Jim Boeheim Quotes vs. West Virginia
Jim Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse vs. West Virginia
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
February 20, 2006
Boeheim on Tonight’s Difference..
“The first half we did not adjust well to (Patrick) Beilein. I thought defensively we played these last two games the best all year.”
Boeheim on Gerry McNamara’s Performance…
“This was Gerry’s biggest game struggle all year. He had great looks at the basket, nevertheless, he just kept playing and he made great passes. When he missed a couple of shots he was looking and then got the ball to Terrence and that is again what a good guard does when things aren’t right. Just the little things Gerry did coming out of the first timeout with 16 minutes on the clock, they went 1-3-1, and Gerry saw it, made the penetration, and got to Eric with the wide-open three. Gerry just makes those kinds of plays and that’s why he’s got to stay in the game because you’re playing a team that switching defenses and he is going to see that and recognize that and make that play. But I thought he had a tremendous game defensively passing the ball, he could not make any shots.”
Boeheim on Gerry’s missed free throw with 1.8 seconds left in the game…
“I told him, you will probably miss so you better go get it. If he had been shooting and wasn’t haven’t a bad game, he’d probably have mad those two. But it goes to show what kind of heart he has because there were four guys in the lane and he just dove right in there and grabbed the ball. The kid has a lot of heart, the biggest I have seen.”
Boeheim on Terrence Roberts performance…
“I thought Terrence really stepped it up in the low post. They (West Virginia) were playing behind him and he made some post moves which we haven’t seen. I mean he got the ball and made two nice jump hooks over people. He went by and got strong to the basket.”
Boeheim on Eric Devendorf’s comeback in the 2nd half…
“Eric and Terrence were key obviously in the 2nd half. They both really stepped up. We hit a dead spot to start the second half and Eric came through and drilled a couple big time shots and got us back into the game.”
Boeheim on defense…
“It was really our defense and perseverance. Both teams have played five games in 10 to 12 days and I thought both teams went as hard as you could go in that scenario. Like I said we just persevered with our defense tonight as we did against Louisville and when something bad happens like when we missed free throws against Louisville we just overcame. When West Virginia made a tough three pointer or a long three pointer or we missed a shot we just kept going after it. Our defense at the end was tremendous. They’re a tremendous offensive basketball team, probably one of the best if not the best in the league, and they couldn’t get a shot the last couple possessions. Our defense was just so active and pushed out so hard and it was just a tremendous defensive effort by all of our guys.”
Boeheim on lack of Confidence…
“I don’t know about lack of confidence. I don’t feel that we have a lack of confidence at all. We’ve won a ton of tough games. Everyone wants to give mid-majors credit and then when we play them and beat them then nobody wants to give them any credit we had to play just hard to beat Kent State, Illnois-Chicago, and Manhattan as we did tonight. Some of those wins were harder and we had to play harder than we did tonight. When we played against #2 Villnova we went on a 17-2 run and got it back down to four from 20 points, when we were down against #10 Pittsburgh we got it back to four from 20 points. This team has battled hard and we are still learning.”
Boeheim on why WVA is a good wim for Syracuse
“West Virginia is a good win for us because of a couple of factors. They’re a good road team. They won at UCLA and Villanova. I’m extremely proud of our team.”
