The Otto-Man Empire Is In The Throes Of Expansion

New York? Annexed.

New Jersey? Annexed.

Connecticut? Annexed.

Florida? Annexed.

Massachusetts? Annexed.

New Orleans? Annexed.

Honestly, we're running out of places that are considered part of the Syracuse City-State and Otto-Man Empire and therefore don't count as road games when we play there.

Jim Boeheim had heard your clarion call and is answering it full blast.

As you heard, we're headed to San Diego next season to play the San Diego St. Aztecs on a mother-f***ing boat.

If that's not enough frequent flyer mileage for you, the Orange will go a little further to Hawaii in 2013 for the Maui Invitational.

And now SU play-by-play man Matt Park is dropping hints that the Orange might take part in the Battle 4 Atlantis in 2014, a four team tourney played on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

All of a sudden, "Syracuse never leaves New York until January" just isn't gonna cut it anymore. Time to step up your game, folks.

"Syracuse hasn't left the Continental United States all season. Pathetic."

"Syracuse hasn't played a game outside the Northern Hemisphere yet. Won't serve them well come tourney time."

"Syracuse hasn't played a game outside of the Pacific Time Zone yet this season." - ESPN, Nov. 10th, 2012.

So how and why is this happening all of a sudden? I have some theories...

Jim Boeheim is using the non-conference schedule as a way to check out possible retirement locales. San Diego, Hawaii and the Bahamas sure fit. And if we play our Big East-SEC Challenge game against Florida again, well, that'll seal it.

After everything that happened this season from Bernie Fine to the drug violations to Fab Melo's academic issues, Gross found his opportunity to pull rank on the one guy he couldn't...Jim Boeheim. With "hand" for the first time, Gross started booking Syracuse in all of these high-profile preseason tournaments with TV exposure and told Jimmy, "if you don't like it, leave." And the game of chicken began!

Jim Boeheim has, in fact, discovered Twitter. After doing a search for Syracuse, he saw enough comments from ESPN folks bashing our early-season schedule to make him reach for the phone. "Get me San Diego! Pronto!"

Colgate started asking for home-and-homes.

If Jim Boeheim can earn 10,000 more frequent flyer miles, the family flies for free to Australia next year. And Juli really, really wants to go to Australia.

Any others?

(Seriously though, this is good for the program. Gets that perception from off our backs, hopefully, and keeps us among the elite teams because we're acting like one)