Coach Boeheim Quotes
Sunday, Dec. 13, 2003
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim
On SU’s performance:
“Well, we got some guys in there. I think, obviously, Terrence came in and gave us a big lift right away. The thing that’s discouraging for me right now is that our defense isn’t where it needs to be, our rebounding isn’t where it needs to be – that’s where we’ve got to get better, in those two areas.
“We’ve got to be more aggressive pushing the ball up the court. I thought Gerry did a much a better job of pushing the ball up the court than Billy – Billy’s got to do that. That’s crucial for us. We’ve got to get it down the court and get it into our offense.
“I thought Matt Gorman did a tremendous job, made some real good plays on offense. Defensively, he got in trouble a little bit, reaching. I thought Jeremy was very good coming in off the bench. I thought Craig did a very good job – he made moves, made positive moves to the basket. I think Hakim’s got to rebound better, we’ve got to defend better.
“We’ve got to be more active. I thought there were balls in situations we should have gotten to, we didn’t get to. I just don’t think we’re playing at a fast enough pace on defense, when it comes to pushing the ball down the court. But, I thought those guys that I mentioned had good nights.
“I thought Louie did a nice job – he understands how to play. He gives us another guard that can make some plays, but also that can make a shot, and I think that’s something that can help us.
“I thought our zone was pretty good tonight. We’ve been working on it. We’ve got to get better on that with our defense. I think these games help. I just think to play four games in this amount of time, we’re over-practiced and under-played right now is what it looks like to me.
“Manhattan coming in here is a great game – an NCAA team, they’re really good, that’ll be a great game for us. We need these games, we’ve got to get people involved, we did get more people involved tonight, which is a good sign, but we’ve got a lot of work to do, and I think the games are what we need, so that we can play the games and then go back for a day or two and do some things, then play again and find out more things about ourselves.
“I thought Binghamton did a nice job tonight – they were patient, they moved the ball, they did a good job, they helped in – they did a lot of nice things. It was good for us. All these four games have been good for us. We’ve learned something every night, and we need the rest of these games to learn some more about ourselves.”
On Louie McCroskey:
“I thought he was good. He was active. He’s a New York City kid. He’s not afraid. He makes plays, he can get in the lane and pass and he makes an open shot when it’s there. For being off as long as he has, being as rusty as he is, I thought he did some very positive things tonight.”
On 12 different players scoring for SU:
“Well, everybody had a chance tonight. We were able to get everybody in the game and that’s a good thing.”
On McCroskey’s role on the team:
“Well, we needed another guard. When Josh (Pace) and Billy (Edelin) are in the game together, some teams are just leaving them and going back and double-teaming Hakim (Warrick). And he can pass it out to them, but if we can’t make the shot when he passes it out, then we’re just stuck. That’s when we get standing around because he makes the pass out and we don’t take that shot, now we’re stuck. If that’s going to happen, then we’ve got to get some additional movement. When you don’t take that shot when it’s made on the pass-out, then you’re going back into a soft defense, and we’re going to see that a lot I think. I just think we’ve got a lot of work to do – we’ve got to do a better job – but the answer to the question is that, we need someone else that can make shots from the perimeter, I think, if we’re going to be a successful team. We don’t need to make a lot, but we need to make some.”
On whether the defense is holding the team back:
“I think the problem is the four-position. Hakim – when he was at the three tonight, he had 10 opportunities where he could have gone for a rebound and never went because he’s at the three and he’s out on the perimeter. That takes our best inside rebounding player away from us. As I’ve said many, many times this year, it’s not Matt Gorman’s fault, necessarily, that he’s not playing; it’s that Hakim is a four-man. It’s unfortunate, but it’s obvious that he’s our best player. And now Terrence comes in and gets 12 points tonight. So, I mean, we’ve got four guys at the four that are pretty darn good, and that’s unfortunate. That’s a bad situation. I think Hakim can play some of the three, and we’re going to continue to play him there, but that’s the issue there.”
On Binghamton staying with SU for much of the game:
“I don’t think we’re going to beat anybody bad, unless we can schedule some Division IV team or something in here. I don’t think we’re going to beat anybody – this is what we’ve got. I think we’re going to have to battle, we’re going to have to fight for everything we have, we can get. We didn’t play poorly tonight. We made shots. We could have moved a little bit better. We could have rebounded a little bit better, but we didn’t play poorly. In fact, we got good performances from some people. This is what we are. Last year, we had guys who could make threes and just really kind of take people’s heart away. You’re playing against Carmelo (Anthony), Kueth (Duany) and Gerry (McNamara), and they come down and one makes one here, and one makes one over there, and the other comes down and makes one, what do you do? At that point in time, the team knows, we can’t guard these guys. Whereas when they play us this year, they take two guys down and put them in the lane so Hakim can’t score easily, and so when a shot does go up, they’ve got five guys rebounding, against two. So, it’s going to be hard for us to score in those situations.
“We made some good plays tonight to score sometimes, but we just don’t have the way to score easily unless we can improve our defense, which gives you more transition opportunities, improve our rebounding, which gives you more transition opportunities, and those are the two real key things for us to do if we’re going to be a better team. But, maybe the people out there that are making all these football decisions can call and tell me what I should be doing to make it better. We’ve got so many helpful people out there.”
On the full-court press:
“We pressed hard to get the tempo up a little bit. That helped us. I thought it got us going a little bit. We didn’t get many turnovers, I don’t think, out of it. I don’t know if we got any tonight. But we got the speed up a little bit, and Jeremy got a block or so in there, and they missed a couple shots. It sped the game up a little bit. It was just moderately something that helped us get going a little bit I think. But, we’ve got to play better on defense, and we’ve got to rebound better, those are two key things for us. These games will help us. I think we need these games – we need more of them, more games, and I think as we get along.
“The key guys were fine, but all the other guys had no experience and need to get some. Hopefully they’ll get it over the next couple of weeks before we get to the league.”
