Syracuse and the Sweet Sixteen

March Madness is now in full swing. The Sweet Sixteen for Men's NCAA Basketball has just been announced. All qualified teams will now have the chance to compete for the Elite Eight which will take place this upcoming weekend. Then the journey will be on for the Final Four which will be played on April 3. Tip-off for the championship game will be played on April 5, 2010. Millions are expected to turn in and watch. At the start of this competition, sixty-five schools compete against one another in a single-elimination tournament. They all have hopes of becoming the winner of the men's NCAA Division I college basketball championship.

The schools now entered into the Sweet Sixteen can easily be identified by region. For the Midwest region we have: Ohio Sate, Tennessee, Northern Iowa, and Michigan State. The South region is represented by: Baylor, Purdue, Duke, and St. Mary's College. Representing the West region we have Syracuse, Butler University, Kansas State, and Xavier. Syracuse, Duke, and Kentucky are all number 1 seeds that cruised through the last round of finals.

This is the second straight year that Syracuse has made it into the Sweet Sixteen. Ironically before the beginning of the season, the Syracuse Orange, were unranked. They just made it to a number 1 seed weeks before the finals begun. This year Syracuse stomped all over Gonzaga in the second half of the game to seal their fate of moving on. At half-time the score was close with only a handful of points separating the teams. Syracuse stepped up their game and made 12 out of their attempted 25 three-point shots. The final score was 87 to 65, Syracuse. This game was head coach, Jim Boeheim's, 829^th career win.

The Syracuse Orange has made it to the Sweet Sixteen 19 times, the Elite Eight 7 times, the Final Four 4 times, and were Tournament Runner's up twice (once in 1987 and once again in 1996). Jim Boeheim and the Syracuse Orange defeated Kansas in 2003 to take home the men's NCAA Division I Basketball Championship title. Will this be another great year for the Syracuse Orange?

Source:

suathletics.syr.edu/