The way Jim Boeheim stopped the reporter mid-question on Saturday, it was easy to tell he saw this one coming a mile away.

Well, Jim (No. 1) Kansas and (No. 2) Kentucky lost today …

‘Yeah,’ Syracuse’s head coach interrupted. ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter at all in our game where you’re rated, it really doesn’t.’

Of course, the point was to get Boeheim to talk about his first potential regular-season No. 1 ranking since 1990. An emphatic win over No. 7 Villanova Saturday, in addition to a colossal upheaval in the front end of the Top 25, left the Orange a prime candidate to fill the vacancy at the top.  

But he wasn’t biting. Just like most of his players in postgame interviews weren’t.
You see, it’s common speak among coaches and athletes to say they don’t believe in rankings. It’s like saying you treat every practice like game day, or that you believe in your coach after a 1-12 season — it’s a filtered and ultimately fallacious statement.

But in Syracuse’s case, we should all be inclined to believe them. This Orange team has seen firsthand the deceptive façade the Top 25 can be. Before the season started, it was shut out of the Associated Press poll and was picked to finish sixth in a conference where it just clinched at least a share of the title.

And now players are supposed to be excited about potentially reaching the apex of the one thing they’ve dismissed all season?  

No. They have the right to say, without question, that they don’t care about rankings.
‘We’re not concerned about anything except St. John’s,’ Boeheim said. ‘Whatever happens (regarding the rankings) happens and all the other stuff. This team has never thought for a minute this year whether we are ranked or not ranked or where our ranking is.’

Let me make one thing clear: This is not a series of jabs against the writers who vote in the AP Top 25, or the coaches in the ESPN/USA Today Top 25 — seven out of the last 10 NCAA national champions were, at one point, ranked No. 1 in those polls. Better than I could do.

For Syracuse, this is more about taking what’s read and heard with a grain of salt, something that will be exponentially more difficult if they earn the No. 1 ranking, and, for how long they keep it.

Here’s a preview: Following the Villanova game, at least four different reporters popped in front of Wes Johnson’s locker, shined the bright camera lights in his face and said definitively: Wes, are you guys the best team in the country?

Diligently, he entertained every single person who asked.

‘I’ll let everybody else decide that,’ Johnson said. ‘We’ll take it one game at a time. We had a good win tonight and we’ve got a good St. John’s team coming in. They’re playing well this year, so we need to prepare for them. But I think we’ll let everybody else decide that.’

And this will go on for the days, or weeks, Syracuse keeps the ranking. People will ask the Orange if it feels it has a target on its back. Whether or not the pressure mounts each and every game now that it’s the top dog.

With a loss, Syracuse’s weaknesses and failures will be magnified. Relinquishing the top spot will earn that dunce-cap NO.1 TEAM UPSET spot on SportsCenter’s daily rundown.
It’s a Mack-sized shot to the Orange’s confidence the team won’t need, or deserve. But only if it buys into the hype, believes that these polls actually mean something.

Instead, Syracuse players and fans need to listen to Boeheim. The rankings, in this case, really don’t matter. Getting too caught up in something so menial will only damage the team in the long run. Playing up to someone else’s standard damages team psyche during a time of year when it needs to be strongest.  

When people ask Syracuse players if they think they’re No. 1, they should all respond the way Rick Jackson did Saturday.

‘I love these guys, I see these guys every day,’ Jackson said. ‘I think they’re all a great bunch of guys. I think we go out and play hard.’

Pressed for more of an answer, he rolled his eyes and said of course he thinks he plays on the best team in the country, wouldn’t anyone?

And as far as the polls go, don’t worry — these things have a way of working themselves out without stressing. Remember those three teams in the last 10 years that won the national championship and were never No. 1 in the Top 25?

One was Maryland in 2002.

Another was Florida in 2006.

And then there was Syracuse, back in 2003.    

ctorr@syr.edu
 

Published on March 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm