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Coach Boeheim Quotes Marquette
Coach Boeheim Postgame
Syracuse vs. Marquette
January 23, 2010
Syracuse, N.Y. – Carrier Dome
Opening statement:
"They caught us in the beginning. We tried a lot to get inside obviously. Our big guys, I don’t think they were ready early. We made a couple mistakes and right away we were down 5-0 and it took us the whole half to dig out from under there. We made a pretty good comeback at the end of the half and our defense carried us.
In the second half, we got the ball and we ended up getting it inside and we were ready. We knew we had a big size advantage and I thought we really exploited that. We played probably the best basketball, defensively and offensively, we've played all year, for those 16 minutes in the second half.
I think we got comfortable. We thought the game was over. Marquette was down eighteen or nineteen to Villanova and came back and lost by two. They're a quick team, a pressing team. We made three mistakes and that led to three baskets. You make mistakes against a pressing team; you're going to have problems. We like people who press us -- we're good against pressure and we were very bad in the last four minutes. We made enough plays to hang in there, but it wasn't a good way to end a well-played game.
We really did a tremendous job. Our turnovers all came from going inside. Our big guys had all of our turnovers. I guess they're not used to getting the ball that much, but we've got to do a better job of getting inside. We can't have 11 or 12 of our turnovers coming in around the basket. We're getting good shots once we finally don't turnover the ball, but we really played well for a long time and then we made mistakes. Two or three bad turnovers against a pressing team, that's all it takes."
what sparked the play in the second half?
"In the second half, we got the ball inside."
Compare how the team played in the two halves?
"The first half, we were even so it wasn't as bad as it looks. If you're even in this league, it's not such a bad thing. I think people's expectations are a little out of whack for that question. If you're even in this league and haven't played your best, that's pretty good. You're not going to play your best. When you're not playing your best, you make some turnovers, make some mistakes.
They were face-guarding Andy (Rautins) and took him out of the game We were going to play four against four. We were going to go to the help side so we could throw the lob pass inside. The first half we didn't do it very well. The second half we did it well and we got lay-ups. We got 15 or 16 lay-ups in the second half. Arinze (Onuaku) got four, Ricky (Jackson) got three or four, Wes (Johnson) had five or six lay-ups. They played a triangle and two (defense) and when Kris (Joseph) got back, Kris got some opportunities. Kris was aggressive today; I thought he was the key in the first half. He was hitting the basket and driving. The driving lanes were open because they were playing Andy and Wes so tough and when he gets the opportunity to get a one in, he did that today. I thought we rebounded for the first time this year. We got some lay-ups in. I think that something we've got to do when we have a size advantage. We have to take advantage of it. This was the first time, really all year that I thought we got on the back court. We continued to do that in the second half. At the end of the game, they made couple of threes and we made a couple bad drives. That's something we'll have to work on before we get back."
How did the team respond to Marquette trying to shut down Andy Rautins:
"We had four or five guys in double figures. So we feel that we have guys that can score, if they want to guard him (Rautins). They played him that way and then they played a triangle and two on him and Wes a little bit. Kris Joseph and Brandon Triche like that. Brandon saw the triangle, drove, got that basket for a three-point play. Our other guys have to be aggressive in those situations, when they play the triangle and two or they play Andy like that. We have to go to the basket, we've got to get it inside. That was the big change we made offensively in the second half -- just getting inside. The turnovers were troubling because some of them, two or three of them, were at the end of the game. We still had 18 turnovers prior to that. We can’t do that, we can not turn the ball over."
On the play of Marquette's big players:
"We challenge them. Teams are trying to get behind us. (Luke) Harangody killed us the other day, so we worked on that in practice.
I thought we improved on two things. We didn’t let the guards get in the lane. We let Jackson get in the lane the other night. When they do get in the lane, we got back down on them. Ricky made a couple great blocks early. When you have size, you have to utilize it. We utilized it there. Wes did it a couple of times. Even in the first half, our defense was good. We left a couple of open shots and they made them. Our defense in the first 16 minutes of the second half was good. They probably had 20 points in the last four minutes of the half.
