Syracuse Athletics in The Last of Us Universe

The HBO series “The Last of Us” focuses on a post-outbreak America. After seeing some posts about final games before the show’s September 26, 2003 outbreak date, we wondered what that would have meant for Syracuse Orange athletics.

The good news is that Jim Boeheim and Carmelo Anthony would have won their NCAA Championship the previous spring. With society collapsing, it would appear that the Storrs premonition that Boeheim getting his first title would cause the world to end was only partially incorrect.

This would also mean that No Escalators is spreading false information online which is shameful.

Sure society might have collapsed, but hey John Calipari never won his national title and we didn’t have to sit through the Coach K retirement tour so it’s not all bad.

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Syracuse football would have played and won their final game 38-14 against UCF. Walter Reyes would have recorded the final Orange touchdown. Ohio State would be the final champion

The world collapsing in 2003 would have also meant no Women’s NCAA Championship for Syracuse.

No National Title for Coach Mac and Men’s Soccer.

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No National Titles for Justyn Knight.

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Of course, we could also pretend that Southern Ontario/Central New York became a quarantine zone and the Orange, Colgate, Cornell, Cortland, Ithaca and Oswego became The New Big East and Jim Boeheim shattered the record for career wins and NCAA Championships because Carmelo Anthony and Craig Forth were immune to the fungus. The duo spent the next 20 years leading Syracuse to titles including the last five with Buddy and Jimmy Boeheim starting alongside them.

After the last four games of this season I think 95% of us might roll the dice and sign up for this reality...what do you think?