Coach Boeheim Quotes vs. Charlotte
Coach Jim Boeheim Press Conference Quotes
Syracuse vs. Charlotte
November 22, 2006
Carrier Dome- Syracuse, N.Y.
“It’s very disappointing how we are taking care of the basketball. We started out the game trying to get the ball into the post and lost it out of bounds. We lost fastbreak opportunities and had the ball taken away from us. We’re just not tough-minded. We don’t go get the rebound when we need it. Charlotte hit a lot of open opportunities tonight: they just didn’t take advantage of it. Demetris (Nichols) had that one stretch where he got it going and that was the difference in the game. We’re making way too many turnovers; turnovers that you just can’t make and be a good team. They’re just giveaways. Some of them are in situations where we should be scoring.”
“I thought we got back on defense better. Our man to man was, for the first time, helping us. The level of play, right now, is not close to where we have to be to play in the conference. I am very disappointed in the level of play. Our inside rebounding was non-existent tonight. When your two inside players get four rebounds, you are going to have problems. That’s something we have got to do a better job of. We just can’t seem to get into a rhythm on offense. We make two or three plays and seem to be where we are starting to do something, and we just turn it over. We can’t make those turnovers against top 20 teams. We are going to be on the end of a beating, not just a loss, the way we are playing right now.”
On Josh Wright’s statistics from the game:
“I guess numbers are deceiving. He is a much better player than the way he is playing.”
On Paul Harris’ energy:
“He’s got to learn the game; that takes time. It doesn’t matter when you come into the game, you have to wait and let things come to you. He defended, made a big block when it was close on a pretty good player; I think he was picked to be all-conference. He did a good job defensively and on the boards. 30 minutes is the most he can play. He was tired out there. He’s got such a big body and with the pace of the college game, as much energy as he uses, he should really play less than 30 minutes. We needed him out there tonight.”
“I thought Andy (Rautins) got some rebounds. That was a good sign. We made some shots and it seems we just take the next shot, instead of waiting to get another good shot. That is something we have to get better at. Demetris made those good shots and then he took two horrible shots. We have to learn to keep taking the good shots and bet patient. We spent a lot of time without Eric (Devendorf) and that was a good thing. He got the early foul situation and he is an important part of what we’re doing. We battled through that and came out of halftime about as good as we could considering all the things we did poorly.”
