Syracuse, N.Y. — Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack acknowledged Tuesday that growing fan dissatisfaction with the Orange men’s basketball program has led to lower attendance this season.
During an appearance on ESPN Radio Syracuse’s Orange Nation programWildhack was asked about the team’s reduced participation this year.
Syracuse has reported crowds of less than 14,000 for five straight games. That hasn’t happened since the team moved to the JMA Wireless (formerly Carrier) Dome.
Syracuse.com men’s basketball reporter Mike Waters recently combed through the SU men’s basketball record book and found only one previous three-game stretch in which Syracuse had attendance below 14,000.
This happened in the first year of the Carrier Dome, which was the 1980-81 season.
Wildhack said late start times and bad weather played a role in this year’s reduced numbers, but so did four years of poor results.
“You always want your building to be energized and noisy,” Wildhack said. “The Tennessee game was great. … We had two 9 p.m. kickoffs, weeknights, I don’t like those at all. We have two more. I don’t like it and I told the conference. It affects attendance. We had some weather issues. But some of that is fans are a little disappointed with where we are.”
Syracuse has averaged 15,594 fans in its nine home games this year. Last year it averaged 18,888 over 17 games.
Syracuse, once a dominant program nationally, has missed the NCAA Tournament for four consecutive seasons. The Orange already face an uphill battle to qualify this year after a non-conference home loss to Hofstra.
With the loss, Syracuse has a losing record in games against Quad 3 opponents.
“You can’t lose to Hofstra,” Wildhack said. “No disrespect. That’s a terrible loss. I think the most important thing right now is we have so many opportunities in front of us as far as winning Quad 1, Quad 2. Getting Donnie (Freeman) back is going to be absolutely critical. This team really hasn’t played at full strength all year and we’ve got to do that. The opportunity itself is there. It’s really simple. If we take care of the games, we’re going to take care of the games.
In order to make the NCAA tournament, Syracuse will need to avoid another bad loss and put together a solid record against good teams.
The ACC is a stronger league than it has been in recent years and provides that opportunity. But the Orange will have to start playing better to take advantage of this.
Eight of Syracuse’s nine wins have been baskets that won’t move the needle at all when the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee meets to determine its postseason field.
The margins of those wins were small enough that Syracuse didn’t impress in the various metrics used to rank the top teams in the country.
Still, Wildhack noted, the number of quality opponents remaining on the schedule means Syracuse still controls its own destiny.
“With the opportunities we have, if we can win some of those games, the fact that we didn’t beat Mercyhurst or Monmouth by as much as people would have liked would be irrelevant,” Wildhack said.
Qualifying for the NCAA Tournament is expected to be a key factor in the school’s upcoming decision on where head coach Adrian Autry should stay after this season.
Wildhack has said several times that his expectation from Autry is that Syracuse will play a “meaningful” game in March.
He declined to be more specific and took the same approach during his radio appearance Tuesday when he offered a balanced assessment of Syracuse’s season opener.
“There were ups and downs, weren’t there?” said Wildhack. “Tennessee was a great win. A No. 1 four win. … We still have two-thirds of our season to go. Last year is last year. It wasn’t good. No excuses. (We’re 9-4 this year). We could be better. We’re not. You are what your record is.”
“We’re 9-4 with 18 conference games and it’s up to us to go out and compete and win the games we need to win. If we do that, the fans will be happy and the program will be in a good place.”
Leave a Reply