Cuse Country

I grant that being #2 in the AP poll — so close to glory we can taste it — is more exciting than the Coaches poll relegating us to #3 (that’s soooo last week).  However, it’s worth noting that SU received a solitary glorious FIRST PLACE VOTE in said Coaches poll, and it behooves me to rain praise upon the visionary genius who bestowed the honor.  Only problem?  The coaches’ ballots appear to be secret so there’s no way for us to know who it is.

I imagine this is the first time a coach has voted for Syracuse as the #1 team in the country in nearly 20 years. I wish we could get his ID somehow.  Anybody out there know how to get this info?  Boeheim is one of the 31 voters again this season, representing the Big East as he often does, so we can rule out a fellow Big East coach with an in-conference bias. [I'm assuming here that Jim is prohibited from voting for his own team. Even if he isn't we can also assume he'd rather gouge out his eyes than vote for Syracuse as #1.]

So there are 30 candidates. They are as follows:

Mike Adras, Northern Arizona; Dana Altman, Creighton; Tommy Amaker, Harvard; Tevester Anderson, Jackson State; Ronnie Arrow, South Alabama; Randy Bennett, Saint Mary’s; Eddie Biedenbach, North Carolina-Asheville; Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Rick Byrd, Belmont; Charlie Coles, Miami (Ohio); Steve Fisher, San Diego State; Greg Graham, Boise State; Rob Jeter, Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Billy Kennedy, Murray State; Billy Lange, Navy; Dan Leibovitz, Hartford; Fran McCaffery, Siena; Mike McConathy, Northwestern State; Bob McKillop, Davidson; Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph’s; Ron “Fang” Mitchell, Coppin State; Matt Painter, Purdue; Tom Pecora, Hofstra; John Pelphrey, Arkansas; Mike Rice, Robert Morris; Doc Sadler, Nebraska; Herb Sendek, Arizona State; Scott Sutton, Oral Roberts; Bob Williams, UC-Santa Barbara; Gary Williams, Maryland; Doug Wojcik, Tulsa.

There are some regional suspects, like Fran McCaffery at Siena, Phil Martelli at St. Joseph’s, Tom Pecora at Hofstra, or even Tommy Amaker at Harvard, with his former Big East ties. There’s also Gary Williams down at Maryland, who’s career path used to be constantly compared with Jimmy’s and who I believe is friends with the Boeheims (don’t quote me on that). Then again, anyone who is friends with Jimmy would know that the last thing he wants is first place votes.

There’s really no way to know. My guess? Ron “Fang” Mitchell at Coppin State. Why? I think you know why.

**********

In other poll related news, I clearly am way off my ACC-hating game. Otherwise I would have noticed ahead of time what the P-S mentioned yesterday:

UNLV moves into the poll at No. 23 giving the Mountain West Conference three teams in the Top 25, one more than the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It’s true, the ACC is down to Duke at #7 and Georgia Tech at #20. I hereby give my long overdue reaction to the ACC’s resounding mediocrity this season: HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!

Granted this isn’t a banner year for the Big East either, at least in terms of depth. But Syracuse and Villanova have locks on #1 seeds at the moment, and with West Virginia and Georgetown lurking, there’s still an outside chance of the league matching last season with three #1s, should KU/UK slip up. With that kind of strength at the top, no one will talk shit about the Big East when selection day comes and we only get 5 or 6 teams in instead of 8 or 9.

Speaking of Kansas, it’s kind of hard to explain the kind of emotions something like the following situation elicits when you’ve been dating a Jayhawk fan for over two years:

How did this happen? I’m probably semi-delusional and sort of projecting, but it seems to me that Kansas has had a massively higher profile in the Syracuse world than I ever could have expected two years ago. First they have the nerve to win the Championship for the first time in ages, during a year that Syracuse misses the Tournament; then we have to play them in KC the following year — the first time since the 2003 championship game; and now there they sit at #1, the only remaining obstacle to a glory we haven’t experienced since 1990. Syracuse has officially surpassed all 345 other teams in the country, and only one remains.

Of course it had to be Kansas.