Today, Syracuse lost on a last-second shot against Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tournament – as the Orange went 17-15 for the season.  Then, they lost their long time coach of 47 years.

Syracuse’s legendary coach announced that he is retiring and that associate head coach Adrian Autry would be taking over the team.  Boeheim won 1,116 games throughout his career, appeared in 5 Final Fours and won the 2003 national championship.  Of course, 101 of those wins were vacated as part of sanctions for NCAA rules violations between 2004 to 2007 and 2010 to 2012.  Either way, Boeheim finishes his career currently in second for all time wins by a head coach behind only Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski.

Boeheim never was shy about speaking his mind – often in ways that made me seriously dislike him (which has made its way multiple times into the blog over the years).  Considering the rules violations, I feel that dislike was fair and warranted.  But despite my feelings about things Boeheim has done off the court in press conferences (or the off the court violations that got him in trouble with the NCAA), there was never a doubt that he was one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.

I can’t say that I am sad that Boeheim is retiring.  But the world of college basketball is certainly losing one of its best coaches.  And for that fact alone, it is worth taking a moment away from my bubble analysis to congratulate Boeheim on a fantastic career.