Hoya Night – Cranked Up To 11
I’m going to spare everyone a regurgitation of stats and go big picture for this one.
I don’t think anyone will ever make a better (or worse?) enemy for Syracuse than John Thompson, but I get the feeling that this rivalry could be getting back towards the intensity level it had in the 1980s.* Maybe it’s the possibility of both teams playing as top-10 programs for the first time since 1989. Maybe it’s all the SU-Georgetown games I watched from that era on ESPN Classic over the last week. Either way, when I look at SU making a living in the top 5 all season and Georgetown putting aside its loss to Old Dominion by disposing of UConn and Pitt, I think this rivalry is ready to get back up to 11.
*As I was too young to have any memory whatsoever of those days, I won’t pretend to know everything about the golden age of the rivalry. From what I’ve read and been told, however, those games were some of the most outrageous, loud and hard-fought battles to ever take place in the Carrier Dome.
While the court stormings of 2007 and 2008 were exciting, they were more due to what they meant to SU’s tournament hopes than the fact that it was Georgetown, and 2009’s overtime victory also feels a little watered down because Georgetown had fallen off a cliff going into that game and never recovered. Going back further, Georgetown entered the dark ages after Allen Iverson left and didn’t really return to relevance until 2006, when SU was going through their own rough patch. Hating Georgetown will always be requisite for any SU fan, but having both programs experience concurrent success is ultimately good for the rivalry and the Big East as a whole.
That being said, tear their heads off Monday night – pack 30K in the Dome, pay no heed to Georgetown’s traveling sideshow of festering strumpets and lepers, and don’t let Austin Freeman within 50 yards of a Marshall Street eating establishment.
