Conference Realignment: Notre Dame Finally Gets with the Program

The ACC scored the prize everyone wanted…the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

The inevitable has finally happened.  Notre Dame University has reached an agreement to join the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football and hockey.

It seems like every one and his brother who runs a conference has been sniffing around Notre Dame ever since this realignment business began.  For reasons I can’t quite fathom, Fighting Irish football is still recognized as a valuable national brand that everyone wants a piece of.  The Golden Domers, though, have steadfastly maintained they maintain their football independence for the sake of tradition (read: NBC’s money).

While the deal doesn’t make the Irish a full football member, it does require that they play at least five ACC schools every season.  The arrangement makes it easier for Notre Dame to continue to exclusively schedule BCS opponents at a time when the best programs are taking on more and more cupcakes in the scramble for BCS percentage points.  Notre Dame will now compete for the ACC championship or the ACC’s automatic BCS bowl berth.

50 in 50: SU Ranked In the Top 10

Over the last week, ESPN has been counting down the top 50 college baskeball programs of the last 50 years.  Using a formula devised by ESPN Stats and Information, each program was assigned a point value.  It’s a fairly comprehensive system, taking into account not only the obvious factors like national titles and Final Four appearances, but things like awarding points for 20 win seasons and high NBA draft picks as well as docking teams who receive NCAA sanctions.

The top of the list hold no surprises.  The University of North Carolina takes the number one spot.  UCLA, Kentucky, Duke and Kansas round out the top 5.  Many might take issue with the two all-time winningest programs being leap frogged by the Tarheels, but it’s important to remember that these rankings only take into account the last 50 years.  So, much of the work of John Wooden and Adolph Rupp is unaccounted for.  Overall, it’s hard to find much wrong with the system.  All-time rankings are a dime a dozen and all systems have their flaws.  This one, though, is the fairest I’ve seen.

Syracuse Basketball: The (7th) Best Job in America.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is happy as pie to hold the 7th best job in his chose profession.

I was just cruising the Internet and happened upon this ESPN article where Syracuse is rated the 7th best job in all of college basketball.

Not bad.

Despite being a one myself and having at least a passing respect for some others, I tend not too much much stock in what bloggers have to say.  They’re by and large not journalists or even columnists.  They’re mostly just people who can form a complete sentence and don’t flee at the sight of a bit of HTML.  Eamonn Brennan, though, has been one of the more tolerable.  Here’s what he had to say about the head job at SU:

Like Connecticut, Syracuse’s program is hard to tease out from Syracuse’s coach, the legendary Jim Boeheim, who has worked the Orange sidelines since 1976 — just a few years before SU won the first Big East title. Indeed, Boeheim has in many ways built this program, but by now, 36 years later, the Orange have so dominated the Northeast that it is almost impossible to imagine the program faltering when Boeheim eventually decides to retire. The Orange pack more people into home games — Syracuse has hosted crowds of 30,000 or more at the Carrier Dome 70 times since it opened in 1980 — than any other campus arena in the country.

NBA Playoffs: Is Kevin Durant the next GOAT?

OKC’s Kevin Durant had his eyes squarely on the prize.

I’ll admit to not watching all that much of Kevin Durant.  In truth, I don’t watch much NBA basketball at all.  My interest in sports is very much Orange tinted.  When football season rolls around, I only go out of my way to watch Syracuse.  The same with basketball.  So, when it comes to the professionals, the same applies.  I don’t really have a favorite team.  I root for whomever is currently employing a Syracuse alum.

It’s not until around this time that I really start to pay attention to the NBA.  This is the time when I start to get the sports itch, having been surrounded by baseball, hockey and NASCAR over the last two months since the college basketball season ended.  And now is also the time when the games really start to matter.  Conference championships are on the line and, with them, a chance to chase the ultimate prize.

I picked a good time to start watching.  KD has been an absolute animal in leading his Thunder over the Spurs.  The San Antonio might not have been the presumptive favorite that the Miami Heat are in the east, but no one would dismiss Tim Duncan and his crew as anything less than a formidable opponent.  They showed it in winning 20 straight.  They showed it in putting the Thunder in an 0-2 hole.  Then Durant showed that this is his year.  It’s his time.

ACC Bound: Reap What You Sow

Is the ACC ready for the Syracuse Orange?

It’s been well publicized that Syracuse is leaving the Big East and joining the ACC.  The Orange are expected to start ACC play in all sorts with the 2013 football season, but the actual timeframe is still in flux.

We all agree that the move is rooted in the desire for Syracuse to be in an established, stable BCS football conference.  The media rights extension between the ACC and ESPN provides roughly 16 million reasons to believe this was a good decision.  On the lacrosse front, it makes matchups with an old rival (Virginia) and a budding one (Duke) even more intriguing as they become conference contests.  And this is not to mention that slow and painful collapse of the conference formerly known as the Big East which would be much better off re-branding itself as Conference-USA 2.0.  Jumping the sinking ship that is the Big East was the right decision.