![](http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/file-172-.jpg")
Lost in the hoopla of Syracuse University men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim’s 903rd career victory Jan. 2 was the fact that the Orange’s 78-53 romp over Rutgers was SU’s last Big East Conference opener, ever.
Big East basketball will still be around in 2013-2014, but it won’t include Syracuse and Pittsburgh, which are heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference. West Virginia is already gone, having left for the Big 12 this season. And in the next few years, Louisville and Notre Dame are also leaving for the ACC, while Rutgers is bolting to the Big 10.
Meanwhile, the league’s seven non-FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) schools, all Catholic institutions, announced in mid-December that they’re leaving the Big East to form a new conference for 2015-2016. So add DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova to the soon-to-be-departed list.
So from the opener against Rutgers to SU’s final Big East Tournament game in March, this will be a season of lasts for the Orange in the Big East. And one last thing the Orange would like to do is win its 11th Big East regular-season title, and third in four years.
“I’ve won two already, just to win three out of four would be really important to me,” senior guard Brandon Triche said. “It just shows the type of team Syracuse is. The last four or five years, we played pretty well in the Big East and we’ve been able to make a lot of noise. It’s sad that we’re leaving and pretty much the Big East breaking up, but it was going to happen sooner or later.”
Triche grew up in Jamesville, and his uncle, Howard, played for the Orange from 1984 to 1987, when the Big East was growing into college basketball’s best conference. No one on this year’s team is more aware than Triche of the impact the Big East has had on Syracuse basketball, and vice versa.
“The Big East is an incredible conference, the toughest,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why I came to Syracuse. If Syracuse was in the Middle Atlantic Conference, then I probably wouldn’t have chosen it. I knew SU being in a conference with a lot of elite teams would ultimately make me better as a player.”
As it’s currently constructed, the Big East remains the strongest conference in the country with six top 25 teams in the AP poll (as of this past Sunday, Jan. 6): No. 4 Louisville, No. 7 Syracuse, No. 14 Cincinnati, No. 15 Georgetown, No. 21 Notre Dame and No. 24 Pittsburgh.
Entering conference play, the Orange had the most wins in Big East play with 355; Georgetown was second with 324. SU has a record 10 Big East regular-season titles and a league-best 14 trips to the Big East Tournament championship game, with five tournament titles (1981, 1988, 1992, 2005 and 2006). “Everyone knows it’s the last one,” said SU senior forward James Southerland. “We want to win it all. Not only the Big East, but the NCAA.”
After defeating Rutgers Jan. 2 and the University of South Florida on the road this past Sunday, the Orange is off to a 2-0 Big East start. After playing at Providence Wednesday, Jan. 9, the schedule gets more difficult with games against Villanova (at noon on Saturday, Jan. 12, at the Carrier Dome), at Louisville Jan. 19, and at home against Cincinnati Jan. 21.
“We can compete with anybody,” SU point guard Michael Carter-Williams said. “If we play smart and play Syracuse basketball, I think we can beat anybody.”
Of course, the Orange has a pretty good weapon on its sideline in Boeheim, who on Jan. 2 passed Bobby Knight to move into second place on the all-time Division I victory list. The only coach ahead of Boeheim is Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, who has 941 wins (and counting).
After overtaking Knight, Boeheim repeated what he has said several times as he has passed the likes of Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith and now Knight on the all-time list. “To me, this game is not really about numbers. It really isn’t. It’s not how many points you score, how many assists you get. It’s what you do, what your team does,” Boeheim said. “To me, the numbers are not the story. The story is the players that I’ve been able to coach. The coaches I’ve worked with. The coaches we’ve competed against all these years. So many great coaches, so many great games.
“It’s those games and those battles that I think about,” he added. “Unfortunately, I think about the losses too much. But someday, I’ll maybe get over that when I get really old, which isn’t that far away.”
Knight handed Boeheim his most excruciating loss, the 74-73 heartbreaker against Indiana in the 1987 national championship game. But Boeheim won the other three games he coached against Knight, and finally got his national championship in 2003.
“I mean really, he just coached probably one of the—if not the best, close to the best—team that ever played college basketball {the 1975-1976 undefeated Indiana team},” Boeheim said of Knight. “He’s always giving a lot to the game and we’ve become friends over the years. He wrote me a great letter when we won in 2003. He’s just as good as anybody who’s coached this game.”
