Men's Basketball

Syracuse to play in 2017 Hoophall Miami Invitational, face Kansas in 2003 national championship rematch

Daily Orange File Photo

Tyus Battle and the Orange will play the Kansas Jayhawks at American Airlines Arena and host three games in the Carrier Dome as part of the invitational.

Syracuse will play in the 2017 Hoophall Miami Invitational, an early season four-game tournament, SU Athletics announced Wednesday Morning. The Orange will play the Jayhawks at American Airlines Arena, as CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reported last year, and host three games in the Carrier Dome as part of the invitational.

Syracuse will host Oakland, Toledo and Texas Southern. The Kansas game will be a rematch of the 2003 national championship, Syracuse’s only NCAA title, when the Orange won 81-78 behind Hakim Warrick’s late block on Michael Lee’s corner 3-pointer. Since the 2003 title game, the two teams have played once, Nov. 25, 2008 at a neutral site. Syracuse secured an 89-81 overtime win behind 25 points from Jonny Flynn and 20 from Eric Devendorf.

This season, Kansas finished 16-2 in the Big 12 and 31-5 overall. KU, which lost to Oregon in the Elite Eight last Saturday, beat five teams in the Associated Press Top 10. The Jayhawks ranked No. 3 in the final AP Top 25 poll of the season.

“We are excited to participate in the 2017 Hoophall Miami Invitational,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said in a release. “The opportunity to play a quality program like Kansas in Miami will be as strong a test as we could hope for our team.”

Syracuse, a preseason Top 25 team, finished the 2016-17 season with a loss to Mississippi in the National Invitational Tournament. The Orange went 10-8 in the ACC and 19-15 overall. SU played in the NIT for only the seventh time in Boeheim’s 41-year tenure as head coach.



Also in December, SU will play Connecticut in the 2017 Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden.





Top Stories