Sleeping with the Enemy: The Orange of Syracuse

This is the one you've been waiting for!  Your Fighting Hoyas of Georgetown take on the evil (and suddenly reeling!) Orange of Syracuse on Saturday in the friendly confines of the Verizon Center and as usual we here at THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON are bringing you everything you need to know about Georgetown's next opponent. Here with us to share his thoughts on the Orange is our longtime friend Hoya Suxa, who has so graciously taken some time away from sucking, generally, to answer a few questions.  Let's do this!

It's been so long since last we met! Even though I don't like you, have never liked you and will never like you, how have you been? Bring us up to speed with what you've been up to because we really care!

I'm doing great, certainly better than you. I've been busy working on a cookbook! It's going to be really good, probably a bestseller. I'd even say that it will satisfy the discerning tastes of Jane and Joe Hoya. Since I'm such a good guy I've decided to share some of my excellent recipes. I suggest that you try them in your home test kitchens.

The Orange won the Battle 4 Atlantis, taking down UConn and Texas A&M in doing so and now boast a national ranking of #14.  Basic question here: Is this Orange team actually good?

Maybe? The senior-laden backcourt is a major plus and there's a ton of potential on the frontline, especially with Tyler Roberson, Tyler Lydon,  and Malachi Richardson. The real issue is twofold: (1) Syracuse has lacked consistent production and depth in the middle; and (2) rebounding, mostly of the defensive variety (but Syracuse's offensive rebounding isn't exactly powering the planet). Syracuse is going to have to drill threes to keep things interesting and cold nights may expose some of Syracuse's deficiencies. I have no clue what this team will look like in March, but it's probably safe to assume that the team will improve throughout the season.

RECIPE: AUTHENTIC ITALIAN PEPPERONI PIZZA

Ingredients:

- 4 English muffins, split

- 1/2 cup canned pizza sauce

- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

- 16 slices pepperoni

Directions:

Step I: Preheat oven to 375*.

Step II: Stick your head in the oven and inhale deeply.

It appears that Tyler Lydon is ready to grab the torch passed from McNamara to Devendorf and then to Cooney.  Where does Boeheim find these guys who are so easy to hate?

Tyler Lydon is dreamy. He's around 6'8", buries triples, and looks like he's going to take his parent's Studebaker up to the lake and give his fraternity pin to his best girl. You will hate him and a deeply religious woman in Guatemala will see an image of him in her grilled cheese sandwich.

RECIPE: BIG GAME CHOCO-NUT MARSHMALLOW BARS

Ingredients:

- 3 tbsp butter or margarine

- 4 cups miniature marshmallows

- 1/2 cup peanut butter

- 6 cups Cocoa Krispies

Directions:

Step I: Invite all of your friends over for the Georgetown-Gulf Coast game!

Step II: Cry.

Now that you have gotten your feet wet in the ACC for the past couple of years, give me some pros and cons of being in the ACC. Deep down in places you can't talk about at parties, do you miss not having at least the hoops team in the Big East? Are you good with being the conference's football doormat for the foreseeable future? Was it all worth it, man?

Pros: A slew of new people that I can piss off; a dump truck full of money; broadcasts on a network that isn't an elaborate soup-can-and-kite-string operation; the existence of DePaul is merely an abstract idea rather than a crushing reality.

Cons: The existence of Food Lion; the existence of Greensboro; opponent conference games are nowhere near New York City; no blood-dripping-from-your-eyes rivals (yet); really unbalanced schedules.

I don't covet the rebooted Big East. I don't care about Xavier, Creighton, or Jesus Polytechnic. I do miss the old Big East -- the pre-2004 Big East, or, if we're being really honest, the pre-1995 Big East -- but that Big East doesn't exist because people that do things in college sports are dumb. I'm a football heroin addict, so this ACC thing is acceptable, but it's not like I'm lusting for whatever the Big East currently is. I miss the Big East that hasn't existed in 10-20 years, and that basketball war zone will never exist again. There are no good solutions to this, but as long as Syracuse sees the core of the old Big East -- Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's, Connecticut -- on a somewhat consistent basis, that's good enough for me. There isn't really a "better" from a pure basketball standpoint because the shift happened well before 2013.

RECIPE: PERFECT ORIGINAL HOT BROWN SANDWICH

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup butter

- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

- 3 cups milk

- 6 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

- 1 egg, beaten

- 2 tbsp heavy cream

- Salt and pepper, to taste

- 2 lbs. sliced roasted turkey

- 1 thinly-sliced tomato

- 8 slices white bread, toasted

- 8 slices crispy bacon

Directions:

Step I: Answer door.

Step II: Sign for package, sent express, from me to you.

Step III: Remove contents from package -- a shit sandwich -- and consume.

Boeheim has anointed current Syracuse assistant Mike Hopkins as the successor to his crappy throne.  In a perfect world, this transition will be seamless and you won't notice any changes to the program.  Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so where do you see the hoops program in the post-Boeheim era, say, 5 years from now? Do you expect Hopkins to have similar recruiting success?

