NCAA Tournament First Round - Syracuse vs Vermont

It was shocking enough that Vermont was able to win one NCAA Tournament game against Syracuse this century. The Catamounts were not about to register one of the most titanic two-fers in the history of college basketball.

Five years ago - were they five long years or short ones? - a set of merry pranksters from Burlington, Vt., took a No. 13 seed into Worcester, Mass., and stunned the fourth-seeded Orangemen (as they were then called) in a first-round bombshell that radiated through the rest of that year's Big Dance. The 2005 NCAA Tournament was forever altered by that result, because while 13th-seeded Vermont and then-coach Tom Brennan marched on to the second round, fifth-seeded Michigan State - which had been expecting to play a de facto road game against Syracuse in New England - was able to get to the Sweet 16. Once in the regional’s - the Austin Regional’s, to be more precise - the Spartans then upset Duke and knocked off Kentucky to reach the fourth Final Four in the Tom Izzo era.

Needless to say, another Vermont upset of Syracuse at tournament time - on this occasion, in Buffalo, N.Y. - would have radically reshaped the nature of the West Region bracket.

Syracuse, however, had other plans. The Orange (with their new and slicker nickname) would not allow the Catamounts to catapult themselves into the national limelight in 2010.

It was really rather simple: Coach Jim Boeheim's bunch took hold of this tilt from the get-go and never really lost its hold on the proceedings at HSBC Arena. Syracuse grabbed a 19-8 lead with 11:16 left in the first half, and never led by single digits again. Yes, the 'Cuse held a double-digit advantage for the final 31 minutes and 16 seconds of this, quite possibly the last 1-versus-16 game in the history of the NCAA Tournament (this will indeed be the case if the tourney expands to 96 teams next year, as many people fear; and yes, the development is indeed something to be feared). By making such quick work of the America East Conference champions, Syracuse earned needed rest - mentally even more than physically - in advance of an early start time on Sunday (12:10 p.m. Eastern) against eighth-seeded Gonzaga.