Boeheim Quotes
Coach Jim Boeheim
Syracuse vs. Albany
November 9, 2009
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
“For the first game of the year, the one key thing was to be active on defense and I thought we did that. I thought we did a pretty good job rebounding early. We got the ball inside and once we got the lead, we just made too many turnovers. Some were high-risk plays on the fast breaks that maybe could have been successful, but we were better the second half because we only had seven (turnovers).”
“We obviously made some bad plays offensively in the first half, but this is an encouraging game from the aspect that everybody had an opportunity. We didn’t get much offensively out of Andy (Rautins) and Wes (Johnson) they did a pretty good job on, but we still were able to score despite the turnovers. I think that’s a good sign that Ricky (Jackson) and A.O (Arinze Onuaku) were very good around the basket. It was our defense that we just have to get better there.”
“ Robert Morris is a very good team and they’ve been in the NCAA Tournament. It is going to be a much more difficult game on Wednesday. We just have to get prepared, have a good day tomorrow, and come back. If you have to get a win, this is a good way to start the season.”
On getting his 800th win:
“When you wait so long and have to think about it all off-season-- it just would have been nice if we got it out of the way last year. It is what it is. We tried not to think about it and I think it kind of took our focus off that with the way we played in the last exhibition game. I think we got our focus where we needed to get it. Obviously, it is a very big milestone for any coach to get and I’m proud of all the players that we’ve had.”
“My phone was ringing right after the game and it was Derrick Coleman. He probably figured I was going to answer.”
“The coaches and players that have been here have just been consistently good for a long time. As I said out there (during the presentation), our fans are a tremendous part of this because you have to have a good fan base to have a good basketball program. You have to have people coming and we’ve always had that. It still goes back to all of the players that we’ve had here over the years. The coaches have worked very hard to get good players to come here and that’s how you win games.”
On whether or not this year’s team will run more than teams in years past:
“It would be a surprise if they did. When we go with our smaller team, I think we can get out a little bit better, but with the two big guys out there, I don’t think we’ll run a lot. We run off turnovers. Tonight our defense forced turnovers. We don’t run too well off misses. We mainly run off of turnovers. We forced a lot of turnovers and that was really the whole game.”
On Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine:
“[Triche] was aggressive. I told him the other day that I wanted him to be aggressive and go to the basket, but I didn’t want him to run over five guys. He’ll learn from that. He was very strong with the ball. He just needs some time -- like all freshmen.”
“I thought Scoop did a good job. I thought he went after a couple balls good. I thought he moved the ball. He was solid. We’re not going to see that many zones this year, but when we do, we attacked this one better. Obviously, we’ll make some shots. We’ll make some threes. This was a good, balanced attack. I thought everybody was contributing. We missed a lot of easy shots, but it’s ok.
