March Madness 2021: Top 10 moments from NCAA Tournament
By Adam Childs
8. Buddy’s big games
It is always tough playing a sport when your dad is the head coach. It is even tougher when he is a hall-of-fame college coach who has won national titles.
If you don’t play well the fan base will cry out that you are only playing because you are the coach’s son. It can put a lot of pressure on you and can ultimately kill a kid’s confidence and ruin his year.
But if you play well it can be the most rewarding time in your career. Play well and you get immediately share it with one of the closest people in your family. It can make for some great moments and that is exactly what happened for the Boeheim’s this year.
Boeheim, who was out for a portion of this year for COVID, struggled to find his shot during the year but found it at the right time to help lead Syracuse and his dad back to the Sweet 16.
The Orange narrowly made it into the tournament as an 11 seed, but Boeheim made sure everyone took notice of them when the tournament started.
Boeheim went 7-10 from deep in their opening round win over San Diego State and followed that up with a 6-13 shooting night from behind the arc to help them upset three-seeded West Virginia.
While their two-three zone can give teams fits in the tournament it was Boeheim who stole the show. His 55 points in the first two tournament games were the third most during that span in Syracuse men’s basketball history.
His magic would run out against Houston, but it was a very memorable two-game run for Boeheim. He was perhaps the hottest shooter over the first weekend and it produced great moments between him and his dad.