Any time your team makes the Final Four, you deserve an A. Though Boeheim’s team may have seen a late season collapse, especially following the 61-39 loss to Georgetown, Boeheim did some of the best coaching of his career after that.
Did Boeheim make any mistakes? Sure, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he took Fair out of the game when he was the only guy scoring for us early, especially to put in Keita, Cooney, and Grant at the same time. Not surprisingly the offense went stale.
There were a couple of controversial calls that went against Syracuse. The first came with 1:40 left and Trey Burke appeared to push off Michael Carter-Williams with his right elbow, but Carter-Williams was whistled for a block.
The first important aspect of each trip under Syracuse’s Hall of Famer has been three successful national semifinal performances against the likes of Providence (1987), Mississippi State (1996) and Texas (2003) to move on to play in the title game
It will be a battle of four seeds in one half of the Final Four on Saturday when Michigan (30-7) takes on Syracuse (30-9). The two squads have reached this point of the NCAA Tournament through clearly different paths.
On this his 50th anniversary of attending Syracuse as a student, serving as an assistant coach then head coach, he’s been part of all four of the school’s Final Four appearances, one each decade since the 1970s (1975, 1987, 1996, 2003).