#1 story leading into this game... the return of the #MeloHawk to game action

Kris Joseph preparing for a Broadcasting career after the NBA #NewHouse

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Jimmy B has been flipping off Refs since way before M.I.A. got press for it.

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The Syracuse Cheerleaders and Guy on His Phone. That shirt looks more Salmon than Orange texting Guy, tsk... tsk...

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Patented Jimmy B Deathray stare

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Don't worry Syracuse fans that was just a dream yesterday. Nike didn't actually reveal new uniforms for Syracuse featuring the color of their most hated rival. They took their time and used the colors that Syracuse has used for decades to give the Orange a fresh new look. They wouldn't have forced Syracuse to join a group of 9 schools wearing the same color except for accent trim. They wouldn't try to convince us that the Jerseys made of 5% less material were really that much different than the other 18 Nike schools who have already worn Gray this season. The Orange have entered "Platinum" status, they now have New Hyper Elite Jerseys that stand out from any other school in the country and preserve the rich tradition of the program while still moving forward into the future.

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We all know the Carrier Dome has some High Seats but at least your view isn't obstructed by some beams. And what's a Fifth Third?

Jimmy was picking for a winner from the beginning

The Otto-Man Empire has many many agents, spies, citizens stretching throughout The Big East Atlantic Coast

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Alright I know I'm Late on this but better late than never right? One last chance to relive the Villanova Win before Providence Today 6pm at the Dome.

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ESPN's Graphic to remind you that Jim Boeheim is really F***ing Good at this Coaching basketball thing, but as we know without Gerry McNamara He wouldn't have won 10 games so it's really good that Gerry's a full time assistant on wins now.

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Jim Boeheim Doesn't know what Twitter is, but he sure doesn't like the smell of it while he's coaching

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Hey fellow Syracuse fans! Whose ready to watch the Orange beat Southern Cal this weekend 33-21?(Yes, I anticipate a safety) More importantly whose ready to watch our victorious East Coast invaders from the confines of the LA coliseum? I will be attending the game myself and I wanted to try and organize whatever Magicians are going as well. My one year anniversary of moving from Syracuse is in a couple weeks so I still don't know the area too well, especially around USC. I also will be taking public transportation to the game so I will be looking for a friendly and inviting 'Cuse tailgate to join. So if your reading this and your going to the game, please leave a comment below if you know of a tailgate I can join, where your sitting, and maybe whatever helpful tips and info you want to throw out. I bought tickets and then just learned of a group that still has room so I may be sitting in  Middle End 11 - Row 48 seats 3,4 or I might end up in a group somewhere. After the victory is complete Saturday and the Oranges rain down from the sky or a DirecTV blimp, my sleeper cell mission will be complete and I can return to Syracuse just in time for basketball season, Go Orange!  

According to the world wide leader in sports this upcoming Friday is college colors day.  Whaaaaaa?!?! How could I have missed this, where am I going to find blue and orange clothing in time? Oh wait that's right, I own TONS of orange clothing. Why don't I just dust off that pinstripe bowl t-shirt and rock that? Casual Friday after all, but WAIT... hold on a second.... a bunch of college team logos just flew around the tv all crazy like and landed on various parts of the country, but Syracuse is nowhere to be found...?!?  How can this be, ESPN? It's called college COLORS day, isn't that step one, include the school with a color for a nickname. 

By shutting out New York's College Team, you are also turning your back on the great State and City of New York. Our 25 million fans (give or take a few) will not be able to wear their team colors to work on Friday unless they have the logo of some other school like Auburn (for which they will be ridiculed to no end). This is after all a program that was 33rd in the country for merchandise sales. A University and team so attached to the color Orange they want to hug it, strap it down, trademark it , and then never let it go. I guess we will have to resort to only wearing our extremely affordable and comfortable Orange gear at Home, to shopping malls, grocery stores, movie theaters, restaurants, bars, 4-4 clubs, and the Dome (Always)

Greetings my fellow magicians, one of the never ending arguments in sports is uniforms. Well after years of trying to explain my imagination of what I thought the best 'Cuse Jersey would look like I decided to sit down and photoshop some mockups. First Up the Home Uniform, notice that it is ORANGE. I can't understand how a team whose primary(only?) color is Orange never wears it at home thereby severely limiting the total number of appearances per season. If West Virginia and Michigan can wear Yellow at Home then why can't we wear our "ONLY" school color. And if we're wearing Orange at home, then we gotta wear our shade of blue on the road. Just look at how those colors pop against the darker blue. And the blue will no longer be "Superstitious" because we can't lose every game on the road (right?)

For the designs themselves I tried to incorporate elements from each decade of the Boeheim Era. The Stripes up and down the sides from the late 70s-80s, the cursive font from the late 80s-90s, the swoosh ball logo from the final four team in '96 thru the 2003 title, and of course the block "S" and Swooshes that our Nike overlords demand. The Orange Uniform above is my dream and If i had my way we'd have that for home and a blue version for the road. For the blue design below i tried a couple different options for variety and to try and show game action. Oh and yes I did photoshop Brandon Reese over the stock model 

If Nike does want to steal these designs, all I ask in return is a complimentary customized set for myself

A Couple more for Fun after the Jump 

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In this photo recently released by Dr. Gross, we see the Syracuse Situation Room at the Melo Center, taken the night Jim Boeheim ordered a raid by a highly-trained team of Ottos, who successfully captured a letter-of-intent from Fab Melo's Brazilian basketball compound.

