Depression sets in

The old saw is that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours.

Well . . .

An upset is when someone else's team gets beat in the NCAAs as a favorite, a disaster is when yours honks.

Syracuse had a disaster. A 60-57 loss to Vermont.

Yeesh.

Give Vermont credit, they got a career performance from that little two-guard who'd probably never hit so many three-pointers in his life. But SU was AWFUL -- 23 turnovers, terrible shooting, nothing out of Pace, G-Mac unable to buy a shot. Every horror I did not expect these kids to endure happened. On top of all that, horrendous referee performances (a technical foul on Terrence Roberts' dunk with 9 minutes left in a tight game and no real hanging on the rim? And what constitutes a foul inside? Vermont undercut Warrick all night, and SU got away with a LOT against Coppenrath) really farked everything up. Just watch Boeheim haters (and I'll say here: he should've full-court pressed earlier, used Pace as a ball-handler more and double-screened for Mac) use this against him. Now it'll take another two Final Four appearances to wipe this one off.

The boys honked, plain and simple. Warrick's career at SU is over, as are those of Pace and Forth. Sad. Next year, SU will struggle with interior scoring now that Hak is gone and neither Roberts nor Watkins is smooth on the block. But the Orange will have more shooters (Eric Devendorf), ballhandlers (Tiki Mayben, Josh Wright) and some size too. Hopefully that team will find its identity better than this one did, or Boeheim might be facing another first: two straight one-and-done NCAA appearances.

Full post-mortem later. For now, grumpiness.