The grace period lasted 30 minutes. Then, at the press conference following Syracuse’s Elite Eight victory on Sunday, the media reminded Jim Boeheim that, at Syracuse, a Final Four berth comes at a high price.

“Jim, can you talk about The Shot?”

The Shot. The one that Indiana’s Keith Smart swished through the net against Syracuse with four seconds left in the 1987 national championship game. The one that gave the Hoosiers a one-point lead sufficient for a national title. The one that left Syracuse first shocked, still heartbroken.

It’s a scab that will never heal. Because every time Syracuse makes it this far, the wound is picked at again and again, until it’s so bloody the pain feels fresh.

You’ll hear about Smart and his 16-foot heave as much as you’ll hear about Carmelo Anthony this week. And the truth is, you probably deserve to.

Until Syracuse wins a national title, Smart’s shot will stand the landmark moment in Orangemen basketball history. It forever cast Syracuse as a lovable loser, a bridesmaid taunted by the taste of victory. It turned Boeheim into half dunce, half victim. It made Syracuse everyman’s underdog, pitied by the national media and popular among fans.

“That shot,” said Arkansas Athletics Director Frank Broyles, “has made Syracuse a constant feel-good story. It’s hard not to root for the underdogs, the guys who last time had their hearts broken.”

Never was that more evident than in 1996, when a scrappy, John Wallace-led Syracuse team made it to the championship game. Facing well-established juggernaut Kentucky in the finals, Syracuse became a crowd favorite.

“Thanks to one shot almost a decade ago,” wrote a Kansas City Star columnist in ’96, “Syracuse has pretty much cornered the market on sentimentality this weekend.”

Before the ’96 finals — which Syracuse lost — even Smart proclaimed he would root for the Orangemen. It would be almost cruel for them to have their hearts broken again, he said.

Pity makes popular. It happened with the Buffalo Bills. It happened with John Elway. It’s still happening with Syracuse, especially Boeheim.

Smart’s shot is the mark on Boeheim’s Hall of Fame coaching career that allows critics to say: “He’s never won a national title.” It’s what the media pointed to in ’96 when they underscored Boeheim as a loser and underachiever.

In ’96, one out-of-town columnist wrote: “Fate — in the form of Smart’s rainbow, baseline jump shot — rendered Boeheim’s effort meaningless. No matter how noble the effort, he’ll always be known as a loser.”

Some were even harsher. A Cincinnati Post columnist wrote: “Jim Boeheim is a clown. He’s a whiner. He’s a choker. He’s the undefeated, undisputed, undeniable underachiever of the world, the worst coach in college basketball.”

But as much as Smart’s jumper left Boeheim maligned, it left him pitied, too.

In ’96, the Final Four was, as one newspaper put it, “Jim Boeheim appreciation weekend.” Much of the national media rallied around the coach whose fantastic career had been marred by one jump shot.

Across the nation Monday, the pity parade started again. Newspapers proclaimed this weekend’s Final Four as a chance for Boeheim to exorcise his ghost. And, in doing so, they again began picking at Syracuse’s biggest scab.

“The videos of that shot will be on TV all the time,” said Wayne Morgan, an assistant coach on the ’87 Syracuse team. “And I still have a tough time watching it.”

He better prepare to turn his head, because as the Orangemen prepare to play in the Final Four, their highlight from hell will be played. Over and over.

“Until Syracuse wins,” Broyles, the Arkansas athletics director, said, “that shot will continue to be talked about. It’s a defining moment that people remember.”

It’ll be up to Syracuse to make people forget.

Eli Saslow is a staff writer at The Daily Orange. E-mail him at eesaslow@syr.edu.

Published on March 31, 2003 at 12:00 pm