Coach Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse vs. Pittsburgh
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Carrier Dome/Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening Statement:
“The game was decided on the physical play and we didn’t get to loose balls. Pittsburgh’s a tremendous defensive team. Wesley (Johnson) had a 6’ 4” or 6’ 5” guy on him and he’s got to get inside and we just didn’t do that. And defensively we did a very good job in the first half except we didn’t find (Ashton) Gibbs and Gibbs is their best 3-point shooter. You can’t allow that to happen. We have got to do a better job inside rebounding and scoring the ball inside if we are playing two big guys. You’re going to give up some things and we are not doing enough damage with the big guys. We had opportunities early inside and didn’t finish.
"The second half starts the story of the game. Ricky (Jackson) had the ball and lost it, Arinze (Onuaku) had the ball and lost it, and they got two baskets and you can’t do that. Again they are a physical, tough defensive team and we are going to see a lot more of these teams. We are going to have to get tougher and more physical if we are going to be successful. This is the first really physical tough defensive team that we have seen. We have played some really good teams, really good teams, but they have been offensive-minded teams and we were fine against those teams. In the BIG EAST, we are going to see 10 or 12 more teams like this and we’re going to have to be more physical.”
"The second half starts the story of the game. Ricky (Jackson) had the ball and lost it, Arinze (Onuaku) had the ball and lost it, and they got two baskets and you can’t do that. Again they are a physical, tough defensive team and we are going to see a lot more of these teams. We are going to have to get tougher and more physical if we are going to be successful. This is the first really physical tough defensive team that we have seen. We have played some really good teams, really good teams, but they have been offensive-minded teams and we were fine against those teams. In the BIG EAST, we are going to see 10 or 12 more teams like this and we’re going to have to be more physical.”
On the SU big men:
“They had a lot of opportunities and they didn’t finish some. Rick (Jackson) didn’t finish some early and they had the ball three or four times and they didn’t keep it. They are the biggest, strongest guys out there they got to keep it.”
On if Pitt changed its strategy in the second half:
“No, I think they got a couple loose-ball baskets early and then they got a couple of transition baskets before we got back. One of the things with our big guys, sometimes they don’t get back and when that happened they got a couple transition baskets. I think our offense hurt us as much as our defense in the second half. We didn’t get the ball in the right place and when we did get it in the right place we didn’t finish.”
On the game’s physical play:
“We have to be more physical. Like I said, we really haven’t played physical teams. If you look at the teams we have played, the only team that was a little physical with us was probably St. Bonaventure and we struggled with them. But they are physical and they bothered us. Seton Hall bothered us a little bit, but they are not a defensive team. They are an offensive team. Pittsburgh’s a tremendous defensive team. They always have been, and you have to match the physical nature of how they’re playing. We did not do that and you’re not going to win that kind of game.”
On what the team needs to improve on:
“I said this on the first day that we are not rebounding as well as we need to and that is what I’m saying when I say that. We are not as physical as we need to be when we play teams, and there are a lot of teams who we’re playing that are going to be physical. If we are not more physical we are going to have problems.”
On Memphis posing a physical threat:
“Memphis is physical, yeah. I don’t think there are going to be many teams that we are going to play the rest of the year that aren’t going to be physical. We are going to have to get used to that, there is no question about that. We will learn and get better from this.”