Of course, within hours this man released his own statement, mainly trying to take credit for laying the groundwork of the operation with the use of what he called "Enhanced Interrogation Methods" against Louisville in 2007 and 2008.

If you have some spare time before now and this Saturday's game against Nova you might want to check out this video of Syracuse and Villanova from back in 1980 at the Carrier Dome. Both websites suck but you can find it here Better Version or here Full Screen Option . Actually there's so much history and funny things to see here, you should definitely take an afternoon to view it.  It is amazing to see how far things have come from the first season in the Dome. First off Marv Albert is your announcer, and near the end of the game they announce the Attendance at 15,000, then they mention the record is 18,000 and that over 20,000 tickets have already been sold for the St. John's game(a few things have been multiplied and subtracted from that equation) .  There's obviously a lot more and so for those of you who don't have time to watch it I've picked out some highlights, and for those who do watch it this is a preview of its Awesomeness. 

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First off, Leo-father of Andy-Rautins. Sporting a Lion's Mane of Hair and representing Canada since before it was cool. 

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Second, Coach Boeheim was still young and in his prime, so he could Survive being eaten by the crowd. ***Note: This may happen if the Attendance record is broken this Saturday. ***

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While doing my daily reading around the blogosphere/internets I saw this post on Deadspin http://deadspin.com/5690399/breaking-duke-basketball-player-does-something-tolerable featuring Kyle Singler of Duke making trick shots from their Practice facility (very similar looking to the 'Melo) and from inside Cameron stadium and all of it sudden it hit me, why has no one tried this in the Dome? The two big trick-shot "groups" that you always see on ESPN or YouTube are these guys The Legendary Shot and Dude Perfect both of them feature shots from Football stadiums (Texas A&M and Cowboys Stadium) and so it makes sense for someone to do this in the only regularly used basketball court that resides inside a football stadium, our beloved Jimmy B court. So this is my personal challenge to any current SU student, or anyone with access to the building, you don't have to form a group and make a million videos but I'd like to see at least one shot from the rafters or similar and maybe we'll get some free publicity on youtube or Sportscenter. Bonus points if Ryan Nassib throws an alley-oop to Kris Joseph from row Z.    

I have an idea for a fun little contest for the Syracuse blog community here on TNIAAM. Who has the best idea for a giant-head/cutout? If I was still a student I would make one myself, but maybe some Student will see our idea on here and make it a reality. I think the Villanova game would be the target for this since its obviously going to be the biggest/most watched game of the year. So what Syracuse related cutout would you like to see on Gameday?

My Personal choice is All the players from the 2003 team... Carmelo, Gmac, Hak, Forth, McNeil, Edelin, Duany, Gorman, and my favorite Orangemen of All time Josh Pace.

There's tons of choices here so let's be creative. DOCTOR Darryl Gross would be great too, however his big head would never fit in the building, unless they cut the roof off the dome. Bonus points if you provide a picture to make the cut-out with.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this last night watching the game. We have new walk-ons! And while it's always fun to root on the guys who see little playing time one thing stuck out. GRIFFIN HAWKMAN. Going into this season my favorite walk-on was obviously Brandon Reese, since he was given a scholarship for this year, technically he's longer eligible for that title, but no worries because we have Hawkman! or Hawkmen? To be honest with you I was shocked when he entered the game. Who is this mystery basketball player? He had no name on his Jersey and SuAthletics.com has no record of him. But as soon as I heard the name and saw him, I knew a new Syracuse legend has arrived. We need to assemble all of our resources and find out anything we can about him... where is he from? how did he end up on the team? Is he actually just an actor preparing for a role in High School Musical 4: The college years? Does his fauxhawk compete with Andy Rautins? Does his name compete with Brandon Triche for the title of team Hawk? ..........We need answers!

UPDATE: Looked at the boxscore, his name is actually Hoffman, heard Hawkman on the broadcast last night, maybe he should consider a name change

Well it Looks Like Andy Rautin's summer playing with Team Canada won't be all fun and games. Andy's quest to stay in shape this summer has already been well documented and noted for its intensity. First there was the Hair Change that rocked the fashion industry, then the exotic food critique, now a bench clearing fight. (Video below)

Team Canada played Team Italia in a "Friendly" this Saturday. The incident seems to begin from what looks  like a inadvertent bump from Canada’s Aaron Doornekamp on Italy’s Mancinelli. From there Mancinelli, just loses it and sucker punches/elbows Doornekamp in the back of the head. Needless to say, the Canadian's rushed to the aide of their fallen teammate. #10 Andy Rautins is the second man there and immediately tries to tear Mancinelli off Doornekamp. At about the 1:49 mark in the video you can see a close-up of Andy trying to pull off Mancinelli, and then getting pulled away himself by the refs. After that the Elder Rautins and Team Canada Head Coach Leo tries to separate the two teams and also exchanges words with the Italian head coach.

After it was all said and done several players were ejected and Italy went on to win the game 81-75. I haven't been able to find a boxscore and Team Canada's website surprisingly has no mention of the brawl, but it does say that Andy finished with 10 pts.

While it's good to know that we can count on Andy in case anything ever goes down with Uconn or Georgetown, Maybe Andy should spend his summers away from Canadian basketball. Our team's season rests on his repaired ACL and clearly International basketball is too much of a risk. Canada should probably stop scheduling Italy as well, Haven't they ever seen a soccer riot?