Head Coach Jim Boeheim Post-Game Quotes (November 18)
Coach Jim Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse vs. Richmond
Tuesday, November 18 2008
Carrier Dome/Syracuse, NY
“I thought in the first half we weren’t aggressive in our man-to-man or our zone defensively. Richmond made some tough shots. Gonzalvez was deep on two or three of those.
“Andy had some great looks. It’s just going to take him some time to get his game legs back. I’m happy with those five shots he had. He is going to make those, but it is going to take some time.
“Defensively, in the second half, we came out and played man-to-man and did a good job. They are a difficult team to guard, and I thought our defense won the game for us. We were more patient, we spread them out, and Jonny (Flynn) and Eric (Devendorf) were able to get to the basket and make some plays.
“Richmond has a very good basketball team. Those guys are good players. They can shoot it and run their stuff. I think the have a really good team, and I’m happy to come out of here with a win. We still have a lot of work to do to get better, but being down seven, this is a pretty good win for us.”
On the stretch of Eric Devendorf’s 3-pointers:
“We spread it out and got him a couple good looks and he knocked them down. Jonny made a couple really good penetration passes. Jonny was really good tonight. They had their defense back set for him, and he made some big plays.”
On how Syracuse stopped Richmond’s guards in the second half:
“We played man-to-man. In the first half, we played a few minutes of man, but we couldn’t really guard them at all. They were getting wide open shots. Our zone was effective for a little bit, but not great. In the second half, we played man-to-man for 20 minutes and we just did a better job. We gave them a couple offensive rebound baskets we probably shouldn’t have, but we took away the back-door cuts like we wanted. I just thought our defense was the difference in the second half.”
On the added experience from last year:
“I just thought the difference in this game was our defense. It was better than it was last year. We spent a lot of time on it and that was the difference in the game tonight.”
On Kris Joseph’s play tonight:
“He made a couple good plays early, then he got beat a little bit and didn’t get back a couple times on defense. He’s learning, but when you’re playing a veteran team like Richmond, we’re going to go with the veteran guys as much as we can. I thought Kris made a nice contribution, but we have to keep the veterans going in this type of a game. Early in the year, the veterans are going to have to be there for us. Somebody overscheduled us.”
On looking for someone to step up on offense in the second half:
“Well our guards had to pick it up and they did. Richmond is a hard team to score points against. They are disciplined. They take their time on offense. They play the match-up. If you can’t get the easy shots, it’s tough to score points. I don’t think they will give up 76 points a lot this year.”
