SYRACUSE -- Even though the Syracuse Basketball team is undefeated and ranked third in the country, the Orange are still seeing more national headlines about the Bernie Fine investigation than their success on the court. Before Tuesday night's win over Marshall at the Carrier Dome, some fans were hoping the focus would eventually shift back to basketball
"The coaches, I'm sure are dealing with a lot of issues but hopefully the players are just concentrating on basketball," said SU fan Rick Osborne.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire but let's just get back to basketball," added SU fan Jason McRae.
Very few basketball teams -either college or professional - can bring more than twenty thousand people together on a cold December night. On Tuesday, many fans said they hoped the scandal wouldn't bring down the program that means so much to the community.
"It makes the city. It makes something fun to do during the winter months. something like that with the assistant coach shouldn't affect the players - players want to play at a reputable college," said SU fan Matt Beadnell before going into the Dome.
Like many fans, Pat Rohe said he was waiting to see the final results of the investigation before coming to any conclusions.
"We hate to see ourselves on ESPN in the morning because of something like this but it's out of our control. we hope what happens gets resolved and we hope that people get justice and we're going to continue supporting our team," said Rohe.