For Kansas fans, 2003 national title loss to Syracuse still stings
Daily Orange File Photo
Kansas fans still can't bear the thought of Syracuse's 2003 National Championship win.
The name wasn’t coming to Bill Geiger, a longtime Kansas fan. Which Syracuse guard hit all of those 3-pointers for Syracuse back in the 2003 national championship? There were six of them, all in the first half.
Geiger knew that because he sat at the Superdome in New Orleans right on the baseline, not far from where most of the 3s originated. He watched as Syracuse bounded to an 18-point lead, backed mostly by a guard unbeknownst to most of the Kansas faithful.
“Your star was (Carmelo) Anthony, but he wasn’t the kid who beat us,” Geiger said. “The freshman who hit all of those 3s did. One after the other. What was his name?”
A few seconds passed and Geiger had an epiphany: “McNamara! McNamara killed us!”
Gerry McNamara, the Syracuse freshman point guard, led the Orange to an 81-78 win over Kansas, delivering the program its lone national title. Fifteen years later, the game lives on for Kansas fans. Losing March Madness games casts a long shadow, especially when they come in the form of a title game loss. The 2018 national championship game was Monday night, leaving one side to go home unsatisfied. Last week, devout Kansas fans recalled the 2003 national title game loss to Syracuse. For many, the loss still stings.
Even though the Jayhawks had a dominant 2017-18 season, ending with a Final Four loss to Villanova, fans still resented the 2003 loss to Syracuse. On the night KU beat Duke to advance to the Final Four, excitement filled the air in Omaha, Nebraska. The Jayhawks were 30-7 and off to their 15th Final Four in program history. They have made three Final Fours since losing to SU in 2003. Yet when recalling the 2003 loss, KU fans were awash with renewed frustration.
Geiger said he has attended just about every KU game since he was a kid in the 1950s. He recalled with detail how McNamara’s 3s put the Jayhawks at an early deficit. He didn’t forget that KU forward Nick Collison went 3-for-10 from the free-throw line. And he remembers the thrill of the final seconds, his heart racing as Hakim Warrick blocked Michael Lee’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer.
“We’ve never really gotten even for that one loss in New Orleans,” said Geiger, a 1965 graduate of KU.
A few feet from him, one Kansas fan said of the game, “I don’t remember losses,” with a bitterness in his voice.
When longtime KU fan Jeff Twist recalled the game, he was slightly disgusted. He watched in front of his TV at his Boulder, Colorado, home. He singled out Anthony, who scored 20 points in the title game and was named Most Outstanding Player. He said the Jayhawks have never gotten revenge on the game. He wanted SU to beat Duke in the Sweet 16 so that KU would be the team to end Syracuse’s improbable run.
“Oh yeah, still bitter,” Twist said. “I hated Syracuse ever since then. That was brutal when they knocked us out.”
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Highlights of that game have cropped up in a variety of montages played at NCAA Tournament sites, including in Detroit and Omaha. One sequence includes McNamara and Anthony. When the footage showed at SU’s Round of 32 game in Detroit, a contingent of Syracuse fans cheered.
Before the 2003 title game, SU head coach Jim Boeheim had been to a pair of Final Fours already and finished runner-up each time (1987, 1996). Then-Kansas head coach Roy Williams had reached the Final Four on four occasions. After the game, Boeheim shook hands with Williams, who said: “Jimmy, I’m really sad, but I’m really happy for you.” To which Boeheim responded, “Thank you, but you’re going to get one, too.”
That was Williams’ last game at KU, as he left for North Carolina and has been there ever since.
In the dying seconds of the 2003 title game, Kansas had a chance to tie after Warrick missed a pair of free throws. But Warrick blocked Lee’s shot with 0.7 seconds remaining on the game clock, and Syracuse avenged a second-round loss to Kansas two years earlier. “The Block” has lived on in Syracuse lore, as Lee was a strong 3-point shooter and a made 3-pointer would have sent the game into overtime.
“I thought Lee was going to make that last shot from the corner, but Warrick blocked that shot. He got him with his elbow!” said Frank Burris, a Kansas fan.
“I got all ball,” Warrick wrote in 2015 for The Players Tribune. Seconds later in the 2003 game, Syracuse players created a mosh pit near centercourt.
Burris was munching on a Reuben sandwich across from the CenturyLink Center the day of Kansas’ Elite Eight matchup. The KU graduate and his friends were enjoying KU’s run. But the more he and his friends thought about the game, the more frustration settled in.
“An unheralded freshman nobody knew anything about hit seven 3s first half,” said John Moore, a Kansas season-ticket holder. “We were tired. We ran out of gas. I remember our guys bending over holding their shorts, sweat dripping off their face.”
“We couldn’t make a damn free throw!” Burris interjected.
“I felt like I wanted to throw up,” John said. “It was a Final Four we could have won, should have won. Still bitter.”
Published on April 2, 2018 at 9:58 pm
Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21
