Hakim Warrick Q&A: 2003 Syracuse championship and jersey retirement

Syracuse University will honor the 2003 championship team thisweekend. It is the 20th anniversary of the title and many of thechampionship team’s players will make their way to upstate New Yorkto celebrate. The guest list includes Carmelo Anthony, HakimWarrick, Gerry McNamara, Kueth Duany and more.

I caught up with Warrick, who will also be honored with hisjersey officially being retired alongside his teammate McNamara.The jersey retirements will take place on Saturday, March 4, whenSyracuse hosts Wake Forest at the Carrier Dome. Warrick’s jerseywill be hoisted into the rafters, joining Syracuse legends such asDave Bing (22), Roosevelt Bouie (50), Louis Orr (55), DerrickColeman (44), Sherman Douglas (20), Dennis DuVal (22), Billy Gabor(17), Vic Hanson (8), Lawrence Moten (21), Billy Owens (30), RonySeikaly (4), Carmelo Anthony (15), Wilmer Sidat-Singh (19), PearlWashington (31) and John Wallace (44).

Needless to say, he is in some very good company.

Etan Thomas: Syracuse is going to honor you onSaturday night, a member of Syracuse's only championship team.They’re going to retire your jersey and G-Mac’s jersey. There willbe a lot of guys from your team going back for this specialoccasion. How does it feel?

Hakim Warrick: "It feels great. It’s definitelyan honor. Like you said, this is going to really be a specialnight. To have my name up there with some of the Syracuse greats,it’s definitely an honor."

Etan: Let's talk about how special that 2003team was. Y’all were such a deep team. Y’all had so many differentweapons coming off the bench.

Hakim: "It was a really special team. I thinkone of the things that made us so tough to beat was that everyoneknew their roles and played them to the best of their ability. Wealso had a situation where everyone knew that at some point, it wasgoing to be their night, and we were so selfless that we would justfeed the hot man. It didn’t matter who it was. We went like nine or10 deep. And you know, that’s not regular for Syracuse (laughing).Coach Boeheim has been notorious for cutting that rotation realshort, but we had a lot of guys who could really play."