Syracuse basketball head coach Jim Boeheim didn’t hold back on Friday, taking a shot at the Big Ten and the conference’s underwhelming show in last season’s NCAA Tournament.
Last season, the Big Ten didn’t have a men’s team in the Final Four, with just one team making the Elite Eight and two advancing to the Sweet 16. It was a dismal showing from a conference that many throughout the regular season called the best in college basketball.
A Big Ten team hasn’t won the NCAA Tournament since William Henry Harrison was president. The last Big Ten team to win the NCAA Tournament was Michigan State in 2000 (although Maryland, now a Big Ten member, won in 2002 as a member of….the ACC):
“At the end of the day, you play for the [NCAA] tournament,” Boeheim said Friday via ESPN. “You can say what you want about the Big Ten. They sucked in the tournament. To me, that’s what they did. All of their wins were in their league. If you can’t play in the [NCAA] tournament, then you’re not good.”
The last two NCAA Tournament champions on the men’s side have come from the Big 12 with Kansas winning the most recent tournament.
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Syracuse did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament last season. The Orange are expected to return to the postseason this year.
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