Syracuse Basketball: It’s Time for Some Revenge!

On Friday at 12:15 pm, Syracuse basketball starts its NCAA tournament journey with a familiar foe, the Dayton Flyers, who knocked SU out of the tournament in 2014.

The date was March 22, 2014. It was the third round of the NCAA tournament, and a trip to the Sweet 16 was on the line. Dayton, the scrappy and highly underrated squad from Ohio, had Syracuse basketball on the ropes. With just seven seconds left, the Flyers were clinging to a one point lead, 54-53.

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Dyshawn Pierre, then a sophomore, now a senior, was at the free throw line with a chance to extend the lead to three. He made the first free throw comfortably, but missed the second and Syracuse got the rebound. Tyler Ennis, the freshman phenom for SU, dribbled the ball up the court.

You could just feel the confidence he had. Ennis, the same hero who iced the game against Pittsburgh with a 30-foot heave, was clearly going to win it again for Syracuse basketball and dash the Cinderella hopes of Dayton.

He got past half court, dribbled to his right, and found some open space behind the 3-point line. As the shot went up, everyone in the arena held their breaths in anticipation of SU pulling out yet another close game in a season full of them.

CLANG. The shot hit the back rim and bounced off. Syracuse basketball, a 3 seed, had lost to the 11^th seeded Flyers. Dayton would go on to win their Sweet 16 game and make the Elite Eight as an 11 seed, proving that the committee clearly got their positioning wrong. Syracuse went home, and would later lose Ennis and Grant to the NBA draft.

Two years have passed. Though some of the faces have changed, some have remained. Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije were both on that 2014 squad that saw heartbreak at the hands of the Flyers. In fact, it’s the last NCAA tournament game that either of them and SU as a team have played in.

So to say that there is revenge on the mind of Syracuse basketball is a fairly accurate statement. Compound that with the blatant disrespect Syracuse has received from some members of the media, and it’s clear that SU will be playing with a very large chip on their shoulders.

Will it be enough to turn the tables on Dayton and pull the upset? Only time will tell. One thing is for certain though, if the game is close at the end, which I expect it will be, the team needs to rely on Michael Gbinije this time. Unfortunately, Trevor Cooney has proven over the past two years that he just isn’t the clutch shooter we all wanted him to be.

Next: A Brief Look at the Dayton Flyers

Gbinije on the other hand, has been absolutely dominant this year and has single-handedly kept the Orange in multiple games. He needs to be the man with the ball in his hands in crunch time. And if it does come down to another last second heave, this year’s result will be different. I can feel it. Gbinije is hungry. He’s ready to prove that he is the man for Syracuse basketball.

On Friday, it’s time to get some sweet, sweet revenge on those pesky Flyers, and Gbinije is going to lead the charge.