Sophomore guard Jonny Flynn enjoyed one of the banner seasons in SU point-guard history in 2008-09. Recently, he looked back at some high points of the campaign.
How would you recap the 2008 season?
“It was a rollercoaster ride! The goal was to get into the tournament and things like that. When you come out here and work as hard as we did, we saw that we had potential, you know with the players that we had.
"With Andy Rautins coming back, and Eric Devendorf, we knew we could win a National Championship. Just coming into the season we knew what our goal was. We had set out that making the tournament wasn’t good enough for us anymore -- we wanted to advance in the tournament and play for a National Championship.
"Things got off on the right track. We went down to Kansas City and got two big wins. After those games I was in the locker room saying, ‘Syracuse is back!' I was just happy to finally be back in that limelight, back to that glory stage, where you are ranked, and people are starting to talk about you all over the country. You’re in a nationally-televised tournament -- so it was just a great feeling with my teammates, and even seeing Coach Boeheim with the expressions on his face. You don’t get expressions out of him a lot.
"We hit a couple bumps during the season. Big East Conference play is tough. We lost to about five or six top-12 teams. It was just a tough, tough situation. (We) may have been starting to doubt ourselves -- starting to doubt our abilities and our talents. Coach really took us to the side and said, ‘That doesn’t mean you’re not a good team. Losing to top 12 teams means you just might not be in the top 12, you might be a top 20 team.’ He really kept us together during the stretch when Andy was getting hurt, when AO (Arinze Onuaku) was getting hurt, when we had off-the-court problems, things like that. He really put us together and we picked it back up the last month of the season. We really bought into what he was saying. During the year we listened to him, but towards the end of the season we really bought into what he was saying and you can see the results. We won 10 of our last 11 games and things like that.
"It was fun! Most of all, just being around these guys made it great.”
What did you think was the biggest difference between last year and this year?
“I think for the most part, guys got older, myself included, and Rick Jackson. We played big minutes this year, but we had a year under our belts. We had a year to play through a lot of mistakes last year and learn on the fly. I think that really helped us coming into this season with what to expect on and off the court. What to expect in Big East play, how to balance academics and basketball, things like that.
"Once you get everything like that down set it’s like clockwork. You don’t have to think about what you’re doing you just know every day what you’re going to do. Just coming into this year, it was a lot easier for us. We knew what to expect. We had the leaders around us again, in Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf, who played a big role. I think just that last year when we were just out there playing through everything and all the things that went on through last year helped mold us into the players and people that we became this year.”
What was one play from the year that sticks out in your mind? The dunk at Rutgers?
“That was crazy. I used to catch so much heat from everyone on the team, ‘You’ve got a 43” vertical! You never dunk on people!’ I get my fast breaks and I dunk on fast breaks and things like that but they were telling me they want to see it through the lane -- they want to see me catch a big guy -- they want to see someone catching a charge or something.
"Earlier in that Rutgers game, the funny thing is, it was a fast break and I made a move on a guy and got past him, and I should have dunked it, and someone came from behind and blocked my shot off the glass into the backcourt. Coach Murphy said, ‘See Jonny, that’s why you’ve got to dunk! See, you’re not a game dunker. You’re a layup line dunker; you’re a practice dunker; you don’t dunk in games!’ I told him ‘Okay, I’ve got you.’ I started laughing.
"Coming down (we) called a double fist with Paul Harris setting a screen and Arinze setting a screen, stagger screen. I come off it, but the guy was [guarding me]. I saw in his face that he was trying to jump over the screen and beat me to the spot so I gave him a little jab that way and put it back in the left hand. I thought it was a wide-open basket and then I saw Mike Rosario slide over late. There’s so much time in between me and him getting to the basket and I’m thinking, ‘I’m about to dunk on him.’ So I caught it, took a dribble and stutter-stepped, got my feet set and just went up and the rest is history. What made it even better though was Fred Hill (Rutgers coach) called the time-out right after that so the gym was still going crazy and everyone was still going crazy. Mike Rosario came up to me after the time-out and said, ‘See, that’s why I don’t take charges.’ I got a good laugh out of that. That was a highlight.
How about your last-second three-pointer against Kansas?
“That set everything up. I just saw an opportunity to make a big play. The play before that, I tried to come off a screen and Cole Aldridge got his long arms and tipped the ball out. Luckily, Paul Harris ran back on D, something he doesn't do a lot (!) and blocked the ball out of bounds just to give us even a chance. I still didn’t think we’d even have a chance to get a shot off after that but we got the ball back, I came off the screen and this time instead of trying to play it behind the screen like I did before, I pulled it all the way out to see if Cole Aldridge would stay with me. A 7-footer, I’m not trying to be arrogant or anything but I don’t think there’s a 7-footer in the country that can stay in front of me wherever I play basketball. When I saw that, I pulled him all the way over and I’m (thinking), ‘Okay, they’ve got to switch.’
"I look at the clock and there’s about eight or so seconds left. So I pull it out and I act like I’m about to go this way, and I saw him look that way so I did a low dribble, and he reached too, he almost got it, he reached, and I heard coach saying, ‘Get the two! Get the two!’ because I’m right in front of the bench. He’s screaming, ‘Get the two!’ and if you’ve seen the pictures of that shot, if you see the game again, you can see him saying it too, telling me to go get the two. I decided it’s all or nothing right here. There’s too much you’ve got to do -- foul -- and then they’ve got to miss -- and it’s too much.
So, I saw a wide open shot and hit it, and then I was just praying that Sherron Collins wouldn’t come down and hit the shot. Luckily he shot it off the backboard.
Flynn has entered his name in the upcoming NBA draft and has signed with an agent. As exam week wraps up at the University, he plans to put his time into preparing for pre-draft camps in May.