The next decade of college basketball will determine how history will treat the 2003 NCAA champion Syracuse Orangemen. They're still cleaning the Superdome after the Orangemen exorcised coach Jim Boeheim's Final Four demons, and the question already has arisen: what do we make of these guys?
More specifically, what does Syracuse's championship mean for the fabric of the college game? Conventional wisdom has always held that experience wins championships, and the game has most often held that up, making heroes of the Miles Simons and Shane Battiers of the world. As recently as last year, Maryland lifted the trophy after fielding one of the most experienced teams in recent history. Seriously, looking back, how did people let the Terrapins sneak up on them? With a senior class of Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter and Byron Mouton and a junior class of Steve Blake, Drew Nicholas, Tahj Holden and Ryan Randle, how did anyone not pick these guys to win the title? And that's not even including Chris Wilcox.
But that's not really the point here. As more and more high school students and college freshmen bolt for the quick bucks of the NBA, experts are more eager than ever to sing the praises of guys like Arizona's Jason Gardner, who twice thought about going pro but instead went back to school. (The fact that he evidently only came back because of bad workouts is irrelevant.) Gardner, Luke Walton, Josh Howard, Hollis Price -- all of them are players that were expected to lead their teams to the promised land thanks to their wealth of experience.
All of these players fell short of the Final Four. That's alright, because Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich of Kansas -- the most decorated senior tandem in the country -- took their rightful place in New Orleans. Their senior leadership meant that the Jayhawks were certain to take home the title.
Then a funny thing happened in the championship game. Hinrich came out pressing his shot and made only six-of-20 field goals. Collison put forth a warrior's effort, pulling down 21 rebounds, but he and fellow upperclassman forward Jeff Graves forgot how to shoot free throws in the second half -- at one point missing nine in a row between them.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the court, youth reigned supreme. Babyfaced freshman guard Gerry McNamara -- complete with just a hint of a goatee that reminded me of what I tried to grow when I first started shaving -- started bombing away from three-point land as soon as he left the locker room, finishing with 18 points and keying the Orangemen's first-half offensive explosion. Fellow freshman Billy Edelin dropped 12 points, and freshman center Craig Forth put in six -- which is six more than he usually scores -- and blocked three shots. And that's not even mentioning that other freshman who starts for the 'Cuse. Carmelo Anthony was simply the best player on the court throughout the tournament. Some say he played beyond his years, but I tend to think that the playing field has leveled in the NCAA, thus making that comparison irrelevant. A precocious freshman can take a team just as far as a battle-tested senior.
Of course, senior leadership still carries a bit of value in today's game. Last year's Maryland team is evidence of that, and we can find even more without leaving the ACC. Duke's team this year featured two of the greatest recruiting classes of all time (the Williams/Boozer/Dunleavy senior class and the Redick/Williams/Dockery freshman class) and still couldn't make it out of the Sweet Sixteen. And you can blame a lot of that on the fact that the three seniors I mentioned have left Durham early for Chicago, Cleveland and Oakland. One could make a strong argument, if an obvious one, that a Duke team with Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer and Mike Dunleavy would have gone a lot farther in the tournament. Then again, all those guys already have rings.
Monday night's game, however, served to prove a point: a core of strong seniors is a big help to an NCAA championship contender. But a look at Syracuse's roster reveals only one senior -- role-playing guard Kueth Duany. The Orangemen may not be in line to repeat next season -- it's a fairly safe bet that Anthony will enter the NBA draft, where he won't drop out of the top five and may even go first overall if a non-Cleveland team wins the lottery. But Anthony, McNamara and their teammates made a big statement in New Orleans, and with the increasing rush of underclassmen to the NBA, the Syracuse method may be the best way to win titles in the coming years.
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