Coach Boeheim Quotes -- December 28, 2004
Coach Boeheim Quotes
SU vs. Albany
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Opening Statements:
”I thought our defense was good tonight. We have learned from the Cornell game. We got out on their shooters and didn’t let them get set. I think they missed some open shots. Our defense was pretty good overall. That was the positive tonight. Obviously, we had too many turnovers and we were sloppy on offense. We did not shoot the ball particularly well. We did have some good looks and couldn’t finish them. We were fortunate that our defense was good enough to keep us in there.
“We had that one run were we finally made some shots. Demetris Nichols made a nice play. He has been practicing and he has been pretty good. His back has been better and he made a couple nice plays. I thought Hakim Warrick was aggressive tonight and that is what we need from him. He just wasn’t making a lot of his shots. He missed shots that he is normally going to make. We had a lot of opportunities, but it just wasn’t a good offensive night. Our defense held us in there and we were able to get a win.”
On Josh Pace:
“He is really good against a man-to-man, when he can get in the lane. He is not going to score a lot of points against a zone. As long as a team is going to stay in a zone, Josh Pace will not play as much. It was strictly a defensive situation, if the next team plays man-to-man Josh Pace might play 35 minutes. Most teams do play a man-to-man.”
On Albany:
“I think they had a chance to be in this game. They just missed the shots that they had to make. A lot of their missed shots we did challenge. I think we learned from the Cornell game that you can’t let people shoot. This is a team that shoots something like 48% from the three, and we held them under 25%. It wasn’t because they had a bad night, we got up on them.”
On Darryl Watkins:
“It looks like we might lose Darryl Watkins. He could be out for awhile. That is a big loss he has been active, even tonight. That will be a huge loss for us on the defensive end and on the offensive rebounding end. I don’t know when he will be back.”
On how he feels after 13 games:
“Our record looks pretty good, but we need to play more consistently on offense. I think our defense has played good up to this point. We just need more offensive production. We won’t really know until we get into the league and see how people play. At some point, hopefully, someone will step up and give us a consistent effort over time. That is what we are going to need to be a good team.”
On Demetris Nichols:
“We are waiting for guys to come in and step up consistently. Demetris has had good games last year and he has had good games this year. He is a likely candidate for a guy who can come in there and get things going for us. All of the sophomores have to continue to get better.”
On Billy Edelin:
“He hasn’t played much. He has been practicing hard. In his minutes tonight, he got in the lane and made some plays, but he had three shots blocked and that is not like him. He isn’t there yet, but he has proven that he can play. We are hopeful that he is going to keep working and by the time the league rolls around that he will go in there and contribute.”
On Gerry McNamara:
“He is going to pass the ball and get in the lane and make plays. I thought he did that. He wasn’t quite as quick. He was sick a couple of days this weeks and that probably held him back a little bit. He made some good passes and some close-to-good passes. He really should have had 11 or 12 assists.”
