GOTTA HURT: Michael Carter-Williams bends down in pain after drawing contact during Syracuse’s 78-61 loss. (Getty Images)
EXCLAMATION! Montrezl Harrell celebrates after scoring a basket during Louisville’s 78-61 Big East title-clinching victory over Syracuse last night at the Garden. (
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It hurt to say goodbye this way.
It hurt Syracuse to say goodbye to the Garden last night, goodbye to a rollicking, shaking and quaking homecourt advantage it will not know anymore, goodbye to an orange-flooded crowd that embraced it as New York’s college team. Not St. John’s. Syracuse.
Jim Boeheim and his Orangemen wanted desperately to leave the Big East with one more everlasting memory, one more from the heart that would have echoed forever off the Garden rafters and awakened all the teary-eyed ghosts of yesteryear.
Boeheim and his Orangemen dreaded the thought of walking off that court and out of this Garden for the last time as a member of the Big East knowing that no one would remember who lost to Louisville on the heart-wrenching night the football money grubbers were forcing them to say ACC ya later.
Next stop next March: Greensboro, N.C. Not Orangesboro. Greensboro.
It hurt knowing they would not be cutting down the nets on the night their love affair ended with a 78-61 defeat.
It hurt knowing that after building a 16-point lead early in the second half, they could not prevent a furious Louisville comeback, the kind of comebacks mentally-tough teams that deserve a No. 1 seed at the Dance stage, and even the Garden cannot help you against 29-4 runs from a Rick Pitino team determined to defend its Big East crown.
In the blink of an eye, Michael Carter-Williams — think Louis Orr as a guard — was out of magic. James Southerland and C.J. Fair stopped mimicking Gerry McNamara from downtown.
The Cardinals imposed their will on both ends. Peyton Siva was an elite quarterback. Gorgui Dieng and Montrezl Harrell turned into “Never Nervous” Pervis Ellison. Against Louisville’s withering vulture press, the Orange panicked, and fatigued, and the “Let’s go Orange” chants fell on deaf ears.
The Garden had witnessed Boeheim and his Orangemen cut down the nets five times during their 34-year run as a charter member of the Big East. It knew him for a long while as an elite recruiter who every maddening March brought the likes of Pearl Washington and Derrick Coleman and Sherman Douglas and Billy Owens and a precocious freshman named Carmelo Anthony, along with a grimace forever etched on his face, but never an elite coach on a level with Looie Carnesecca or Big John Thompson or Rollie Massimino.
Look at him now — much less hair, many more wins. An amazing 916 wins, three Final Fours, and a national championship. A worthy adversary — even for Mike Krzyzewski.
But first, here was this historic and nostalgic night when the sights and sounds Boeheim and Syracuse never will be able to replicate or recapture in and around Tobacco Road were everywhere he turned. There is only one Garden, and there was only one Big East, and you only get one chance to leave a last impression.
Never mind that Boeheim, straining to drink from a half-full glass, has rationalized that basketball in the new Big East wouldn’t be in the same league as basketball in the new ACC.
Never mind that Boeheim wasn’t in the mood for sentimentality when someone asked what he was thinking walking off the Garden floor and out of the Big East.
“Just how badly we handled their pressure. … We’ve got to get ready and get to the airport. … Those were the thoughts I had,” Boeheim said. “All the rest of the stuff I’ve been thinking about for two years now, and I’ve said it all. I’m not going to repeat it all again tonight.”
It was fitting these two champion coaches, two dear old friends, would be the pallbearers carrying this Big East coffin out into the night. In the final minute, Pitino’s thoughts turned first to his kids, and his family, and finally, to the founding father of the Big East.
”Immediately, I thought of Dave Gavitt, and what he formed, and all of us, in some way or another, flourished because of Dave Gavitt,” Pitino said. “This was a special, special night.”
Boeheim began his marathon run to prominence while the American hostages were still being held in Iran, while Jimmy Carter was still president. He was on the wrong end the night Walter Berry made that last-gasp block on Pearl Washington. He was on the wrong end of last night.
In his house. Syracuse’s house. They wanted so badly to bring the house down, the famous house that didn’t want to say ACC ya later any more than they did.
Orange crushed.