From his first steps onto the basketball court at Syracuse University to his final appearance on the SU bench in Wednesday’s ACC Tournament loss to Wake Forest, here’s a look through the years at Jim Boeheim’s career with the Orange.
1962: Boeheim, a college freshman, joins SU as a walk-on player.
1963: Boeheim sees his first action as a sophomore, playing in all 25 SU games and averaging a little more than 5 points per game. The Orange go 17-8, falling in the first round of the NIT.
1964: Boeheim’s scoring average rises to almost 9 PPG, and he again appears in every game of the season.
1965: In his senior season, Boeheim averages 14.6 PPG, third best on the team, and the Orange go 22-6, reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
1969: Boeheim joins the SU coaching staff as an assistant under then-head coach Roy Danforth.
1976: When Danforth steps down to take the same job at Tulane, Boeheim is elevated to head coach. His first team, the 1976-77 squad, goes 26-4 and finishes No. 6 in the final Associated Press poll. Boeheim’s teams wouldn’t lose more than six games in a season until 1980-81.
1980: Boeheim’s team wins the Big East regular-season championship. It would be the first of 10 Big East crowns Boeheim would claim before the Orange joined the ACC for the 2013-14 season.
1987: The Orange reach the Final Four for the first time under Boeheim, going 31-7. Boeheim’s first chance at a national championship, though, is snuffed out in the final seconds of the national championship game, with Keith Smart’s baseline jumper lifting Indiana to a 74-73 win and the title.
1996: Boeheim and the Orange reach their second Final Four together, going 29-9, but a national championship again proves to be elusive, as Kentucky stops SU with a 76-67 win in the title tilt.
2002: In February, SU honors its longtime coach by naming the Dome’s basketball court after him.
2003: Everything falls into place for Boeheim and the Orange. With standout seasons from freshman phenoms Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara, as well as sophomore Hakim Warrick, the Orange go 30-5, winning the Big East and returning to the Final Four. This time, SU wouldn’t be denied. Warrick made the key block in the final seconds of the national championship game in New Orleans, and SU defeated Kansas to give Boeheim his first national title.
2005: Springfield came calling for Boeheim, as he was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame along with his Big East friend (and foe) Jim Calhoun.
2008: Boeheim and Anthony found themselves on the same side again, this time for ball and country. Boeheim was an assistant coach on Mike Krzyzewski’s Team USA squad for the Beijing Summer Olympics, and the U.S. claimed the gold medal. Boeheim would win two more golds with Team USA, in 2012 and 2016.
2013: Syracuse went 30-10, returning to the Final Four as a No. 4 seed before falling to Michigan in the national semifinals.
2015: Boeheim faced controversy as an NCAA investigation found academic fraud following SU’s self-reporting of 10 violations. The NCAA stripped Boeheim of 101 wins and suspended him for nine conference games the next season.
2016: Despite Boeheim’s suspension, his squad stunned college basketball by reaching the Final Four, Boeheim’s fifth and final, as a No. 10 seed. Syracuse upset No. 1 seed Virginia in the Midwest Regional Final before falling to North Carolina in the national semifinals.
2022: Boeheim, in his next-to-last season at the helm, coaches his first sub-.500 season with Syracuse (not counting seasons with victories vacated by the NCAA). The Orange finish 16-17.
2023: Hours after a 17-14 season wraps up with an ACC Tournament loss to Wake Forest, it’s announced that Boeheim’s 47-year career with the Orange has come to an end.