Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim celebrated a dominant 70-51 opening-round victory over Dayton by lashing out at those who questioned whether the Orange belonged in the field.
When a reporter asked guards Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney if they took any extra satisfaction winning after all the debate over their NCAA tournament worthiness, Boeheim interjected with his own thoughts on the subject.
"Nobody that said we didn't deserve to be in [knows] anything about basketball," Boeheim told reporters in Saint Louis. "So we didn't think about it. They were just doing it to be cute."
The selection committee's decision to award Syracuse a No. 10 seed was a mild surprise considering the Orange's bloated RPI and topsy-turvy results. They had five top 50 wins headlined by impressive victories away from home against Duke and Texas A&M, but they also had 13 losses including a horrendous showing against 24-loss St. John's and two other sub-100 losses against Georgetown and Clemson.
An argument Boeheim used in favor of Syracuse was that all three of the Orange's worst losses came during his nine-game suspension when the team went 4-5 under Mike Hopkins. The selection committee suggested Boeheim's absence would be taken under consideration, but it's difficult to imagine that weighed heavily on the decision considering the Syracuse coach was suspended for failure to properly monitor his program.
Regardless of whether Syracuse deserved a bid or not, the idea that the Orange proved they belonged with their win on Friday is illogical.
A one-game sample size doesn't outweigh the previous 32 games Syracuse had already played. By that logic, Baylor, Arizona, Seton Hall and Purdue all proved Thursday that they didn't deserve bids.
Credit Syracuse for taking advantage of its good fortune in a way that Tulsa and Vanderbilt could not. Malachi Richardson scored 21 points and the Orange's zone defense grounded the Dayton offense, holding the Flyers to 32.1 percent shooting and their lowest scoring output of the season.
"We think we can play with anybody," Boeheim said. "We don't look at it as we're an underdog or whatever. We just think if we can play and play the way we are capable, that we can beat anybody."
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