Coach Boeheim Quotes vs. Cincinnati
Coach Jim Boeheim Press Conference Quotes
Syracuse vs. Cincinnati
January 17, 2007
Carrier Dome- Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening statement:
“We shot the ball so well early we thought it was going to be an easy game. We never did stop them the whole game. As soon as we started to miss a couple of shots, that’s when the game was going to be close. I thought we were very fortunate at the end. We made four pressure free throws which are not always easy to do and we made a good defensive stop at the end. We were aggressive but we were not aggressive defensively. We didn’t find (Marcus) Sikes, and he was the one guy who was shooting the ball well from the three. You can’t allow that one guy to shoot the ball and we did and that’s very discouraging.”
“I didn’t think we took advantage of Terrence (Roberts) the first half. When we got the ball to him he scored every time. We didn’t get him the ball whether we didn’t move well enough or whether we didn’t make enough of an effort. We still had 21 turnovers, and you’re lucky to win any game against anybody when you turn it over, and we were turning it over for layups. That obviously continues to be a huge concern; just really really bad turnovers. The only reason we won the game at all is we shot the ball pretty well, which we are capable of doing.”
“We went on the road and played very well defensively against Marquette and Rutgers and I thought for most of the game we played very well defensively against Villanova. Cincinnati scored 34 points against Rutgers and they scored 76 here, so defensively it was just a horrendous game for us. Our guards didn’t pick up, didn’t stop penetration and didn’t move out on three-point shooters and didn’t get long rebounds, so we were lucky to win. That happens and you’re going to have some of those games. This is the first game we’ve been down to the wire and we made plays and we had plays made against us. Tonight we had to make four straight free throws and then we had to make a good stop at the end, and that’s the only way we could win the game. That’s a good thing, but defensively, a very disappointing game.”
On how Cincinnati got back in the game in the second half:
“We didn’t play defense the whole game. We were scoring, that’s what we were doing. When we got the biggest lead, we left Sikes open twice in a row, once in transition once in the zone. He made those two threes and now instead of being a 17 point lead it was down to eleven. Defensively we really weren’t good the whole game. We started out and we had a few good defensive possessions early, but our defense was never really a factor. Our offense was good and we got wide open shots. (Eric Devendorf) got a couple of wide open threes, Josh (Wright) got one and Eric got one, but when we started to miss a few shots we had no defensive intensity and we made bad turnovers. Josh made a couple of horrendous turnovers that they took it down and scored, and there were three or four possessions that they missed shots and we couldn’t come up with the rebound. We walked once if we got it, we lost it out of bounds a couple times, we got one in the corner and stepped out of bounds and you just can’t make those kind of plays. It was really the worst defensive effort of the year and the worst rebounding in the second half we had all year and we didn’t get the loose balls.”
On Matt Gorman’s return:
“Matt was good, he did a really nice job, hit a couple of big shots. He had a couple of good practice days and I think he’s back now.”
On Paul Harris:
“He hasn’t been good and we’ve got to get him going. He’s a better player and he just hasn’t been good in the half court games. I think tonight was a game where we could have used him a little more at the guard spot to help us rebound and that was something I talked to him about in the locker room. We’ve got to get some more out of him, he’s struggled so much shooting the ball that he’s getting down on himself and he’s got to be positive about the things he can do, and he can rebound and play defense and that’s something we’re going to have to take a good hard look at.”
On Cincinnati’s junior college players:
“They made a lot of shots the whole game, so I don’t think anything was bothering them too much. Sikes was 8-for-12, and he had to make every one of them to have a chance to win the game.”
On getting the ball inside:
“They couldn’t get it in there really they were doing a good job fronting and keeping the ball out of there and Mookie gets smaller guys on him and they’re fronting him and it’s really hard to get the ball in there. We’re trying to get the ball inside, we have set plays to try to get it in there, but we were just much better in the first half because we got it inside. We were a much more balanced team. We scored 48 points in the first half and 26 in the second.”
On Cincinnati:
“They kept coming and playing. The way they played tonight I think they have a pretty good team I know they have a lot of new guys but those guys are junior college players and they’ve played in a lot of games, more games than a lot of our guys have played. The way they played tonight, if they played like that I wouldn’t be surprised if they won some games. I don’t think our defense was that bad, they made some pretty good shots out there.”
On the win:
“In this league, you’re going to have games like this and there’s nothing easy, I don’t care who you play. You’ve got to find a way to win a game like this. In two weeks, nobody will remember anything. I won’t remember it tomorrow morning. We got out of there we made the plays we had to and stopped them at the end.”
