He was the same John Desko he had been all season.

His team had just been upset in the first round of the NCAA tournament by a team it should have handled. His seniors — two of whom sat beside him at the postgame press conference, eyes red and directed at the ground — were now part of the second straight class to leave Syracuse without a national championship.

Bryant marched into the Carrier Dome, embodied the parity of modern lacrosse and ended Syracuse’s NCAA tournament run 60 minutes after it started.

Desko could have been mad. Desko should have seemed more mad. But he opted for his usual stoicism instead.

“These guys played their guts out and we had a chance to tie it up at the end,” Desko said. “I’m not unhappy with our effort.”

After second-seeded Syracuse’s (11-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) 10-9 loss to Bryant (16-4, 5-1 Northeast) on Sunday night, the apt question emerged from the crannies of social media. Should the Orange, after failing to capture a national title for the fifth straight year, part with its Hall of Fame head coach of 16 seasons?

No. The premature end to Syracuse’s season is hardly Desko’s fault, and it could have ended even earlier had his steady approach not nursed his team through an early-season storm.

Upsets — they happen.

The run the Orange went on to earn the No. 2 seed in the tournament after dropping its first three ACC games — not as common.

“We’ve always been able to adapt to the times of changing techniques or changing an offense,” Desko said in the week leading up the NCAA tournament. “The game doesn’t stay the same from year to year.”

The loss to Bryant, in which SU never led but still could have tied in the final seconds, was entirely circumstantial. Just a week before, the Bulldogs traveled to Philadelphia and knocked off Sacred Heart and Hobart in a three-day span to win the NEC tournament. Syracuse was coasting to a 19-6 win over Colgate in the Dome, its reserves playing the whole of the fourth quarter.

Then Bryant edged Siena, 9-8, in one of the NCAA tournament’s two play-in games while SU awaited its opponent. The last competitive game Syracuse had played heading into Sunday night was against Notre Dame in the ACC tournament final on April 27 — which it lost.

Naturally, the Bulldogs pounced on the Orange’s rust. Its zone defense stifled the SU attack, goalie Gunnar Waldt played the game of his life and the visitors’ patient offense did just enough to build a lead onto which they would barely hold.

It turned from a game that Syracuse should have won to one that it wasn’t supposed to. Bryant’s unmatchable momentum took the game out of Desko’s, and his team’s, hands.

“If we played a seven-game series, I’d bet Syracuse,” Bulldogs head coach Mike Pressler said. “But we’re not playing seven games. It’s not the best team. It’s not the team with the marquee recruits. It’s the best team on that given day for 60 minutes.”

That’s how it shook out and that’s how the season will be defined. Failed and too short.

But what may be forgotten is that on March 23, when the Orange lost to Duke 21-7 to drop to 0-3 in the ACC, the season was supposed to be over. Telling losses to Maryland and Virginia spotted the early portion of SU’s schedule, conceivable losses to Notre Dame and North Carolina were ahead and the conference tournament, let alone the NCAA tournament, seemed like a pipe dream.

At that time, Desko constantly talked about “the little things.”

He continually declared his confidence in senior faceoff specialist Chris Daddio, said the Orange had to tweak its clearing, shift its defensive approach and sharpen its play in the net.

“We get in the huddle and regardless of whether it’s the first media timeout in the first quarter or it’s 40 seconds left and we need a goal, it’s the same,” SU attack Kevin Rice said of Desko.

He always said that Syracuse was close to breaking through and he was right. The Orange rode his absent skepticism by winning seven out of eight games before falling to Bryant in front of a shocked home crowd.

That game will be remembered because expectations were appropriately high.

What may not be remembered is that in what was once a lost season, Desko’s steadiness salvaged expectations and allowed them to soar.

Jesse Dougherty is the sports editor at The Daily Orange where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at jcdoug01@syr.edu or on Twitter at @dougherty_jesse.

Published on May 12, 2014 at 10:07 pm