Jim Boeheim Quotes
Head Coach Jim Boeheim
Selection Sunday
March 13, 2005
Opening Statement:
“I am very happy to get into the tournament, and obviously I think we helped ourselves in New York a little bit. It’s good for our fans to not be too far away for the first two games and get to Worcester. The way we played in New York certainly put ourselves into the type of mode we are going to have to play in the NCAA Tournament. That’s something hopefully we can carry forth this week from New York.”
On Vermont:
“They are a very good team. But, you look at the 12 and 13 seeds, and they are all good teams. Vermont is a very good basketball team. Its RPI was in the top 30 all year, it has experienced players and it’s just a good basketball team. They had Kansas beat at Kansas earlier in the year. They are just a very good basketball team.”
On the play of the sophomore class in New York:
“I don’t think they have to carry us -- I think what the sophomores have to do is contribute. I think that is what’s important, and they certainly contributed, particularly in the Connecticut game in the first half. Just little things like Demetris (Nichols) making those two shots in the West Virginia game takes the game from a five-point game to a 10-point game to when we get another run it goes to 18 instead of 10, so when they made their run it would have been tied but we were still up six. I think all those plays that those guys are making are very important for us.”
On Vermont head coach Tom Brennan:
“I have known him a long him and he is a real good guy, a class guy, and a very good basketball coach. He has a veteran team that knows all about the NCAA Tournament and how to play in it. Unless you are a one seed, there are no easy games in the NCAA Tournament anymore, and Vermont is as tough as they come for a first-round game.”
On playing a lower seeded team in their geographic region:
“That’s just the way it works out sometime.”
On what happened in 1992 when the team played in Worchester:
“I don’t even think about that. These guys weren’t even born yet, I don’t think.”
On the difference in the way the team played between the final week of the regular season and the BIG EAST Tournament:
“We were just more aggressive defensively, that’s all. We didn’t really shoot the ball particularly well in New York. We were just better defensively that’s all.”
On the team’s rebounding:
“I think that’s been the key over the last few games, our rebounding has been consistently better. Part of it is that we are a little bigger, but we still play the small team quite a bit together. We are just doing a better job on the boards. Hakim gets 13 rebounds instead of five, and that is a big part of it right there. We are just rebounding better.”
On Hakim Warrick’s play in the BIG EAST Tournament:
“He has played dominant all year. The last three games of the regular season he had 35, 36 and 25 points and continued that in New York. He is putting up real good numbers every time.”
On the experience of the older guys on the team:
“I think all that experience has helped them.”
On how experience helps a kid:
“I just think experience helps everybody in any profession and anything you do. The more experience you have the better you can do what you have to do. Talent certainly helps though.”
On if the bracket was a surprise:
“I didn’t really study it that much. It’s a tough job to decide who gets in now because there are just too many good teams in college basketball. Real good teams get left out. More and more good teams are being left out of the tournament now. It used to be just a couple and now just a lot of really good teams out there don’t get in.”
On if the seeding depends more on the regular season than the conference tournaments:
“No, because I think Kentucky losing their tournament cost them a number-one seed. I am sure it moved us up. We weren’t a four seed going into New York, I don’t think, and I would doubt if were. I think it helped us. I think you can gain from winning your conference tournament. It’s hard to really pick it apart. Some of it is that they have to do certain things for different reasons and they have to bump a team a little team one way or the other just because of who is in that bracket or who’s playing there. I think winning in New York got us to Worcester, that’s what that did. I am sure that we would have been a five or six seed if you hadn’t won in New York and we wouldn’t have been in Worcester. It’s tough playing Vermont there, it’s a tough game. It’s close of us but it’s closer for them. That would be a tough game wherever we played, no less down there.”
