It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since Syracuse won its first and only men's basketball national championship.
But for the first time in nearly two decades, members of the team returned to the Dome and relived the greatest accomplishment in program history.
“I’ve got chills right now, you know," Kueth Duany said. "When Billy [Edelin] came to carry the trophy, when Carmelo came out there, that energy we got from each other, the crowd was just amazing. Then seeing these highlights of us as young men, it just gives me chill every time.”
“I just love these guys," former Syracuse head basketball coach Jim Boeheim said. "They’re just great people. They really are unbelievable people.”
A reunion 20 years later is a moment that will likely never be forgotten.
“To share an experience like that with your teammates, 20 years later, where almost all of us are parents, to share that all these years later, to have a glass of wine, for us to come together after all this time, it was a special night,” Gerry McNamara said.
“It’s just love man, to see all these guys," Hakim Warrick said. "To come together, it’s just going to be a bond we’ll always have no matter what. To see somebody, maybe at the 40th anniversary, we’ve got grandkids, we’re still going to see each other and have these stories. Just a special weekend. I'm glad I could share it with everyone.”
Last weekend focused on those 2003 national champions, but also those who helped them along the way.
“It’s not for us, it’s for you guys," Carmelo Anthony said. "For us to come back and give it to y'all, give y'all this energy, let you see what we’ve been doing right now, but most importantly, we couldn’t have done this without the support of Syracuse fans. We just want to say we love you guys and thank you. Coming from the first day we started practicing and getting into the gym and trying to understand what we were trying to accomplish. We didn’t know what we were going to accomplish. We just knew we were going to get together and have some fun. As far as the national championship goes, I don’t think anyone could have imagined that but I think it’s a testament to what we created so to bring it back full circle 20 years later, being back on campus, like Kueth said, we don’t miss a beat. The energy is different. It will always be different. It’s just something about Syracuse. It’s a different type of love and affection that the community has for us and we have for them.”
It's a night in New Orleans two decades ago that will be forever remembered.
“It’s still surreal," Josh Pace said. "It’s a big accomplishment. It’s something we share with you all. We’re not able to come up often, every year or two but hopefully events like this show that team playing out there right now, especially with this group right here, this championship we won and put together that we’re invested in them, we’re invested in the program still and we want to keep this thing moving forward.”