In Kendall, New York, Jim Boeheim sat in the corner of the town’s high school gym to watch the best center in the area.

In Cincinnati, Rick Pitino — who left his honeymoon to leap from interim head coach at the University of Hawaii to assistant coach with Syracuse — sat in a Jewish community center where a skinny scorer was playing in a pickup game.

Both coaches were still relatively new to the college basketball scene but knew one thing: with Boeheim taking over as SU’s head coach for the 1976–77 season, Syracuse needed a freshman class that could serve as a foundation for four years.

Enter Roosevelt Bouie and Louis Orr.

“They really got us going,” Boeheim said. “They were probably the most key recruits of any group we’ve ever had.”

Bouie, from Kendall, and Orr, from Cincinnati, were the highlights of Boeheim’s first recruiting class and led the program to a 100-18 record in the head coach’s first four seasons. Grouped in Syracuse lore as the “Louie and Bouie Show,” Bouie and Orr, now 57 and 56 respectively, will have their jerseys retired at halftime of Syracuse’s (17-9, 8-5) noon game against Pittsburgh (17-10, 8-5) in the Carrier Dome on Saturday.

And aside from their individual accolades — which would have eventually put Bouie’s No. 50 and Orr’s No. 55 in the rafters on their own — they’ll be honored together for kick-starting a program that’s never had a losing season under Boeheim.

“We didn’t think of it like that at the time, and it’s still hard to think of ourselves as any more important than any other player at the time,” Bouie said. “We emphasized team and I still do. Louis would too.

“But I also know how important those first four years were for Coach and the team. We just did what we could to help him get started the right way.”

Getting Bouie was essential for the Orange, which didn’t have a center for Boeheim’s first season and the 6-foot-11 big man was the best option in the team’s recruiting region.

As an assistant coach under Roy Danforth, Boeheim made frequent trips to Kendall but Bouie doesn’t remember him standing out from the other coaches. He said they’d all huddle in the corner of the small gym to watch him play, and he weighed the interest of a handful of northeast colleges.

Bouie never officially visited Syracuse as a recruit but went to a camp for high school students. Boeheim was running it, and the center was attracted to the young coach’s energy and style.

“I liked everything about Coach at the camp and Syracuse was close by and a growing program,” Bouie said. “It wasn’t about, ‘Could I go here or there instead?’ back then. It was just, ‘This is the right fit.’”

With Orr, Boeheim received a tip from an agent that sent Pitino to Ohio and left Joanne, his newlywed wife, in Syracuse. Pitino was immediately sold on the 6-foot-8 forward.

“I watched him play and I called Jim back and I said, ‘Jimmy, I think this kid has a lot of potential but he’s thin now, it’s going to take a while,’” Pitino said. “So that was the start of it all — a phone call.

“It was obviously a phone call that was really much in our favor, because we got him and he turned out to be a terrific basketball player.”

Boeheim said he wanted both freshmen to contribute right away, and Bouie started in his first year while Orr came off the bench. They lost just one home game in their four years, started their last three seasons, finished with more than 1,000 points each and were drafted into the NBA in 1980.

“They really had our program off to a tremendous start and were a huge influence on what we did those first four years,” Boeheim said.

When Bouie and Orr committed to play at Syracuse, Boeheim had zero wins to his name. The team was in a primitive stage. There was no Big East. There wasn’t even a Carrier Dome.

And 965 wins later — a number that Bouie and Orr each have a significant hand in, even 35 years after their college careers — the two cornerstones will be recognized for their lasting influence Saturday.

Said Bouie: “It’s a tremendous honor. Just tremendous.”

Published on February 20, 2015 at 12:15 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse