Am I really supposed to believe Jim Boeheim is looking forward to competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference? That after 11,797 days as a member of the Big East — since the league’s very first day of existence on May 31, 1979 — Boeheim was OK with Syracuse’s move to the ACC?

‘In the ever-changing landscape of collegiate athletics, each school has to find the best fit,’ Boeheim said in an SU athletics release Sunday. ‘The Atlantic Coast Conference has a great basketball tradition and we look forward to contributing to that.’

No way. Not a chance. Never.

Jim Boeheim is the Big East. When the league first formed in 1979, Boeheim was there — three years into his tenure as head coach of the men’s basketball team. In a conference that was created for and centered around basketball, Boeheim is the only coach whose tenure has covered the entire life span of the league.

His 338 wins in conference play make him the winningest coach in Big East history. He’s won coach of the year four times. He’s been called the dean of the conference.

And he’s not a little peeved about the departure?

‘If conference commissioners were the founding fathers of this country, we would have Guatemala, Uruguay and Argentina in the United States,’ Boeheim said Monday in a speech at the Monday Morning Quarterback Club in Birmingham, Ala. ‘This audience knows why we are doing this. There’s two reasons: money and football.’

That’s more like it. That’s the Boeheim Syracuse has come to love. Brutally honest.

A day after his seemingly out-of-character remarks in the athletic department’s press release, Boeheim shared his sentiments more candidly from a safe distance of 1,042 miles away in Birmingham. There, he expressed his reservations about joining a conference with only one other school in the Northeast and saying goodbye to an entity he personally helped create.

More shocking still is the fact that Boeheim hinted he had little involvement in Syracuse’s decision to move to the ACC.

Boeheim told the Birmingham News that if someone told him Thursday night that SU was joining the ACC, ‘I would have said you were crazy.’

If true, that’s unfathomable. The face of Syracuse athletics left in the dark about his school leaving the Big East?

It has left former Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese sick to his stomach. He said as much on WFAN radio with Mike Francesa. He knows Boeheim can’t really be eager to jaunt across the country to Florida and Georgia and South Carolina for weeknight games.

‘I feel badly for Jimmy Boeheim,’ Tranghese said on WFAN radio. ‘They can say whatever they want. I know Jimmy, I love Jimmy to death — the last thing Jimmy Boeheim wants to do is coach in the ACC.’

From the dean of the Big East to the coach with the fewest wins in the ACC. That’s what Boeheim faces if he continues to lead the Orange into the next generation of Syracuse basketball.

The man who’s spent more than 45 years at one school as a player and coach has shown that change isn’t something he favors. See his 2-3 zone for more proof.

And Monday the coaching legend let loose. His words a far cry from excitement or any sort of anticipation for the 27-month waiting period to pass quickly.

Instead, he questioned the move, second-guessed it even. He expressed his disapproval of potential 16-team superconferences, saying the schools, including Syracuse, will regret it.

‘We’re going to end up with mega conferences, and 10 years from now either I’m going to be dead wrong — and I’ll be the first to admit it — or everybody is going to be like, why did we do this again?’ Boeheim said in his speech.

So why would SU do this, again? Oh, right. Boeheim told us — money.

Money that Syracuse will receive in the form of nearly $13 million annually from the ACC’s new TV deal. Money that puts the craze of a superconference above three decades of bitter rivalries.

And as the 66-year-old Boeheim sits clutching his Big East titles, reminiscing about battles of yore with Georgetown and Villanova, at least Syracuse gets richer.

Michael Cohen is the sports editor for The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at mjcohe02@syr.edu or on Twitter at @Michael_Cohen13.

Published on September 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13