Jim Boeheim Quotes
2009 Media Day
Coach Boeheim Quotes
October 16, 2009
Opening Statement:
“Welcome to our new building and our new facility. We’re obviously happy to be here and get started with another season. We’re looking forward to tonight (Midnight Madness). It’s going to be a lot of fun. And we’re looking forward to actually practicing tomorrow.”
On the team’s experience:
“I think when you look at the team, and obviously when you lose your three leading scorers it’s a tremendous loss, and that’s something you look at and realize that’s a big adjustment. The good news is that we have three guys back, two that start, three that have started sometime in their career. We have Wesley Johnson, a guy that has started two years in college. So we really have four players that have started quite a bit. Scoop (Jardine) has started here. So we have a good amount of experience, we have some young guys that we think are good players. When you look at overall experience, we have as much experience as most teams have and that’s very important ingredient with what we have this year.”
On Brandon Triche’s role on the team:
“Well I think with Brandon and Scoop (Jardine), we have two guys that are both point guards and that’s their position. Scoop has played off the ball and can play off the ball, which I think is a good thing. But I think they’re both good players. They’re inexperienced players, but, we’ve had inexperienced point guards in the past that have adjusted and played well. One of the good things for a young point guard is to have a veteran with him in the backcourt like Andy (Rautins), a guy that’s been here in big-game situations for three years. I think that will help both Brandon and Scoop. The fact that our front-line guys are veteran guys will help too. What they need to do is get the ball to people. We have guys that have proven they can score at this level and we don’t need our point guard to score as much as our point guards have scored in the past. I think with the make-up of our team, we have guys that have proven already that they can score inside. Even though we lost good offensive players, I think offensively we can still be a very good basketball team. Defensively, I think we’ll be a bit bigger at the guard spots. Overall inside, our front line will be bigger. I think those are all positives.”
On Wesley Johnson:
“Wesley Johnson has already proven that he can play in college. He had big games at Iowa State. He’s already shown what he can do. We’ve had him in our system for a year and he was able to practice with us for a year. He probably played the most minutes in practice out of any player because we would rest our starters and he would never rest. I think he really understands what we do and what we’re trying to do. He’s got a good feel for the game. The hard thing is when you sit out a year, it’s hard to get better and he’s gotten a lot better. He’s really improved his shooting. I think Scoop has gotten a lot better in the year he’s been off. He’s improved his shooting and I think Wesley has improved his shooting and he’s improved his game. Sometimes sitting out a year is not the worst thing. We’ve had players sit out a year and come back and have really good years.”
“Wesley shoots it well, he obviously gets up and down the court, he jumps, and he’s a good rebounder. He’s a six-foot-eight guy that can run the court, shoot the basketball and rebound - all good qualities.”
On Scoop Jardine:
“Scoop is healthy. He’s 100-percent. He’s lost probably 14 pounds from last year. He’s worked extremely hard, probably as hard as anyone has worked over the last few months. He looks very good. I think both him and Mookie [Jones] have done a really good job of rehabbing and getting back from their injuries and their surgeries. They both look really good at this stage.”
On the team’s leadership and experience:
“I think the leadership we have and the experience we have -- Arinze [Onuaku] and Andy [Rautins] are both fifth-year players, Ricky [Jackson] is a third-year player, Scoop [Jardine] has played here before. It’ll be Wesley [Johnson]’s third year of playing college basketball. We’ve got enough experience. We’re young in the backcourt and the point guard spot but Andy’s a veteran at the other spots. We’ve had it before. We’ve been in this place many times. I’m very confident that we have the ability in the backcourt to get the job done.”
On Rick Jackson:
“I think he’ll get better. Certainly you score more when you get the ball more. That’s a fact of life and the game of basketball. I think we had three high-volume shooters that are gone so the ball will get spread around a little more and more guys will get opportunities. I think the natural progression for big guys, more so than any other players -- big guys gradually get better as they go on. He looks good. He’s got a good inside game. When he got the ball last year, he proved he can get the ball in the basket. I expect him to have a good year.”
On Arinze Onuaku:
“I think Arinze has had a slow recovery process. We’ve taken it very easy with him. He has played some, but not a lot over the last two weeks. His wind and stamina are going to be down. But he looks good. He’s lost some weight. He feels good. He hasn’t been pain-free for the last three years. I think he’s still got some soreness but I think he’s better physically than he’s been in terms of pain. It’s going to take him a few weeks to get up to speed but at this stage he’s worked hard and he looks good. I’m very optimistic that he’ll be ready to go in the first part of November.”
