Jim Boeheim is officially the sixth-winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 history now.
Whatever you think of vacated wins and their validity, until it's appealed or revised, the record books will officially show Syracuse Orange head coach Jim Boeheim has 108 less victories today than he had yesterday.
Boeheim had 966 wins to his credit before NCAA sanctions were announced, good for 2nd-most all time behind Coach K. Now, he's being relieved of 108 of them due to various violations and players involved who apparently should not have played. That puts him back down to 858 officially, which means he's now the sixth all-time winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 history.
Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Jim Calhoun and Adolph Rupp, all of whom were passed by Boeheim in recent seasons, are now back on top.
Because of the sanctions, Syracuse can't just pretend the win vacations didn't happen and move forward with plans to celebrate Boeheim's 1,000th win in the next year or two. At least that saves us from an embarrassing "Boehime" jersey ceremony.
According to an SU release, Boeheim had self-imposed a 24 win vacation on himself. Still no word yet on the specific games that the NCAA or SU are calling into question, though we know for sure that the 2003 National Championship game is unaffected.
The goodish news that this doesn't mean the end of the story. Joe Paterno was stripped of 111 wins initially by the NCAA but later had all of them restored. While it seems unlikely Boeheim could get all of his wins back, there's a decent chance that number will come down and he'll rise back up the all-time wins chart.
I've always felt as though win milestones and legacy are important to Boeheim, despite his admissions to the contrary. Now that he's taken such a big step back, one wonders what affect that has on his future plans. For the time being, 1,000 official wins now seems unlikely. But we've got a ways to go before the dust settles on all of this.
