J
im Lee was in the Wegmans check-out line when he found out his jersey would hang next to Rudy Hackett’s in the JMA Wireless Dome rafters forever. It was mid-October 2025, over 50 years since the duo last took the court together for Syracuse.
Lee received a call from Syracuse Director of Athletics John Wildhack, alerting him of the news. The former point guard delayed his shopping trip, pulling the cart out of line. He then notified Hackett, who was naturally watching a basketball game at home.
This was a moment half a century in the making.
“I’m just glad they finally gave us our due,” Lee said.
Lee and Hackett developed and starred together for Syracuse from 1971-75, leading the program to its first-ever Final Four in their senior year. When the Orange face No. 16 North Carolina Saturday, Lee and Hackett will have their jerseys enshrined together, becoming the 18th and 19th players to earn the honor.
The matchup is fitting. The tandem’s most iconic moment came against the Tar Heels, pushing SU to its greatest heights and setting the stage for future success in the Jim Boeheim era.
Five decades later, Lee has still never seen film of what multiple teammates describe as the biggest shot in Syracuse history. Then a 32-team NCAA Tournament, the Orange defeated La Salle in Philadelphia to set up a Sweet 16 matchup with North Carolina in Providence.
SU center Earnie Seibert remembers the team watching TV the night before the game. A broadcaster said the winner of Boston College and Kansas State would take on the Tar Heels. Syracuse’s players felt disrespected by the comment but knew they were heavy underdogs.
Facing off with star guard Phil Ford and UNC, the Orange fought to the wire. Then, in a tie game with seconds to play, Hackett received the ball down low. The Tar Heels swarmed him. Hackett turned to four years of chemistry, kicking the ball out to an open Lee for the game-winner.
“I knew where Jim was gonna be,” Hackett said. “I caught him out of the corner of my eye, and I kicked it out to him exactly the way we did it when we were practicing up at the gym all the time.”
Syracuse took down Kansas State by eight points two days later to reach the Final Four in San Diego, catapulting a small school from central New York into the national spotlight.
“We were a different era, but we were the first ones to do some things that nobody else in Syracuse basketball history ever did,” Lee said.
The Syracuse men’s basketball team prepares to board its flight to the 1975 Final Four in San Diego. The appearance was SU’s first time reaching the Final Four. Courtesy of Jim Lee
Lee and Hackett’s four-year maturation through SU’s program to become senior captains is virtually impossible in modern college basketball. Given the pervasiveness of the transfer portal, players often earn one-year contracts. Only J.J. Starling and Donnie Freeman returned to Syracuse this season, and no SU player has started a game in four consecutive years since Joseph Girard III from 2019-23.
Lee and Hackett first met as freshmen in 1971 at Manley Field House. In one of their first days on campus, Lee, Hackett, teammate Steve Shaw and a few others went to Thornden Park to play pickup and ran on Waverly Avenue for a workout.
Lee and Hackett had just met. But the bond was forming.
“We had a competitive fire in us that was comparable,” Hackett said. “We wanted to succeed, wanted to excel, wanted to play well and wanted to learn how to be the best at what we did. My basketball personality matched. We were out to prove that we could play at that level.”
However, the duo began playing basketball through different paths. Lee was born and raised in Kirkwood, New York, a town with a population under 5,000 in the 1960s.
We were a different era, but we were the first ones to do some things that nobody else in Syracuse basketball history ever did.Jim Lee, former Syracuse men’s basketball guard
He learned the fundamentals of the game through his older brother, Mike, and teamed up with him at SU after receiving a scholarship offer from head coach Roy Danforth. Decades later, Lee is the first to admit he wasn’t the greatest athlete compared to other players at the Division I level. Yet he knew his basketball IQ could help him control the game.
Hackett didn’t play basketball until he was 16 years old. Living in the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon, which had a population of over 70,000 in the 1960s, Hackett was thrown into a competitive environment he was forced to survive.
Hackett made the Mount Vernon squad with the help of star guard Gus Williams, and when Boeheim came to recruit him as SU’s assistant coach, Hackett knew Syracuse largely from its football pedigree. Boeheim saw the future. More importantly, he saw something in Hackett even the then-high schooler didn’t see.
“He said, ‘Rudy, with you, we think we could win the NCAA Championship,’” Hackett remembers Boeheim saying. “Well, any coach is going to tell a player that. But when I heard him say that, I thought he was half crazy.”
Jim Lee (left) and Rudy Hackett (right) starred for Syracuse from 1971-75. On Saturday, the two will be etched in SU’s history forever as their jerseys are retired. Courtesy of Jim Lee
Lee remembers the moment he knew his class could win at the college level. Ahead of their freshman season in mid-October, the five freshmen scrimmaged the varsity team and lost by about 40 points. After a full season playing together, the two sides scrimmaged again in March to prepare the varsity team for the NIT. Lee said the rematch was far closer, proving the group was ready to compete.
Lee and Hackett lived separately as freshmen in Kimmel Hall but roomed together their next three years in Lawrinson Hall. Both built a connection as “quieter” guys, Lee said. Hackett had a stereo unit and played soul music. Lee still listens to some of the music Hackett was playing 50 years ago.
“When you live with somebody, it’s almost like they turn out to be your brother,” Lee said.
The routine was quite simple back then. After practice, the team rushed back to campus to eat together before the dining hall closed at 6:30 p.m. Once they were done eating, many would retreat to their dormitories to rest up for the next day. Lee and Hackett often went to Archbold Gymnasium from about 8 to 10 p.m. to get extra work in together.
Neither started on the varsity team until their junior year, and when the Orange hit a rut during their senior campaign, the routine helped them out of it. In February, fans stopped coming to games, and Seibert said some friends stopped talking to the players. Lee and Hackett steadied the ship, fixing their own struggles late at night at Archbold.
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Syracuse then rattled off four straight wins to finish the regular season, steamrolled Niagara and St. Bonaventure in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Regional Tournament and won three NCAA Tournament contests.
Even as Syracuse’s 1974-75 team earned a 50th anniversary celebration last season, members of the team, including Lee and Hackett, recognize that the squad’s always been overlooked in SU history. The idea stretches to Lee and Hackett’s personal careers.
In recent decades, as Syracuse retired younger players’ numbers, Lee and Hackett came to terms with it, knowing the decision was out of their control.
Seibert, like others on the team, felt the individual recognition was long overdue. Shaw told The Daily Orange a year ago that it was “an oversight” by the university. To have the moment now makes the wait worth it.
“They were the guys we all looked up to,” Shaw said. “They poured their heart out for the team.”
Syracuse’s first Final Four team set the standard. Now, its stars will be etched in SU lore for eternity.
Collage by Ilana Zahavy | Presentation Director, Photos courtesy of Jim Lee
Published on February 19, 2026 at 12:00 am