We're in the midst of a very dangerous time to be a Syracuse Orange basketball fan. The season is but days away, which is wonderful. However, that also means we've been dropped squarely into the dead zone which is…The Time Of Year When Polls & Preseason Teams Are Announced. And if I know anything, it's that this is a terrible time for college basketball fans because it is the time when someone, somewhere, is not giving your team the credit that you know they so richly deserve.
Day Of The Haterz, if you will. So let's get worked up, shall we?
First, we know that the Orange will enter the season tied for 8th in the AP Poll. Here's what I asked at the end of my original article...
No word yet on how low Ron Morris and Jon Wilner have us, but we can assume unranked, can't we?
Not quite, it seems. But…close enough. Querying the AP voters, we can find out that our old friend Ron Morris has the Orange entering the season….20th? 20th.
And we find out the next lowest ranking was 14th, shared by two voters. One of them? Jon Wilner.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I know my crappy AP voters. I know them better than they know themselves.
Of course, this is as good a time as any to remind you that Ron Morris bases all of his preseason rankings on some dumb formula that relies heavily on magazines. And Wilner? He's just universally understood to be a weirdo as well.
Moving along, let's find something else meaningless to gripe about…how about preseason All-American teams?
C.J. Fair was named ACC Player of the Year during media day, a noteworthy accomplishment which only served to make the bullseye on his back much larger. However, one would imagine it portended a preseason full of All-American hype and praise. And you imagined horribly wrong. Fair was left off the AP Preseason All-American Team.
Oklahoma State sophomore Marcus Smart was the only unanimous selection, appearing on all 65 ballots. Smart is the first unanimous selection since Ohio State's Jared Sullinger in 2011-12.
The rest of the preseason All-America team included Doug McDermott of Creighton, Russ Smith of Louisville, sophomore Mitch McGary of Michigan and freshman Andrew Wiggins of Kansas.
The AP does not named 2nd or 3rd teams, though we can ostensibly assume that C.J. would have been on one of them.
So there you go. Get angry.
