Le Moyne Leaves Orange Seeing Red

There could have been bigger upsets Tuesday night. Mike Bloomberg could have lost the New York mayor's job to Stephon Marbury. Or "The Jay Leno Show" could have won its time slot.

If you were caught up watching those returns, you may have missed the biggest upset in the history of mankind, or at least New York.

Move over, Joe Willie. Step aside, Miracle on Ice.

Give it up for Le Moyne!

Le Who?

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The Le Moyne Dolphins beat the Syracuse Orange 82-79 in a college basketball game. The result has to make you feel like you just won $2,000, which also happens to be the annual salary of a Le Moyne assistant coach.

Nothing against the Orange, but when David beats Goliath it gives us faith that we can go out and kill large men with slingshots. Of course, if David had been named Le Moyne, Goliath probably would have died laughing.

It sounds like something you'd call the nerd who aced Trigonometry. But it's actually what people called a Jesuit priest who pioneered his way around New York 400 years ago.

Four hundred years from now, they'll still remember Tuesday night.

"When you're 65 and sitting around a table at an alumni golf outing, you'll be the table everybody's talking about," coach Steve Evans told his players after the game.

If there were an Upset Banquet, honored tables would go to the Super Bowl III Jets, the 1980 U.S. Hockey team, Buster Douglas and Chaminade. But Ralph Sampson and Virginia lived 5,000 miles away from Hawaii.

Le Moyne is three miles from Syracuse.

"Embarrassing," is how Syracuse's Andy Rautins summed things up.

To be fair, this team isn't great by Syracuse standards. It's ranked No. 25 and is picked to finish in the middle of the Big East pack.

Then again, Le Moyne is picked to finish fourth in the Northeast-10 Conference.

"And rightfully so," Evans said.

He has four of his top scorers back from last year's 20-win team, but look at the other numbers.

Syracuse has 19,000 students and alumni like Joe Biden, Dick Clark and Bob Costas. Le Moyne has 2,800 students and alumni like Cheeburger Cheeburger founder Bruce Zicari.

Jim Boeheim has 31 20-win seasons; Evans has one 20-win season.

Syracuse has about 38 assistants, graduate assistants, trainers and managers on its bench. Evans turns for advice to his 71-year-old father/assistant coach, Buddy. He's the guy who's pulling down two grand a year. "He spends $3,000 every year just getting to practice," Evans said.

The Carrier Dome seats 33,000 for basketball; Le Moyne's gym seats 2,000. "Though we might start pulling out the other side of bleachers," Evans said. "That would put us up to about 3,500."

You can see why the Orange might have been a little cocky. They were 6-0 against Le Moyne and beat the Dolphins by 34 last year.

To top it all off, it was just an exhibition game.
"There were referees. They kept score. People paid money. They wanted to see Syracuse win. It didn't happen."
-- Le Moyne coach
Steve Evans
"There were referees. They kept score. People paid money," Evans said. "They wanted to see Syracuse win. It didn't happen."

He doesn't have anything against the Orange. Heck, his dad graduated from Syracuse. Evans was a ball boy there 30 years ago. A lot of Le Moyne students wear orange around campus instead of green.

Syracuse worries about Le Moyne like Sylvester Stallone worries about brother Frank stealing his girls. When Le Moyne guard Chris Johnson went to play some pickup games with Syracuse players in the off-season, nobody picked him for their team.

"They wouldn't let me play," he told Evans.

"Why would they," the coach said. "You're 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds soaking wet."

All of which made Tuesday night extra delicious. The Dolphins rallied from 10 points down and won on a 3-pointer with nine seconds left. By Johnson, of course.

Being a good Jesuit school, there were no reports of rioting at the Le Moyne campus. Evans stayed up all night watching the tape of the game and answering some of the 200 congratulatory messages that flooded in.

"It's been a blur," he said. "Normally you can't wait for the Syracuse game to be over."

Now he doesn't want it to end, which means he now faces a real coaching challenge. Technically, the Dolphins still haven't won a game. But it sure feels as if they just won it all.

"Think they'll pick me now?" Johnson asked after the game.

He's from Le Moyne.

After Tuesday night, everybody should remember the name.