Orange Watch: Syracuse reaped benefits of the ACC for five years now

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Syracuse is coming up on the anniversary of is official entry into the ACC. Mandatory Photo Credit: Brad Bierman, The Juice Online.

Item: Talk about a smart business move for financial survival. In this day and age of separation among the Power Five conferences, Syracuse, and the ACC included, with an Orange record 2017 intake of a $25.3M conference payout to the athletic department; and the Group of Six, Syracuse in its former life as an original member of the Big East’s eventually awkward football/basketball hybrid now the AAC and Big East, with SU earning “just” $11.8M in 2012-13 its last Big East season.

It seems like almost yesterday. July 1, 2013, the day Syracuse joined the then-60 year old ACC, complete with a ringing-of-the-closing-bell ceremony at NASDAQ’s Times Square headquarters attended by commissioner John Swofford, Jim Boeheim, and the newly-minted 15 school mascots among many other dignitaries.

With the Syracuse athletics milestone anniversary coming up on Sunday, we take a look back at some of the numbers and moments that stand out over the last five seasons:

4 = NCAA National Championships (2015 field hockey, 2015 men’s cross country, Justyn Knight 2017-18 cross country/indoor 500M champion).

1 = NCAA Final Four appearance (2016).

8 = NCAA Tournament victories in 11 games.

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1 = ACC Basketball Tournament victory (2018 over Wake Forest).

1 = Bowl Game victory (2013 Texas Bowl over Minnesota).

22 = Football victories in 61 games.

5 = Athletic Directors (Daryl Gross, Pete Sala (interim), Mark Coyle, Dan French (interim), and John Wildhack).

Worst Moments:
Basketball = losing 62-59 in overtime at home in Feb. 2014 as the undefeated (25-0), No. 1 team in the country to lowly Boston College, wearing a hideous, Nike-mandated, combination of orange jerseys and blue pants to boot.

Football = the eight game losing streak, over the final nine games, ending Scott Shafer’s three year run in 2015 with a 4-8 record.

Best Moments:
Basketball = the second half comeback from 16 down to beat No. 1 seed Virginia 68-62 and earn the 2016 Final Four bid.

Football = beating defending national champion and No. 2 ranked Clemson 27-24 under the Friday Night Dome lights in Oct. 2017.

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About Brad Bierman 848 Articles
Now in his sixth decade of covering SU sports, Brad was sports director of WSYR radio for eight years into the early 1990s, then wrote the Orange Watch column for The Big Orange/The Juice print publication for 18 years. A Syracuse University graduate, Brad currently runs his own media consulting business in the Philadelphia suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @BradBierman.