On Monday, most folks had Syracuse at the No. 5 team in the nation in their polls. Not Gary Parrish and his fauxhawk. They had Syracuse 6th. Behind two-loss Duke. Which was weird.
Syracuse fans voiced their concerns to Parrish and his fauxhawk. Interestingly enough...he was listening.
Emails and Tweets including those words started arriving Sunday shortly after I updated the Top 25 (and one), and they haven't really stopped. I ignored them for a while, then started looking at it from every angle. And what I've found, I hate to admit, is that you guys are right, that there's no real way for me to justify Duke ahead of Syracuse.
Parrish and his fauxhawk concede what I figured was the case. He had Duke way ahead of Syracuse when the Orange lost to Pitt and although the Orange worked their way back up the rankings, he left Duke ahead because, well, that's where they were in his poll and they hadn't given him reason to drop them.
And though I suppose I could argue that losing a home game to No. 8 Pittsburgh is worse than losing road games at No. 18 Wisconsin and No. 23 Georgia Tech, I'm not sure I believe that to be true. Thus, I acknowledge, that what I should've done after Syracuse's win at West Virginia was jump the Orange over the Blue Devils, put Syracuse fifth and Duke sixth, then debated whether to put Syracuse ahead of Villanova, too.
Good work, Gary Parrish and his fauxhawk. And good work to Syracuse fans like theNYsportsguy for fightin' the fight. Now...let's not lose to Marquette and make this all for naught.