'Cuse shocked preseason style!

(Front page of Le Moyne's athletics site)

Syracuse, the ESPN/USA Today #25 ranked team, dropped their first exhibition game of the season to the Le Moyne Dolphins. I found myself asking one question after this loss...

Does Syracuse just completely suck, or is Le Moyne a sleeper team that is destined to make some noise this year?

 Well, I had no knowledge of Le Moyne, so I did a little bit of digging...

Unfortunately, Le Moyne isn't listed on ESPN anywhere other than the upset article, so that made things a little more difficult. I mean teams like Harvard and the stellar squad of Coastal Carolina can be found there, but no Le Moyne. So I dug a little deeper...

The Dolphins played Syracuse last year, but after a well fought battle fell to them 85-51. They also played Georgia Tech and, in a close one, ended up losing 85-54. This comes as no surprise, as since their new coach Steve Evans took over (formerly of Northwestern and Siena); they have been an impressive 122-133 (.478) over the past 9 seasons.

But why focus on last year, lets look ahead to this year!

The Dolphins face a tough schedule ahead, consisting of teams like St. Bonaventure, Adelphi, Goldey-Beacom and Assumption (yes, Assumption is actually the name of a college). Against a schedule like that you can really see why they were so prepared for Syracuse.


OK, enough with the sarcasm. After digging I can answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article clearly and confidently.

Syracuse sucks!

It is obvious that Syracuse had no idea this could even occur. It is a preseason game, and from here on out I expect that they will play A LOT better. But it doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and that 'Cuse will be fighting to make people forget about it for the rest of the season. It also just back my claim made in this ARTICLE I wrote when the preseason rankings came out. This is why the preseason ranking are such crap, there is nothing to go on other than their new recruits and the name of the school. Coaches and "experts" alike put together a list of their favorite teams, ones that exist on their and will add to their teams toughness of schedule, and deny that there are false intentions involved. But back to Syracuse...

Will the Syracuse Orange bounce back this season, who knows? I have a feeling they will. But one thign I can tell you for sure, is when Assumption comes to visit the Dolphins this year, they better not have any, well, assumptions about an easy game! (Hahahaha)