On how the team looks for this season:
“When you lose so many guys, there’s a new kind of team. I like the guys, I’ve seen improvement in the little time I’ve seen them. Kris Joseph is another guy that has lost some weight and I think has really looked good the times I’ve seen him. We’re not here more than two hours a week and I see a big improvement from Kris. Overall as a group, I see as much improvement from this group as I’ve seen from any group in terms of physically getting better.”
On the freshmen:
“I think James [Southerland] is a tremendous shooter, but, he’s more than that, he’s a good athlete. He’s a little older -- he had an extra year at prep school. When he shoots the ball, he reminds me of Preston Shumpert, as far as shooting the basketball. I think he’s got potential to come in and help us this year. DaShonte Riley has looked good in the times that I’ve seen him. He’s an athletic big guy that can shoot it. I think we have 10 guys that are capable of playing this year and I think all of the freshmen are capable of helping us.”
On the team’s style of play this year:
“I think we’ll be more balanced. Last year, Jonny (Flynn) and Eric (Devendorf) were guards that dominated the ball and they needed the ball to be successful. They’re playmakers and they make plays. I think this year we’ll make more inside plays than we’ve made in the past. I think we have more of an inside threat and I think we’ll have more of an inside attack. I think we’ll still be able to score on the perimeter but I think we’ll be more focused on getting the ball to the inside. I think with the skills Eric and Jonny had, they’re offensive players and were really difficult to guard. So I think we were more offensively minded on the perimeter. I think Paul [Harris] was more of a perimeter guy. We really have the guys inside to score and we’ll see what happens.”
On Andy Rautins:
“I think Andy is better than he’s played yet. I expect more out of Andy than he’s given us. I think he’s played well. I think he hasn’t really had the platform to give him the ball. Obviously Jonny [Flynn] and Eric [Devendorf] were tremendous offensive players and they were the first two guys on our attack. But I think Andy is capable of making plays. We know he’s capable of making shots but I think he’s capable of making plays and I think he will do that. So I think we’ll see more from Andy than we’ve seen.”
On the hype over Wesley Johnson:
“I talked to Wesley yesterday. All he needs to do is come out to play. The hype doesn’t really matter, you are what you are. He’ll go out and play and I’m confident that he’s a very good player. He’s already proven he’s a very good player in college basketball. The best way for us to be successful is to have good balance and I think we’ll do that. The best teams in college basketball are well-balanced teams. Defensively, we were a little under-rated last year. Our defense was pretty good. We gave up a lot of points but field-goal percentage defense was pretty good, one of the better teams. We need to get better there. We need to rebound better. We should be a better defensive team than we were last year, size-wise and experience-wise. Offensively, we won’t be as explosive as we were but I think we can still be a very good offensive team this year. Wesley just needs to play his game. He doesn’t have to carry us, he just needs to play the way he’s capable of playing and I have no doubt he’ll do that. I’m not concerned about him doing too much. He knows he has good players with him.”
On preseason rankings:
“It’s a pretty wide fluctuation this year and I’m surprised that we’d be high in anybody’s mind. When you lose your three leading scorers, you’re not going to much support the next year but that’s ok. It’s happened here before and we’ve scraped through the year.”
On losing players
“I think in college basketball you always have to be prepared to lose key guys. You’re going to lose guys, whether they’re good or if they’re seniors. So we’ve usually had to lose a key guy or two. The nice thing is that we have a lot of guys coming back that are experienced guys and we expect them to go forward.”
On Jonny Flynn’s draft status after the six overtime game against UCONN:
“He was still way down on the draft list and he wanted to look at it. He’s a workout guy and he’ll improve in workouts once he goes. That’s really the key in the NBA draft. If you’re not one of the top three guys, it’s how you do in the workouts and Jonny had great workouts so he went from number 20 to number 6.”
On Gerry McNamara joining the coaching staff:
“Gerry understands the game, he’s been there and the players know that. I think him being around is good for our guards. Just him being here helps. We have two guys that have been to the Final Four as starting point guards. One got to the finals, one won, so I think that’s pretty good experience to be able to talk to those guys. We’re happy to have him back.”
