This season is quickly turning into one to forget for Syracuse basketball fans.
Not only did the Orange have to self-impose a one-year postseason ban earlier this month in response to an ongoing NCAA investigation, but, now, according to Andy Clayton of the New York Daily News, the program dropped the ball when honoring two of the program's all-time greats, Roosevelt Bouie and Louis Orr.
"Saturday's game against Pittsburgh at the Carrier Dome was supposed to feature the return of the 'Louie and Bouie Show' at Syracuse," Clayton wrote. "Instead, it turned into the 'Louie and Bowie Show' when the school presented a misspelled jersey to Roosevelt Bouie."
The gaffe quickly made the rounds on social media.
"Syracuse should get another year's probation for giving Roosevelt Bouie his framed retired jersey with the name spelled wrong," was one Twitter comments.
Orr and Bouie were prize recruits for first-year coach Jim Boeheim in 1976, and they teamed up to lead the Orange on four consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament, scoring more than 1,000 career points each.
To make matters a little worse, the Orange lost 65-61.
Clock shock
Chalk one up for the Rowdy Rams.
During Saturday's game against Massachusetts, Virginia Commonwealth's vociferous student section used an old trick to fool both the UMass players and the game's officiating crew -- the old fake countdown.
"If you've watched any college basketball at all," wrote Brett Edgerton of ESPN.com, "surely you've seen student sections try to throw off opposing teams by chanting a fake shot-clock countdown, always a few seconds off in hopes some player will get confused and heave up an unnecessary shot with plenty of time left on the actual shot clock.
"Well, on Saturday it worked. And not only did it throw off freshman guard Donte Clark, but also the game's refs, who incorrectly called a shot-clock violation and then had to go to the monitor to figure it all out."
In the end, the 25th-ranked Rams won 78-72 after a timely three-pointer and blocked shot from Jordan Burgess sealed the victory.
Polar activist
A swimmer was left in agony and had to take a 50-minute hot shower after going for a swim in the freezing Antarctic Ocean.
Lewis Pugh of Plymouth, England, took the plunge off the coast of Cape Adare, East Antarctica -- breaking a record for the most southerly swim.
Pugh swam 500 meters around icebergs in water temperatures of 28 degrees on Thursday -- while wearing trunks, goggles and a swim cap.
"My fingers were in absolute agony from around the 300-meter mark," Pugh told the Metro newspaper. "I've never felt pain like it before."
It wasn't his first try at it, either. An earlier effort ended when he was chased by a sea lion.
Pugh, a 45-year-old endurance swimmer who is the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world and who previously swam across the North Pole in 2007, hopes his grueling effort will help persuade world leaders to make the Ross Sea, under threat from commercial fishing, a protected area.
"Now, the only thing warming me up is the thought that my actions can encourage world leaders to come together and preserve this wonderful and important part of the world," Pugh said.
Sports on 02/23/2015