Over the weekend, Mike Waters of Syracuse.com reported that the Syracuse game against St. Joseph’s in Las Vegas was off. With St. Joseph’s HC Billy Lange moving to join the Knicks as an assistant coach, the Hawks were removed from the Player’s Era Showcase.
With a hole in the schedule, Mike presented two possible options: Syracuse hosts St. Joseph’s in the JMA Dome, or Syracuse plays a road game against UNLV before they open the Player’s Era event on Monday November 24th against Houston. The Runnin’
Rebels was also scheduled to play St. Joseph’s in Vegas the week before Player’s Era.
The road game would certainly benefit the Orange’s NET ranking more than hosting St. Joe’s, but the latter might be easier to actually schedule, but what about a possible third option?
Syracuse hosts Monmouth on Tuesday November 18th and it’s clear the Orange don’t want to go a week without playing before they face Houston and Kansas in Vegas, so what if Syracuse and St. Joe’s play a neutral site game as planned…..but they play it in Madison Square Garden instead?
Right now the World’s Most Famous Arena has an opening on Friday November 21st. Could Syracuse use some influence from one of the player’s parents and get a reservation for a game that night? If so, the Orange get their neutral site game for the NET, they get a Friday night game in NYC for the Orange fans in the area and then they simply jet to Vegas following the game and have two days before they take on Houston.
Yes we realize that it’s a logistical challenge to pull this off, but we do ideas, not logistics. Relocating this game to NYC could accomplish a number of things for the Orange and it would be fun if it could actually happen.
