Syracuse Coach and Player Quotes
Press conference prior to national title game
Saturday, April 5, 2003
Superdome, New Orleans, La.
Head coach Jim Boeheim
On playing another team from the Big 12, Kansas:
"They do a lot of different things than Texas does. You know, Texas to me is (T.J.) Ford trying to make plays, and Kansas is a lot of guys trying to make plays. Both teams do get up and down the court, but really whenever you play against a good transition team, a guy told me last night, a lot smarter than me, he said, You have to be efficient on offense. I think that's a good word, so I'll use that, too. We were efficient on offense yesterday, and that kept Texas out of their transition game. That's obviously important."
On wanting to win the championship more for the players than for himself:
"First of all, I'd like to win it. I hope nobody misunderstood that. You're in this business, and the whole thing from when you start, when you're a player, when you're a coach, to try to win this thing. What I've said is it's not going to be the end of the world for me if it doesn't happen; I'll feel bad, but I'll feel worse for the players. In the locker room after the game, in '87 and '96, our players, rightfully so, were devastated. It's 15 different people that you feel are your children. When something happens to your children, you will feel a lot worse than if the same thing happens to you. That's the way I would feel in this situation."
On Carmelo Anthony's personality:
"He's a rare kid. He's got a great personality almost all the time. He's just easy to get along with. He's a guy that's well-liked by the players, he's well-liked by the staff, the people that work in the building, the student body, everybody that comes in contact with him really. We have a guy in Syracuse that hasn't liked one of our players since we've been there, and he likes him. I mean, that's unusual."
On Hakim Warrick:
"Hakim has improved tremendously from last year. They were kicking sand in his face last year. Now they're not kicking it quite as much. He's getting a little bit stronger, a little bit tougher. I think he's still got a lot of improving that he can do. As he gets stronger, I think he's going to continue to develop and become a really good player."
On why he thinks Anthony should return to Syracuse for another year:
"The reason to come back to college is that you want to. Tha'ts it. That's the bottom line. This is what you want to do. If it was about money, he would have gone last year. He would have been the 10th or 12th pick in the draft. He would have made money if he would have wanted to go. Everybody thinks it's because, you know, now he's going to be picked so high. He would have been picked last year. He would have been a lottery pick last year. He would have made money last year. He didn't want to. He never wanted to. I never talked to him about college, whether he was coming or not. He never wavered. This year, we never talked about it. When it's all over, I said we'll talk about it. Usually you can't tell. You know, obviously after this we're going to know where he is, and he'll know. It will be strictly a matter of whether he wants to go. He likes college. His mother's really the one that should want him to go the most because she works hard. She's already told him she'd like him to stay. The only thing I'll tell him, Do what you want to do, do what you feel you want to do. If he was in college next year, he'd have a great year, because he's a great player. You know, he'd still get a little better, get a little more mature, be that much more ready. But if he wants to go, it will be strictly a matter of if he wants to go."
Freshman guard Gerry McNamara
On playing a team led by seniors:
"We played teams that were led by seniors all year. At this point in the year, we're not freshmen, and we haven't played like it. We didn't expect to play like it. So I don't think it makes a difference by now, because if we play like freshmen tomorrow night, we're in a lot of trouble."
Freshman forward Carmelo Anthony
On playing a team led by seniors:
"We've been playing against seniors all year long, teams that were led by seniors. I mean, they've got to play just like we've got to play. They put their uniforms on just like we put our uniforms on."
Senior guard Kueth Duany
On getting to the title game with such a young team:
"It's not a surprise. We've been playing pretty well this whole tournament. We've just had different guys step up each night. I think that's what you have to have in the tournament because not every guy's going to click every night. We just have that balance."
On his first impressions of Carmelo Anthony:
"When he first came to campus, he was a little out of shape (smiling). When I first looked at him, I thought, Is this guy really going to be able to do what he does, like go outside, inside, have just an unbelievable game? But the more I saw him play, the more I got to know him as a person, I knew all the expectations that people had on him, that he would be able to accomplish that. He's just a great person to have on the team and a great teammate."
