There's a website called Troy Nunes in an Absolute Magician and it is devoted to Syracuse University sports. (Nunes was a Syracuse quarterback; the website name may have been inspired by an incredible scramble that ended with Nunes throwing a touchdown pass to defeat Pittsburgh in 2000.)

The website's followers are mostly diehard Syracuse fans who have become increasingly upset over the collapse of the school's basketball program that for many years put a team into the NCAA tournament, occasionally going as far as the final four and once, in 2003, all the way to the championship.

This will be the fifth straight season Syracuse will not make the tournament, and these rabid fans want Coach Adrian Autry replaced. Autry, a former Syracuse player who for several years was an assistant coach under Jim Boeheim, was elevated to head coach three years ago when Boeheim was persuaded to retire after a 47-season, Hall of Fame coaching career at his alma mater.

Boeheim's last two teams failed to make the tournament, and, at 78 years of age, Boeheim was forced to step aside. For Autry, this was a great opportunity, but perhaps a no-win situation. Syracuse was slipping even before he took over. The situation since has become more problematic, thanks to the transfer portal and NIL, initials that stand for name, image and likeness and are used as a shortcut to say student athletes are now paid, and some colleges are paying a whole lot of money. Syracuse fans are whining because they don't think their school is paying enough.

Now let's back up so I can explain why my fan status has fallen from rabid to barely aware. I no longer care if Syracuse makes another NCAA basketball tournament appearance. Okay, I'll be pleased if they do, but won't speculate from game to game throughout the season or call for the coach's head if they don't.

MY ATTITUDE has a lot to do with my age and how long I've been following sports. It was March 2, 1946 that my father took me to my first college basketball game. It was played at Archbold Gymnasium on the Syracuse University campus. I was seven years old when I saw Syracuse defeat RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) of Troy, New York, 69-29. It was Syracuse's final game of the regular season and its 23rd win (against 3 losses). Guard Billy Gabor and center Royce Newell led the Orange in scoring with 14 points each.

I mention them because both Gabor and Newell proved to be important in the Syracuse area long after they graduated from the university. Thus they were members of a breed that may soon be extinct. (Incidentally, Gabor is pronounced GAY-bor, not gah-BORE a la Zsa Zsa.)

Gabor, nicknamed "Bullet Billy," arrived at Syracuse University in 1942 after playing high school basketball in Binghamton. Because so many young men were needed to serve in World War Two, freshmen were eligible for varsity sports in 1942. (While this is true today, for many years after the war, freshmen could not play varsity sports.)

After his freshman year, Gabor's college education was interrupted by the war, and for three years Lieutenant William Gabor served in the Army Air Corp as a bombardier. He returned to Syracuse University in 1945 and played three more seasons. He then played for the Syracuse Nationals (Nats) for seven seasons, one in the National Basketball League, the rest in the National Basketball Association. Gabor was on the 1954-55 Nats team that won the NBA championship.

As for Newell, the six-foot-eight center grew up in Jamestown, New York, but remained in the Syracuse area after graduation and was the first basketball coach when Camillus, Split Rock and Fairmount combined to create West Genesee High School. Newell later became the school's athletic director.

THE TEAM I saw in my first college basketball game was the first Syracuse team invited to a post-season tournament. At the time, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) had more prestige than the NCAA Basketball Tournament, perhaps because the NIT was played in New York City's Madison Square Garden, while the NCAA tournament was played in Kansas City from 1941 thru 1952.

In 1946, both tournaments invited only eight schools to compete. Syracuse participated in the NIT. Its schedule included only a few teams that seem significant today. There were victories over St. John's, Villanova and Temple, a loss to Michigan State. Other opponents included Clarkson, Manhattan, Oswego State, Cortland, St. Lawrence, Union, Rochester, and, of course, Cornell and Colgate. Buffalo's Canisius University was an important opponent at the time, and handed Syracuse one of its three regular season defeats. In a rematch weeks later in Syracuse, the Orange got revenge, 62-32.

Syracuse lost to Muhlenberg, 47-41, in the opening round of the tournament, won by Kentucky, 46-45, over Rhode Island State (now the University of Rhode Island).

Oklahoma State (then known as Oklahoma A&M and led by seven-foot Bob Kurland) won the NCAA tournament, beating North Carolina in the championship game, 43-40.

THERE WERE many things different about basketball back then, but my concern here is expectations and how they affect feelings about favorite teams. In the 1940s and '50s, we rooted for them, obviously, but didn't begin each season expecting them to play in either the NIT or NCAA tournament.

