As Someone Who Paid $50,000 a Year To Go To Syracuse, I Would Advise Taking a Million Dollars Not To Go There

So Reags blogged this yesterday about how Darius Bazley, the first new generation high school-to-pro player, announced he had accepted a deal with New Balance guaranteeing him a nice million dollars no matter what happens with his career. He can make up to fourteen million based off certain escalators, but a million dollar guarantee is something that will change college basketball drastically in the upcoming years.

As someone who went to Syracuse for four years and miraculously got a degree, I figured I would chime in here. I want to make it clear that I would have much rather preferred to been paid a cool millie rather than sit in classes and the library (nerd) for four years while paying upwards of $200,000 during my time. Do not get me wrong, I had the time of my life at Syracuse and met my now-best friends there, but when the four years ended we all looked at each other and wondered why we all didn’t go to somewhere like Miami.

Syracuse has been dubbed the snowiest college in America and the weather machine makes sure it snows quite literally all the time to back that up. The moment November hits you’re getting snow. The moment December hits, all you see is white outside up until about April. There was a year I was at school when it snowed during graduation in May. And folks, I’m not talking about cocaine, although the sororities certainly have a ton of that (like more than you’ll ever see). But the snow isn’t even what’ll break your soul: it’s the wind. The entire school is built in a goddamn wind tunnel, especially the dorms. I was in Sadler Hall my freshman year which is directly next to the Carrier Dome. To get to and from class you had to walk up the steps of the Dome and around the outside concourse since all of the academic buildings were on the other side. When you were making this trek the wind would whip you off your feet. I witnessed a girl once get blown so far back she fell down like 7 steps of stairs and nearly knocked herself out. The moment you are stuck in one of those gusts you contemplate stepping in front of moving traffic. When the stairs are icy, and they usually are, it’s basically a reenactment of Dennis Quaid trying to rescue Jake Gyllenhaal in the Day After Tomorrow. Many times I would step outside, feel that wind and turn directly back around and go lay in bed. The wind and ice combo is by far the worst thing about Syracuse University and it’ll make you contemplate if global warming is actually happening. I will say, if you can survive it, you’ll be able to endure any type of weather for the rest of your life.

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The classes themselves are fine. If I can pass them, then anyone can. I have bad social anxiety and hate when a teacher runs their class by calling on you at random. It’s my biggest fear in the world, especially because I never did the daily reading. There was one class where I just stopped going to recitation all together because a teacher would call out at random on the 20 person class. I still got a C somehow in that class despite not going and attendance being taken all the time, so that’s proof anyone can pass these courses.

Now as a student athlete it’s a whole different story because you’re balancing doing school work, attending class, and boosting your athletic career along with trying to have some semblance of a social life. I was partners with Michael Carter Williams (Mike Wilbon name drop) in one of my freshman classes and the dude was always exhausted from all everything. Keep in mind his now-fiance got very, very sick at one point so he had to deal with that along with his house being burnt down in a fire during the Final Four. The dude had a wild rollercoaster of a college career. Now obviously these athletes aren’t paying $50,000 a year to go to the school, but they aren’t getting paid to do this either (at least not that we know of wink, wink). The Discourse in Society class MCW and I took did him absolutely nothing in life besides waste his time. The whole class was transcribing audio, that’s it.

The school is so much fun, but these days the main senior bar, Chucks, is closed and the frats are dying out. I never did a fraternity since I met all my friends my first semester at school, but obviously if you’re in one of those you had a great time. IFC has cracked down on anything frats do these days and make it almost impossible to do shit they were doing when I was there. So when I see Darius Bazley is getting a million to not go to the school and some people think he’s missing out on the college experience and Jim Boeheim’s coaching values then I think we need to pump our breaks. Let’s look at current NBA players who went to Cuse:

Carmelo Anthony: I don’t think Boeheim had anything to do with Melo’s growth.
Michael Carter Williams: I think he just had the worst statistical year in the NBA history
Jerami Grant: honestly Boeheim’s best project ever
Wesley Johnson: averaged 7 points a game in his NBA career
Tyler Lydon: injury plagued first year, I guess wait and see but most likely will do nothing in the NBA
Malachi Richardson: Not great!
Dion Waiters: He’s pretty solid, but I’m not sure what Jim did to make him better. He never started for Cuse somehow.

There are a few guys who have turned out, but most do not last. It’s not like we’re Kentucky just churning out top pro prospects all the time and he’s missing out on this big chance to get better. The best thing he probably could have done was take a year off and train his balls off while getting bigger. That’s all he was going to do at Syracuse while also enduring horrible weather, lots of classwork, and memorizing the 2-3 zone like it was the bible. Would I have loved Bazley, probably Jim’s biggest prospect get since Melo, to join a team that is preseason ranked 16th in the country? No shit, but I also can reason with him and say I’d take a million dollars to not go to the school and instead work on his game 24/7.

Best of luck Darius. You already have a great basketball name so that’s a start to a good career.