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#TNIAAMailbag: Desert Island Orange, Boeheim Book Titles, SU's Big Man Problem

In this edition of the mailbag, I answer questions about which SU basketball players I'd like to be stranded on a desert island with, what I would name Jim Boeheim's upcoming book and whether or not SU has a "big man problem," plus much more...

By Sean Keeley
Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

It's Friday during the off-season. Not too much to write about. So I called upon you to provide me with some questions so that I could think of answers. It's a little something we like to call the TNIAAMailbag...

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Call me crazy but if you've read this site long enough, you know where I stand on the issue. We're called the Orange. Orange should be out primary color at all times. I know, insane line of thinking.

We don't wear it at home because you're just supposed to wear your white jersey at home. You might even be required to, I'm not 100% sure about that. Honestly, if Syracuse just wanted to wear orange uniforms every game, I'd be fine with it.

Gray/grey/platinum can go f*** itself.

What's a Canisius?

Actually, I didn't know Canisius no longer had a football team, though I don't know a reason why I'd need to know about it in the first place. There's goes my dream of The Orange Griffin Trophy.

We never played Canisius in football, which I actually thought was surprising. You'd have thought there was a game from 1918 in there somewhere.

Before I delve into this one, I went down the mental rabbit hole of wondering how I ended up on the island with the former Syracuse players and I started thinking of a cruise ship. You know how they have cruise ships for rock bands and musicians (i.e. Kid Rock)? Why not a Syracuse version of that? Board a cruise ship to the Bahamas with a slew of former Syracuse basketball players, hang out, play some pick-up basketball with them on the deck and then watch them take on a team of locals when you arrive (home game for SU, obviously)? I'm not saying I'd throw down $700 to do that, but, I bet some people would.

And you're telling me Eric Devendorf, Jason Cipolla and Lawrence Moten wouldn't take that trip for a couple grand?

Anyway, so the cruise ship crashed and only myself and two other Syracuse basketball players made it. My hope would be that my island mates are Mike Hopkins (counts as a former player!) and Baye Keita. Hopkins is a bit of a nut and seems like the kind of guy you want to just accompany everywhere he goes cause he's got ideas, man. Seems like he starts a lot of sentences with, "Wouldn't it be fun if…" And of course, Keita not only has the same qualities but he's used to being a complimentary guy, so it's not gonna be an issue for him to collect wood and coconuts. Plus, he's really tall, so he can reach all the stuff I can't.

My answer to your question is another question. Why not?

My answer to my answer-question is another question? Why not what?

My answer to my answer-question to my answer-question is another question? Why not what who?

And that's the NCAA's original motto. Eerie, no?

You are brazen and bold when it comes to SU Football, sir. Then again, I suppose if anyone is going to be, it's Mr. SU Football.

(This is the part when you respond by saying, "Please, call me Steve SU Football. My father is Mr. SU Football.")

My W/L predictions for the 2014 SU football season are as follows...

W, W, W, L, W, L, W, L, W, L, W, W, W (Bowl game). Yep, that's a 9-4 season. Put that in your pipe, if you have a pipe, and smoke it. Or don't. That's probably not good for you anyway.

I couldn't give them to you yesterday because time doesn't work like that. I will give them to you today.

"Shut Up And Read This."

"Vermont Is The Worst State In America."

"Why Don't YOU Retire, You Moron."

"Life, Love & A List Of People Who Are Idiots."

"Big Bubba Boeheim's Italian Food Smorgasbord With Recipes & Recommendations For Real Foodies. Foreword by Guy Fieri."

Here's the thing. The "Hay is Never in the Barn" thing can be duplicated. Other running backs can pick that up and run with it. But BMK's Crazy Eyes? That's unique. That's special. Trevor Cooney can't do that. Plus, Trevor's too busy breathing out of his mouth to focus on his eyes.

We'll miss you most of all, Krazy Eyez Keita...

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So I got this tweet minutes after reading Mike Waters' mailbag in which he was asked a similar question. Benny swears he didn't see that and his question is unrelated so clearly something's in the air about Syracuse's recent lack of success with big men.

First of all, can we clarify this issue in terms of bring "recent." In spite of the way his career ended, Fab Melo was the Big East Defensive Player of the Year. Rakeem Christmas hasn't quite made "the leap" but maybe that has more to do with Rakeem Christmas than it does with Mike Hopkins. Baye Keita is an awesome player and fantastic athlete but his basketball skills were clearly limited. And as for DaJuan Coleman, dude's been injured for half his tenure…not sure what we really know about him yet.

Syracuse had a nice run of big men for a while there with Arinze Onuaku, Rick Jackson and Fab. But, you know, it's not like our big men were towers of power before that. We went through a fairly dry spell of underachieving and/or semi-talented big men under Bernie's watch for basically the entire 2000's.

I chalk up the issue to a weird timing of sorts. Syracuse happened to get three really solid big men back-to-back-back and may have another one in Coleman, but, he's been too banged up to prove it. Let's see how it goes next season when Rakeem Christmas has to put-up-or-shut-up, Coleman will hopefully be back and injury-free and Chino Obokoh will be really to get some minutes. If things aren't working for any of them by season's end, we can have a talk.

We'll see what happens. I think a lot of guys who excel at the blog level don't really know what it's like in the mainstream media. You need to be faster, bigger, stronger, have less common sense and less ethics. I don't know if he's ready for that. I think he could use another year to bulk up his word counts. Another season to get his #narrative in shape. But, it's up to him.

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