Coach Boeheim Quotes
January 7, 2004
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
“Tonight I thought we were better defensively. St. John’s is the type of team that when you get a rebound, they’re going to knock it out of your hands. Our big people didn’t protect the ball and we paid a big price for that. Three or four times we had it taken away when we should be going down and scoring. I thought they out-battled us the last seven or eight minutes on the boards. We just didn’t do a good job there. Offensively, we got as good or better shots than we got on Saturday (against Michigan State). We just didn’t finish and that’s going to happen. When you get into those situations, you’ve got to find a way to make a play or get a rebound.”
“We can’t have 17 turnovers. A lot of those are steals when they’re taking the ball away from us. We can’t afford that. We missed some opportunities that we need to convert.”
“When you get into this conference, every game is going to be like this. It’s going to be tough every game. It’s just good to get that first win in the conference.”
On how his team went back to the zone defense later in the first half after playing man:
“Well, I wasn’t going to go back to it even, but we didn’t guard them in the beginning of the game. We let Hill just dribble at us and shoot. Our man-to-man just wasn’t very effective. We were just actually going back to the zone on an out-of-bounds play, and then one other time, and they didn’t do much against it, so we stayed in it. They did nothing against it for a long time. We gave them points. After we’d stop them, we’d get a rebound, they’d take it away and put it in the basket, instead of us having points, they had points. You’ve got a 10 or 12-point lead against St. John’s, that’s a lot. That’s a big lead. We just made some real horrendous turnovers. That’s not something we can do. They’re going to reach and push and bang you. I thought Hakim got fouled four or five times in the first half. They just don’t call it. So, he’s going to have to finish those better. That’s just one of those things.”
On whether or not he relies on Gerry McNamara to make big plays when the team needs it:
“Well, we can go to Hak, and we can go to Gerry, and we can go to Billy, and we can go to Josh. So, we’ve got four guys who I feel can make big plays.”
On why he played the starting five the entire second half:
“In the beginning of the conference season, I always try to see if we can go to the veterans for a while. I told some of the young guys we’re going to use some guys Saturday and Monday. We’re just going to have to throw them out there. I just haven’t felt they’ve played very well in games or at practice. If they were playing better at practice, I’d have a little different feeling about playing them. I know we’re going to be in close games, like this Saturday, and we can’t afford somebody going in there and making two or three mistakes and taking two or three bad shots. That said, we’re going to try and play some guys in the next couple of games and they’re going to have to sink or swim now. We’ve waited as long as we can on them and we’re going to need to rest people a little bit.”
On whether he’s happy with where his team is right now:
“Am I happy right now with the way we’re playing? No, not at all. It’s either the defense, the rebounding, the turnovers, or some area that we’re just not doing. We started out in the second half with four-straight possessions where we should have scored and we got zero points. We’re not playing good.”
