Coach Boeheim Quotes vs. St. Bonaventure
Coach Jim Boeheim Press Conference Quotes
Syracuse vs. St. Bonaventure
December 30, 2006
Carrier Dome- Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening Statement
“ One of our strengths against St. Bonaventure should be rebounding and we did not do a good job on the boards. We got a lot of good looks from three and did not make them and when that happens, we have to get the ball inside better."
"I thought Mookie (Daryl Watkins) did a good job of moving and we did find him, and when we got them into the zone, I didn’t think we executed very well. We got a lot of good shots, but we didn’t get shots that we could make. I thought we practiced a lot better this week than we played tonight. It’s over. We’ll get to the next one.”
“Terrence (Roberts) worked out the last two days pretty hard so we are hopeful that he will be able to practice tomorrow and be ready for the next game (January 4 vs. Pittsburgh). I don’t know for sure, but we’re hopeful that will happen, and we’ll see if he can go the next few days.”
“These are the kind of games you have just got to win. We made a couple good plays down the stretch. I thought Eric (Defendorf) was active and better than he’s been and moved better than he’s moved all year, so that’s a good sign.”
“I would like to comment on the paper today. First of all, I didn’t realize that there was a code of conduct for standing at attention. Does anyone here realize that there was a way to stand?”
“I asked two guys that were in the color guard today what they thought. They both thought that the players were trying to show team unity. They started this last year when were in the losing streak. I didn’t know about it then, and I didn’t even realize it this year. They say they have seen football teams do it -- they’ve seen other teams do it -- these two men and it was a sign of team unity and absolutely no disrespect to the flag.”
“I’m the one that got players to stand out there, and I’m the one who went through the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches) and had both teams now stand out there and after the National Anthem everybody shakes hands. To me that’s respect to our flag and our country that we have tried to promote. Teams in the past, as you remember, didn’t go out (on the court for the national anthem). We didn’t go out. So what we are trying to do is promote respect for the flag. For my players to try to show that they are unified -- it absolutely blows my mind that this is a story, because I can’t believe you can find more than one veteran in this whole 250,000 people that live in the city to say that’s disrespectful.”
On St. Bonaventure’s performance:
“I thought St. Bonaventure, I know they have struggled and haven’t played well, but I thought they played well tonight. They were smart, they were patient. They did a lot of good things. Mookie had a good game for us, but we still struggled. That’s college basketball.”
On (St. Bonaventure guard) Tyler Relph:
“Well he’s a good shooter. The thing that Tyler can do is shoot the ball. You cannot give him good looks. We just gave him looks. The other kid Moore, we know he can shoot. We gave him three looks in the first half and he made all three. The second half we didn’t give him those, and he didn’t make them. We know the guys that can hurt you. We did a pretty good job on Ferreti, we got up on him. We just didn’t do a good job on Tyler, if he gets open he’s going to make shots.”
On Andy Rautins:
“He’s been shooting well in practice. I think he hesitated a couple times. A couple times he didn’t get his feet set. Demetris (Nichols) took a couple of off-balance threes. We are a good three-point shooting team. We want to get up 20, in that neighborhood, and we think that if we get good ones, which most of them were good tonight. Josh's (Wright) were good, most of Andy’s were good. Demetris’ were good. We think we should make eight or nine of those, and we are going to have to make threes to be successful. It is part of our attack. When we make them obviously the game goes a lot easier. That is part of the way we play and we got to make those shots.”
