Jim Boeheim Quotes vs. Rutgers
Jim Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse vs. Rutgers
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
February 1, 2006
Opening Statement…
“Quincy Douby was as good as anybody I’ve ever seen in here since this building has been opened. We were pushing up on him man-to-man and zone, doubling him, trying to do anything we could do get him to just miss a little bit. The last play of regulation we were so concerned about him, Mookie (Darryl Watkins) got a late start to get to Marquis Webb but it was because we were so concerned with Douby. You want someone else to beat you to tie the game and Webb did it. The next one we wanted the freshman to do it and he did it. At least we forced. We didn’t want Douby to make those shots and somebody else did. I’ve seen Rutgers play a number of times this year. They’ve had some tremendous games. They took Villanova to overtime. I’m just impressed with the way they’ve played all year.
The second thing that is important, Gerry McNamara went out when we were down five and he never came back. When you lose your bet player without any practice time or anything, that is a huge mountain to overcome. When I was proudest of players is when Josh Wright would make a mistake or Eric Devendorf would make a bad play and you’d look at them but you have to look back and understand that one of them is a freshman and the other is a sophomore who hasn’t played. So you really have two inexperienced guards in the game against veteran guards. The three that Josh made over there at the end was huge and then Eric’s jump shot on the baseline under a lot of pressure. Those were unbelievable big shots and we kept making big shots and overcoming.
They got a guy in off the bench and he makes a jump hook against us, it’s almost looking at the other night when Nutter steps back eight feet behind the line making a shot. When you’re in a losing streak it’s very easy to think that we can’t get out of this. The other night we didn’t stop playing, even though we lost the game we kept coming back, we kept trying. Tonight we kept trying. With eight seconds to go we weren’t going to take a timeout. There’s no way you’re going to get much of a shot. Terrence got his shot, he’s made one out of his last two three’s so he’s a 50 percent shooter the way I look at it. He got a wide open look. He shoots that shot everyday in practice, I tell him never to take it in the game but after this one he can take one more.
I just think this was a heart and soul type of game. I’ve questioned the toughness of our players a couple of times, although, when you look at what we’ve done we’ve been way behind against quality teams and we keep fighting back. We fought back against Connecticut as bad as we were down. At Villanova we were down 20 but we got it back to four. At Pittsburgh we’re down 18 or 19 but we got it back to four and tonight we’re down and we fight back. This team fights hard. They make some mistakes, it’s going to happen when you’re young but they keep fighting. When you lose four in a row and you have to do what we had to do tonight to win, that’s a tremendous tribute to the toughness of these kids. I’m very proud of them. We do have some time now where we can get some rest, hopefully get Gerry back. I think this is a great lessen for all these guys. They can win without Gerry, that’ll help make them stronger, and give us a chance to rest Gerry. Other guys will be able to know they can step up and make plays. Rutgers is a very good defensive team and we made some big plays and some big shots and we were much better offensively tonight. This was a great win for us because of all the things that have happened and Gerry being hurt.”
On Josh’s ability to take the leadership role…
“Well he is a point guard and he’s really good in transition. Once in a while when he gets in the set offense he gets off balance and he makes a bad play or a bad decision, but he’s really good in transition and pushing the ball and making plays. He’s been much better in practice. If it weren’t for that injury I’m convinced by now he’d be playing this way every game. I think that was a tremendous blow to his development this year. It just has really held him back but this will be a big confidence booster for him.”
On Eric Devendorf’s aggressiveness
“Eric’s an offensive player. He made some bad choices and got in some bad situations but we need him to make plays. We don’t have other guys to make plays. We really have trouble scoring when we throw Terrence the ball in the low post, he gets pushed outside. He has trouble getting back down. Our big guys have got to get better, they have to work better. Tonight they made a couple nice passes to each other for buckets and that’s something we can work on and get better. We need Eric to be aggressive offensively and he’s a very good offensive player.”
On Watkins’ free-throws towards the end of the game…
“I have a lot of confidence in Mookie’s free-throw shooting. He’s been working on it and you see in practice he is getting better. He’s been making them in practice in a rhythm situation. This team made some tremendous plays I thought in this game. Both tams did. This was a tremendous college basketball game.”
On Josh Wright…
“I don’t know if he was that tired. He’s been playing in practice full speed for the last 10 to 12 days so he’s back. He’ll definitely play when we play next week. Hopefully we can get Gerry back and get everybody healthy. Arinze is still hurt a little bit but hopefully he’ll get back.”
