Coach Boeheim Quotes vs. Northeastern
Coach Jim Boeheim Press Conference Quotes
Syracuse vs. Northeastern
November 15, 2006
Carrier Dome- Syracuse, N.Y.
“Defensively, coming off of three games is obviously tough. Northeastern was extremely well prepared. (Northeastern head coach) Billy (Coen) is a tremendous coach, I’ve always known that. He worked with great coaches, he played for a great coach. It’s hard to explain to your players sometimes that a team can really shoot the ball. In the first few plays we had a hand up, we were close to them, but we didn’t stop the shot and they made them. That’s what’s going to happen when you play guys that can really shoot the ball and make them. They shoot the ball open as well as anyone we’re going to play, but that’s what happens when you leave people open. When we guarded them, they went from shooting 50 percent in the first eight minutes and ended up shooting 26 in the second half, 28 for the game. When you guard people, it makes it harder for them to shoot. We didn’t guard people at the beginning and our man-to-man was horrific. We played two games man-to-man against good teams and they shot about 70 percent against us, so we’ve either got to get better at it or put it away and that’s something we’re going to have to figure out in the next few days. They can shoot the ball; they made some hard shots, until we started to defend them.
“(Senior forward)Terrence (Roberts) was the difference in the game, he really kept the ball out of the post and did as good a job defending that area as anyone in a long time and he won the game, even though he might have scored four points. He won the game on the boards and defensively. The other guys did a pretty good job, just bad mistakes. I was just talking to a couple guys who were wondering why they were taken out of the game. We’re giving the ball to the other team, with no pressure; nothing. We’re making 17 and 23 turnovers against two teams that aren’t trying to steal the ball from you. If teams were trying to steal from us we’d probably have 30 turnovers. We’re making unforced turnovers and everybody made them. (Junior guard) Josh Wright made two, (freshman forward) Paul (Harris) made two, (sophomore guard) Eric (Devendorf) made two, (sophomore forward) Andy Rautins made two, (senior forward) Matt (Gorman) made one. We had 10 where we just threw the ball to the other team, there was no great move on defense, it was just like, ‘Here, here’s the ball.’ You obviously can’t win that way. You know Josh Wright hits his two three’s and if he takes care of the basketball, he probably plays 25-30 minutes and has a great game, but you can’t just give the ball to the other team and we have to learn that now, that’s what these games are for. If you give the balls to good teams, they’re going to beat you.”
“It doesn’t matter who you play, they can beat you. I don’t care who you play. Cornell goes out and beats Northwestern, Northwestern beats DePaul and I think we remember what DePaul did to us last year. That’s college basketball. Winthrop’s beating North Carolina at halftime, they have a veteran team and are good. Charlotte beats Hofstra, which I think is going to be a great team this year, and then lose to North Texas. College basketball is very very difficult, you have to be ready to play. You’ve got to bring your best game every night, particularly on the defensive end. Offensively we did play well, we did shoot well, but once we started to play defense, that was the difference in the game. Hopefully we’ll learn from this. I think Northeastern is going to be a lot better than people think. They lost a couple of great players, but this is a pretty good team, pretty well coached team and I think they are going to be pretty difficult to play over the course of the year. We ended up having to shoot the ball well and making a lot of good plays to win the game. We should outrebound any team who plays small like that, they are going to handle the ball better, shoot better…We had the smallest team we could have had on the court, we were actually smaller than they were most of the game, but Terrence did a good job, Paul did a good job and that was the key in the game. (Senior forward) Demetris (Nichols) has got to start rebounding better. We’ve got to get a little bit more help rebounding, obviously, from some of the other guys. It was a good win, considering we started out 20-7 or 24-7, whatever that was and we get some time off, get back to practice and hopefully that will help us.”
What did you think of Paul Harris’ play today?
“I thought he was good, I thought he was aggressive, he did a good job on the boards tonight. It’s going to take him a while to get comfortable. He can do some things better than most anybody and then some things he has just got to figure out what we’re doing.”
Was Andy Rautins the spark tonight?
“Andy shot the ball great. He made some big plays coming in, he’s a very good shooter and I think he’s a very good ball-handling passer and he shouldn’t be making the mistakes he made. He knows that and I don’t think he will, but he played very well tonight.”
What changed the tempo of the game in the first-half?
“Defense. Once we got our defense going, we got some rebound. We forced them into tougher shots. You’re going to get shots, but we forced them into tougher shots, shots that were a little further away than you’d like them to be. We got some pressure and no good shooter shoots as well when someone gets up on them.”
Did (senior forward) Darryl Watkins’ nose affect his play?
“Probably about as much as my haircut.”
What sparked the run when the team was down?
“It all comes from defense. Our defense was good, we stopped them. When they’re scoring, it’s hard to run.”
Was it what you said or how you said it?
“I didn’t say anything. We decided to play defense, we got back in our zone and they worked it out. If saying things meant anything, we’d all be undefeated. We all know what to say. You think Billy said anything different when it was 24-7? You think he told them to stop making it? Talk is for you guys, it is an overrated thing. Talk only works when you’re dreaming.”
On Eric Devendorf:
“Eric’s doing a good job on the point. He made some mistakes tonight, but 19 (points) and eight (assists), that’s pretty good.”