There were 13 athletic conferences at the time, but there were many more independent colleges than there are now. Among the best of the independents in 1945-46 were West Virginia (24-3), Harvard (20-3), Bowling Green (27-5), Loyola of Chicago (23-4). Syracuse (23-4), Louisville (22-6) and Toledo (20-7)

Kansas (19-2) was the best team in the Big Six Conference, while Ohio State (16-5) won the Big Ten, though Indiana (18-3) had a better overall record. North Carolina (30-5) and Duke (21-6) played in the Southern Conference, while Oklahoma A&M (31-2) was a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. Kentucky (28-2) was the class of the Southeastern Conference. Arizona (25-5) played in the Border Conference, while New York University (19-3) was a member of the Metropolitan New York Conference that included City College of New York (CCNY) which would soon emerge as college basketball's best team — and the most infamous because of a point-shaving scandal.

WHILE SYRACUSE basketball and football teams had enjoyed national prominence in the 1920s, by the 1940s its football fans regarded a season as successful if the Orange beat bitter rival Colgate, while basketball success was victories over Cornell, Penn State, Canisius, Colgate, and Niagara.

The 1948-49 team finished with an 18-7 record. There was no post-season invitation, but its last five victories came at the expense of those those five schools. Thus it was a successful season for coach Lew Andreas.

ANDREAS RETIRED after the 1949-50 season. His team finished with an 18-9 record after playing in the NIT for a second time, beating Long Island University and losing to Bradley, which played in the championship game, losing to CCNY. (CCNY is the only team to win the NIT and NCAA in the same year, and Bradley is the only team to be a runner-up in both tournaments.)

Most of today's Syracuse fans may be unaware of Lew Andreas. He set the stage for Jim Boeheim. He spent his freshman year at the University of Illinois, then enlisted in the service for World War One. After the war, he enrolled at Syracuse University where he played football and baseball. Afterward he briefly coached the football team before concentrating on basketball. He coached for 27 seasons, finishing with a lifetime record of 358 wins against only 134 losses. His 1925-26 team posted a 19-1 record and was named the national champion by the Helms Foundation.

Syracuse's next basketball coach, Marc Guley, got off to a good start — a 19-9 record. including the championship of the first and only National Campus Tournament hosted by Bradley University. Syracuse defeated Toledo and Utah, then took on Bradley in the championship game. The teams had played earlier in the season with Bradley, ranked number two in the nation at the time, winning, 72-64.

Now ranked number six in the country, Bradley scored the first 18 points, but unranked Syracuse came back to win, 76-75. Bradley star Gene Melchiorre later was implicated with four teammates in a point-shaving scandal, though I've found nothing to indicate the Syracuse game was involved. However, the willingness of the Bradley players to work with gamblers cast a shadow over what was one of the most remarkable comebacks in Syracuse basketball history.

BUT GULEY'S success didn't last long, though his 1956-57 season made the NCAA tournament and beat Connecticut and Lafayette before losing to eventual champion North Carolina.

Over the next five seasons Syracuse went from bad to worse and in the early 1960s lost 27 games in a row. (Low point came during the 1961-62 season when Syracuse lost by 63 points to New York University, 122-59.)

Meanwhile, the football team, a laughing stock in the 1940s, became a national power in the late 1950s, and Coach Ben Schwartzwalder turned Syracuse fans into believers when his 1959 team went undefeated and won the national championship, decided at that time by polls, the Associated Press being most influential. No less that 15 groups who announced such things, declared Syracuse the best college football team that season.

(Seven seasons earlier, in a classic example of "Be careful what you wish for," Syracuse's football team was invited to play in the Orange Bowl against Alabama. The Crimson Tide won, 61-6, in what for many years was the most lopsided bowl game.)

Success wouldn't last, and the Orange football team went into a long slump, starting with the last three years of the Schwartzwalder era. It wasn't until 1987 that Syracuse became relevant again in football, under the coaching of Dick MacPherson and for awhile under Paul Pasqualoni.

But Pasqualoni's last two teams won only half their games and the coach was doomed after his 2004 squad lost the Champs Sports Bowl to Georgia Tech, 51-14.

BASKETBALL began its comeback under coach Fred Lewis, who peaked in 1965-66 with 22-6 record, beating Davidson in the NCAA tournament before losing to Duke. Star of that Syracuse team was Dave Bing, one of the premier players in the country and a future NBA great. One of his key Syracuse teammates was Jim Boeheim.

By then the NCAA tournament was king, and some Syracuse fans, I think, began to expect the great things every season.

But that didn't happen until Lewis left and was replaced by Roy Danforth, whose 1974-75 team not only made it to the NCAA tournament, but defeated North Carolina and Kansas State to reach the final four. There the team lost to Kentucky, and in the consolation game that was part of the tournament at the time, lost to Louisville. (UCLA beat Kentucky to win the championship.

Two years later, Danforth left and one of his assistants, Jim Boeheim took over. His first team won 26 games against just four losses. Boeheim's early teams stumbled in the NCAA tournament, but they were invited nearly every season and by 1986-87 Syracuse was a championship contender, and from then on its fans would settle for nothing less.

