Syracuse Basketball Superfan Recaps 1st Weekend with Boeheim's Army

Syracuse basketball fan A.J. Owen sat in his Philadelphia hotel room doing work on his laptop last Thursday night, when he heard a knock at the door. When he opened the door, Owen couldn't believe what awaited him on the other side.

"The whole team was standing there," Owen said. "GM (Kevin Belbey), Terrence Roberts, Mookie Jones, Eric Devendorf. Everybody was just standing there."

That team would be Boeheim's Army, a squad made up of (mostly) Syracuse hoops alums that is currently a No. 1 seed in The Basketball Tournament. Everyone was there to welcome Owen, whom Belbey and Devendorf added to the roster as a fan booster after he started a Twitter movement (@BoeheimsArmyFan) and recruited hordes of supporters for the team.

Owen, 26, lives in Pittsburgh and spends his weekdays working as a digital strategist. He spent this past weekend in Philadelphia with Boeheim's Army and will accompany the team to Chicago for its Super 17 contests.

Photo courtesy of A.J. Owen

After the dust settled from his unexpected welcome by the team, Owen got his roommate assignment. He bunked with Lawrence Moten, the all-time leading scorer at Syracuse and in the Big East as well as the player-coach of Boeheim's Army.

"That was probably one of the cooler parts of the weekend," Owen said.

There were plenty of other cool experiences for Owen throughout the weekend, too. He was living out a Syracuse fan's dream, spending time with some of the program's legends. Devendorf was part of the six-overtime 2009 Big East Tournament win over UConn, one of the greatest games in program history.

Owen said he also sat across from Hakim Warrick, an eight-year NBA veteran, a member of Syracuse's 2003 national title team and a player responsible for one of the biggest plays in Syracuse basketball and NCAA tournament history, at a team breakfast.

Owen said he didn't say a word to Warrick for the entirety of the meal. With all of these legendary players around him, it would be easy for Owen to be a little starstruck. He said that wasn't the case for long:

"At first, I felt pretty shy and I didn't know if they would accept me. The first night, for a few hours, I was feeling a little reserved, and then, when Kevin (Belbey) and Baye (Keita) invited me out to dinner, I relaxed a little bit more.

"When they first showed up at the door without me knowing it and they were all just standing there...I was really appreciative they all took a minute to come say hi to me...that was my starstruck moment."

Owen did have a bit of familiarity with Belbey before the first weekend of the tournament. Owen said they had spoken a bit on Twitter and via text message in the weeks leading up to the event, so they were able to get along pretty quickly.

Belbey said it was a "pretty easy decision" to bring Owen into the fold. Owen had been hard at work recruiting fans on Twitter, and it didn't take long for Belbey to notice.

"A friend clued me in to his fan account," Belbey said. "At first I thought it was a...parody account. When I took a closer look I realized AJ was absolutely crushing it recruiting as many Syracuse fans as possible."

Besides getting to spend time with players he grew up watching off the court, the main attraction for Owen was getting to be with the team during games, an experience Owen said was "unbelievable."

Owen said he tried to stay at the end of the bench and grab players some water or a towel if they needed it at first, but players eventually encouraged him to get more involved.

"A lot of times the guys were telling me to relax and enjoy myself. I would stay outside of the huddle most of the time but sometimes a guy would grab me and pull me in there."

Before long, though, Owen couldn't help but to get involved. In the team's second game, Devendorf got into an altercation with Steven Smith of 20th and Olney, and both players were ejected from the game.

As the situation escalated, players on both benches exchanged words. Owen said he ended up trying to hold Roberts back to keep him from getting involved. Roberts is 6'9" and Owen is 6'0", so the two joked in the locker room about Owen's efforts once the situation had cooled down.

After security told Devendorf he needed to leave the floor, Owen realized that he was headed to the locker room by himself. So Owen took the initiative and went with Devendorf to the locker room.

"The last thing we wanted was Eric down in the locker room by himself mulling over what's going on upstairs. I was glad I could be there for him to have someone to vent to."

Since Owen was in the locker room with Devendorf, they both missed the end of the game. But when Jones bounded into the locker room with a huge smile on his face, Owen gave him a thumbs up with a questioning look and Jones said, "Yeah, we're going to Chicago!"

The team expects to get reinforcements from more former Orange stars when it gets to Chicago. Demetris Nichols, the team's leading scorer, is going to pass up a friend's wedding to travel with the team to Chicago, according to Chris Carlson of Syracuse.com.

In addition, Belbey said he is hopeful Boeheim's Army will have both Rick Jackson and Donte Greene in the fold in Chicago to further bolster the lineup.

Owen's once-in-a-lifetime experience isn't over yet. He will indeed travel with Boeheim's Army to Chicago and beyond if the team stays alive, though he won't don his No. 11 jersey.

But no matter how far Boeheim's Army goes, Owen will still have made some new friends along the way. He is getting married in September, and he said Belbey told him if they win the tournament Owen has "got to" invite at least Belbey and Devendorf to his wedding.

"Hey, if we win this whole thing, I'll definitely have a few invites in my bag ready to hand out."

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.