their post-season fate, it's easy to forget that is, in fact, also Senior Day and we do, in fact, have a senior on the team.Ryan Cahak, who appeared in two games this year for the Orange, will be the lone current Orange to make the walk and receive some applause. Even though Ryan hasn't made many accomplishments on the court, he certainly did his part to help a depleted SU team prepare for this season.
"Some years, your walk-ons might not have played that much in practice, but this year they have to play the whole practice," said Boeheim, who called Cahak the team's hardest worker in the weight-room. "It's important that you have guys like Ryan who are willing to do that."
Cahak became an older brother/mentor to Syracuse's younger players such as Rick Jackson and Sean Williams.
Cahak received interest from "Marist, Maine and Coastal Carolina" but never got an official offer. Eventually, he ended up enrolling at SU where his Dad is the SU athletic program's director of media properties and he walked on to the team.
Cahak was apparently suspended earlier this year due to an "administrative matter" and I don't remember much about it. Shockingly, SU downplayed the incident and kept the details as quiet as possible.
Technically, there should be four seniors taking the long walk to midcourt but one way or another the other three are making different plans. Dayshawn Wright left in 2005-06 for "academic reason," Josh Wright left the team last December for more reasons than we could keep up with and walk-on Jake Presutti has another year of eligibility remaining and will return next year.
Lots of pomp planned for before and in the middle of the game Saturday. Hopefully we can continue the celebration afterwards as well.