As he welcomed baseball fans to the Hank Sauer Room at NBT Bank Stadium during an open house in early March, Syracuse Mets general manager Jason Smorol said his staff is “interested in seeing what the Mets’ effect will be in Syracuse.” So far, so good. For the open house, the stadium parking lot was packed with cars. For Smorol’s annual Q&A in the Hank Sauer Room, the Mets (formerly the Chiefs) had to turn fans away because you couldn’t turn left or right without bumping into another fan. Then on March 26, the Triple-A Mets’ parent team, the New…
Author: Matt Michael
On July 29, Cooperstown’s National Baseball Hall of Fame welcomed its largest class of inductees since 1971 in front of the second-largest crowd in the history of the induction ceremony. An estimated 53,000 people crammed on the lawn and hills behind the Clark Sports Center, about a mile from the Hall of Fame Museum, to attend the induction of Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. In the news conference following the ceremony, Trammell said, “The second-largest crowd ever? That’s pretty cool.” Alan, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If next year’s induction ceremony doesn’t break the record of 83,000 for Cal Ripken…
As a kid growing up in Syracuse, Dan Tortora floated between the worlds of sports and entertainment, playing basketball one minute and reading comic books the next. The kind of kid, for example, who would have loved to see former Syracuse University basketball player Baye Moussa Keita and Cousin Itt from The Addams Family TV show at the same event. So Tortora, who hosts sports and entertainment podcasts across a variety of channels, decided to create an event where jocks and nerds can come together to meet their heroes and benefit a good cause at the same time. The inaugural…
Men’s Lacrosse The Syracuse University men’s lacrosse team’s quest to end an eight-year NCAA championship drought will open against upstate rival Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, May 13, 7:15 p.m., at the Carrier Dome. The No. 8 seed Orange (8-6) has won 11 national titles, but none since defeating Cornell in the 2009 title game. This sea- son, the Big Red (12-4) defeated Syracuse 13-8 April 10 at Cornell. Syracuse will make its 38th NCAA Tournament appearance and the 19th in John Desko’s 20 years as coach. The Orange is 29-3 in tournament…
Team composition and 10 more things you should know about the 2018 Syracuse Chiefs.
SU Orange football scrimmage on the horizon The Syracuse University football team will conclude its spring practice with a Syracuse Football Spring Preview for fans this Friday, April 13, at the Carrier Dome. The event, presented by radio station WTKW-FM 99.5 (TK99), will feature an offense vs. defense scrimmage, a player autograph session and an opportunity to purchase tickets to watch the Orange this fall. Gates open at 5 p.m., with the scrimmage scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Fans are encouraged to watch the scrimmage from Sections 105 to 126 along the home team sideline. Following the scrimmage, fans…
His team was finished, but Jim Boeheim wasn’t. As the moderator started to wrap up Syracuse University’s news conference following SU’s 69-65 loss to Duke March 23 in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Orange coach Boeheim realized there weren’t any more questions coming from the media and said he wanted to say something. Boeheim, who often comes across more critical than complimentary of his players, wanted the media members assembled in that room — and by extension the college basketball universe — to know that the defensive efforts that carried the Orange past Arizona State, Texas Christian University…
The last one in is one of the last 16 standing. The Syracuse University men’s basketball team, literally the last team selected for the 68-team NCAA Tournament, is now in the tournament’s Sweet 16 for the 19th time in program history. And while there were some improbable runs in SU’s previous 18 Sweet 16 appearances, this one might top them all. To reach this weekend’s Sweet 16 to face Duke, the 11th-seeded Orange had to defeat No. 3 seed (and No. 5 in the nation) Michigan State University in what amounted to a Spartans’ home game in Detroit; in SU’s third game in five days; with seven scholarship players; with big…
By the time you read this, we should have a pretty good idea of whether the Syracuse University men’s basketball team’s upset of No. 18 Clemson March 3 saved the Orange’s season or merely delayed the inevitable. By outlasting the Tigers 55-52 before a college basketball season-high crowd of 28,670 at the Carrier Dome, Syracuse notched its first win of the season in seven games against an Associated Press Top-25 team. The Tigers were also No. 10 in the Rating Percentage Index, one of the key measurements used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. The Orange needed that win desperately…
With the Syracuse University men’s basketball team sitting on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, the reality is that the Orange is already in must-win mode a week before the start of the postseason. At 18-11 overall and 7-9 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, it appears Syracuse will need to win the Wednesday, Feb. 28, 9 p.m. game at Boston College and the Sunday, March 4, 2 p.m. season finale against Clemson at the Carrier Dome to put itself back in the NCAA Tournament mix. With two more losses this week, the only way the Orange could qualify…
When Tyler Lydon left for the NBA last spring, and when Taurean Thompson unexpectedly bolted for Seton Hall in September, did you think the Syracuse University men’s basketball team had a shot at this year’s NCAA Tournament? When fifth-year graduate transfer Geno Thorpe left the team in early December, and when injuries to Matthew Moyer (ankle), Bourama Sidibe (knee) and Howard Washington (season-ending knee) thinned out an already-thin roster, did you think the Orange had a shot at the NCAA Tournament? How about when Syracuse scored only 49 points in an ugly loss to an injury-riddled Notre Dame team Jan.…
Syracuse University men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim did his best to put a brave face on the Orange’s 1-4 start in Atlantic Coast Conference play. “It’s five games. Who cares?” Boeheim said after Syracuse fell to 1-4 with a 101-90 double-overtime loss at Florida State Jan. 13. “You’ve got 13 games to go. Anything can happen. Who cares? That doesn’t matter. You play the next game.” Boeheim noted that all four of SU’s losses were close, and three of them were on the road to Wake Forest, then-No. 3 Virginia and then-No. 23 Florida State. It’s difficult to win on…
Looking for its first bowl appearance under third-year coach Dino Babers, the Syracuse University football team will face a difficult schedule but one that appears a little less daunting than last season. In finishing 4-8 for the second consecutive year under Babers, the 2017 Orange faced 10 teams that had gone to a bowl game the previous season. This year, seven teams on SU’s schedule played in a bowl game after the 2017 season. This year’s schedule includes six home games, including a Friday-night matchup with Louisville that will be televised nationally by one of the ESPN networks, and a…
The going gets tougher as Coach Jim Boeheim’s SU team burrows deep into the ACC basketball season
Following the Syracuse University men’s basketball team’s 81-74 win over the Buffalo Bulls Dec. 19 at the Carrier Dome, Buffalo Coach Nate Oats said two things about the Orange during his post-game news conference that are worth noting as SU prepares for the start of Atlantic Coast Conference play. Oats comment No. 1: “We thought we were going to win the game. Our guys were coming into the huddle like, ‘These guys are soft, we just have to keep grinding away.’’’ Oats comment No. 2, when asked how he was feeling about the game that Buffalo led 68-67 with three…