Hopkins has been running Syracuse's recruiting for years, so it's unlikely that Syracuse's recruiting trajectory changes all that much. Hopkins has also been running practices for a while now, so there's no real issue there. In-game decision-making is an unknown, but talent can smooth out the edges around that until he gets up to speed. I don't think that Syracuse drops off much, if at all, simply because Hopkins has been doing everything for the Orange except coaching the games. There probably won't be a cratering like Georgetown when Craig Esherick drove a bus engulfed in flames directly into a fireworks factory. This is almost a certainty, if only because Hopkins does not have a mustache.

RECIPE: YO!-GURT CHEEZE-PLEAZE! DIP

Ingredients:

- 1 tbsp butter

- 1 tbsp tapioca starch or cornstarch

- 1 1/2 cups plain almond milk (or milk of choice)

- 2 cups grated American cheese

- 1/2 cup plain, non-fat Greek yogurt

- 1/2 tsp cumin

- 1 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp white pepper

Directions:

Step I: Melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Add starch and whisk until crumbly. Cook one minute and whisk in almond milk.

Step II: Call your significant other into the kitchen. "Hey, honey! Come smell this!"

Step III: Realize that your significant other left you years ago and that the dog is currently packing its things.

What is your favorite kind of ice cream?

Mint chocolate chip ice cream cookiewich. It's mint chocolate chip ice cream and two cookies put together. It should be currency.

RECIPE: THE WORLD'S BEST MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM COOKIEWICH

Ingredients:

- Like a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream

- A whole mess of big ass cookies

Directions:

Step I: Laugh at your friends that are lactose intolerant.

Step II: Eliminate friendships with people that are lactose intolerant.

Talk to us about your thoughts on the NCAA penalties levied against the school and Boeheim.  From my perspective I find it incredulous that Syracuse fans actually think the penalties should have been less harsh and that Boeheim should somehow have fewer wins vacated, but convince us why that should be so.

I don't care. There are lots of people that really care and will clutch their pearls and faint on the couch, but I honestly don't care. Here's why: the NCAA is stupid. This fiction that the NCAA pushes -- that college sports are some kind of egalitarian supplement to pristine educations -- is a farce and it's even more ridiculous when it's suffocated in aspirational ethos. This is pretty much naked athletic business at the Division I level, especially as it relates to hoops and football, and I don't understand how this all hasn't been blown to smithereens. Treat this like it is: a business enterprise; pay the players, tax it from the top down. If a player wants to be an apprentice basketball player first (building a vocation) and get an education on the side (like an employee at a company that offers tuition support), let them do it if a particular school will permit it. If a player wants to focus on books first and hoop second, let him or her do it if a particular school will permit it. Let the schools decide what the requirements are and what's necessary to maintain employment/enrollment. If the NCAA has to exist, let it merely operate as a trade association with trimmed and basic principles of adherence and enforcement. Eliminate this dumb fiction. If there's imbalance, the market will figure itself out just like anything else. The NCAA is awful at what it does because it can't reconcile its actions and the fiction it presses.

So, I'm decidedly "Whatever" about the sanctions. I don't think they're too heavy or too lenient. Syracuse apparently broke rules, so they got hit with penalties. The relevance of the sanctions only really matters if you have a particular idea of what this should all be. I'm not going to begrudge anyone on their presuppositions because I think that a school and its fans should ultimately have the power to determine what their specific universe looks like. (This isn't to imply that I think that Syracuse should go full basketball factory, nor does it imply that I think that Syracuse should operate like Wesleyan. I haven't decided what Syracuse should look like.) So, if you -- the royal you -- think the sanctions weren't hard enough or that Syracuse is in the wrong for contesting the penalties, that's fine. You've made a value decision that I'm not going to protest because you'd probably apply the same standard if it happened to your school. My beef is that I don't understand why the NCAA won't acknowledge its inherent stupidity.

RECIPE: GIVING EXACTLY 0.0 DAMNS

Ingredients:

- 0.0 damns

Directions:

Step I: Give exactly 0.0 damns.

Regardless of our mutual hatred, I think we can both agree that renewing this rivalry is awesome. Talk to me about your favorite moment, where you were and what you ate/drank. Then do the same with regards to your least favorite moment.

Let's start with my least favorite moment of this rivalry: January 8, 1999, the day Big John gave his retirement announcement. This was my freshman year at Syracuse and was eight freaking days before Syracuse went to D.C. to play Georgetown. His retirement robbed me of seeing, in-person, a Georgetown-Syracuse game in the Dome with Boeheim and Thompson as active coaches. This was a personal affront to me and I will never forgive him for that. So, I was in Syracuse, N.Y. and I ate my feelings.

Favorite moment? This:

I don't remember where I was or what I was eating or drinking, but I know that Otto Porter took a mouthful of dunk from C.J. Fair. This rivalry needs to continue forever.

RECIPE: 7TH AVENUE NEW YORK CHEESECAKE

Ingredients:

- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs

- 1/4 cup melted butter

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 16 oz. softened cream cheese

- 1/4 cup flour

- 3 eggs

- 1/2 cup sour cream

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Step I: Combine graham crackers, butter, and one tbsp of sugar; press firmly into the bottom and sides of a spring-form pan.

Step II: Realize that this crust is as empty and soulless as your existence.

Step III: Fire the maid in response to your own personal failings.

Final score prediction?

70-65, Dorks.