SYRACUSE, perhaps more than any other university in the country, has been plagued by the incompatibility of its football and basketball programs. And this is at the heart of a matter that has made the games in both sports less interesting than they were years ago.

It was in 1979 when Syracuse joined Providence College, St. John's and Georgetown to help Providence basketball coach Dave Gavitt realize a dream — a basketball conference that would come to be known as the Big East. These four schools were joined by Seton Hall, Connecticut and Boston College in what soon became the country's most competitive, entertaining and successful basketball conference.

Unfortunately, football was an afterthought since only Syracuse, Connecticut and Boston College had football teams. In what may have been the Big East's first big mistake, Penn State was denied membership because its basketball team was deemed not good enough.

But the league's football members were restless, and by 1991 the Big East had enough members to field a good football conference — Miami (Fla.), Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers, Boston College and Temple — though Miami dominated, which wouldn't have been the case if Penn State belonged to the conference, but the Nittany Lions were headed to a better place — the Big Ten.

When Miami left in 2004 to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East football conference cracked. Soon Boston College and Virginia Tech jumped to the ACC; a few years later Syracuse and Pittsburgh followed. Soon there was no Big East football conference.

MOVING to the ACC meant the Syracuse basketball team would play Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Clemson instead of Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's and Connecticut. The rivalry with Georgetown was particularly intense and colorful, at least, when John Thompson was coaching the Hoyas. In the Big East, Syracuse was the team to beat; in the ACC, Syracuse is an also ran. Syracuse fans tried to whip up a rivalry with Duke, but Duke fans didn't buy it. The Blue Devils' rival is North Carolina. Syracuse is a sure win.

When Syracuse played basketball in the Big East, a bid to the NCAA tournament was expected, but the season was still a success if the team beat Georgetown and/or Connecticut, especially in the Big East tournament. But a move to the ACC or the Big Ten was inevitable for Syracuse because football is more important than basketball in the overall scheme of things.

While it was hoped a rivalry would develop between Syracuse and Pittsburgh and/or Syracuse and Boston College, this hasn't happened. The big football opponent now is Clemson, and while Syracuse has won a couple of times, any feeling of rivalry is one-sided. The truth is no team on its ACC football schedule considers the Syracuse game to be anything special.

That's because, in the ACC, Syracuse is an unsuccessful outsider, like a ne'er-do-well relative who visits occasionally. This has added to my lack of enthusiasm for both Syracuse football and basketball, and my apathy was fed when the ACC added Southern Methodist, Stanford and California. It's no wonder Syracuse fans, particularly when it comes to basketball, wish their team was still playing in the Big East.

THERE'S ANOTHER reason it's now harder to be a diehard fan. Ironically, Syracuse got a hint soon after the basketball team's best season, 2002-03, when the Orange won the NCAA tournament.

Within weeks, my enthusiasm was dampened with the realization the star of that team, freshman Carmelo Anthony, would not return because he decided to go pro. That left me feeling Syracuse had won the championship by using a ringer, someone good enough to play in the NBA by the time he left high school.

(Pearl Washington also left Syracuse for the NBA, but waited until after his junior year. In fairness to Anthony, though he spent only one year at Syracuse, he has given back to the university more than athletes who graduated from the school.)

Now college basketball and football players don't have to join the NBA or NFL to get paid. But many athletes discover each season the grass may be greener at another school. Some transfer annually in hopes of better deals for themselves.

RESULT? College football and basketball conferences have turned into professional minor leagues, its teams making wholesale roster changes every year. It is pointless for fans to invest much interest in a player because next year he will be gone, perhaps to a rival school.

Eligibility is extended by a redshirt season, certain loopholes in NCAA rules, injuries and, for those around in 2020, the Covid pandemic. At least one football player already has had a college career that lasted eight years. Some athletes who turned pro are suing the NCAA so they can return to use their last years of eligibility and be paid big bucks in the process.

What I find particularly ridiculous, at least in regard to the Syracuse situation, is the local newspaper, the Post-Standard, through its website, syracuse.com, considers it newsworthy when a high school junior, rated a three-star athlete by some unknown, self-appointed expert, announces he is considering Syracuse among nine other schools that have offered him a scholarship. Gee, thanks, kid.

Chances are he'll pick one of the other schools, but even if he shows up at Syracuse two years from now, he'll transfer eight or nine months later.

More power to these athletes, I guess. Money obviously rules. But I miss the days a player made a commitment and stuck to it. I also miss seeing players develop over four years and letting me believe they think more of the team than of themselves. I wish there were more athletes like Jim Boeheim because he truly loves Syracuse, remaining at the school when he had several opportunities to leave.

What I see on the basketball court and football field these days aren't student-athletes, they're a bunch of mercenaries. I imagine some of the basketball players carry a card that says, "Can dunk, will travel."