Detroit Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse Men’s Basketball
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
SU vs. Detroit
Carrier Dome
Coach Boeheim’s press conference
Opening Statement:
“Obviously we’ve lost the two guys that made all the shots for us last year, and took the big shots, and I think the guys that are the pretty good shooters on our team have to be able to go out there when nobody is guarding you and make an open shot. If somebody was guarding one of these guys, I might have some kind of an understanding. You’re in college, you’re not in high school. You have a scholarship. When they don’t guard you, you have to be able to make that shot. If you can’t, you shouldn’t be playing college basketball. That’s why guys don’t play. Everybody told me what great shooters we have, but the two great shooters are 2-22 coming off of our bench. Now would you please explain to me how they’re great shooters?
If Scoop didn’t just pull us up on his shoulders tonight and take the game over we would have had no chance to win. He can’t do that, he’s a good player, but he can’t do that all the time. He decided he was going to try to win this game by himself because we had no chance to win because no one else wanted to shoot.
I don’t mind if a guy takes a shot and tries to make it, but when they start aiming it and can’t get to the rim, then you’re not a college basketball player. We have some guys who need to figure out whether they are, or aren’t really quick because we don’t have a lot of time.
Brandon [Triche] has to step it up, he’s a very good player, but he’s got to go out there and play well. We can’t afford to have him not play well. Obviously Fab [Melo] is struggling big time out there. We’re fortunate that Baye [Moussa Keita] is playing as well as he’s playing. Tonight he gave us some really good minutes. His stats aren’t great but he gave us some really good minutes, three blocks, four rebounds and he played great defense.
Obviously they decided they weren’t going to let Rick [Jackson] score. They decided to just stay back in the lanes, so we couldn’t get him the ball. He just kept rebounding and 22 rebounds is pretty good. I talked to Rick [Jackson] before the season and I think the one thing he can do to really impress people is to rebound the ball. Detroit’s a pretty big, pretty good rebounding team. They kept three guys under the basket and decided not to guard any of our guys for a good reason. It was a very good strategy and Rick [Jackson] just went after everything inside, he was tremendous.
Pretty soon we’re going to play somebody who can make a shot and we’re not going to win that game. Our defense is okay. The teams we’re playing right now are taking 35 seconds and it’s hard to get a good shot in 35 seconds. The teams that we play that we have to beat won’t do that and they’ll get good shots. We’re going to have to start playing offense.
The reason I play seven or eight guys, is because they know they’re in the game and they know they’re going to be there. Brandon [Triche] doesn’t know yet that he’s in the game. He can’t play that way; he’s got to know that, and that’s why guys play. They know they’re going to be able to take shots and right now we don’t have a comfort level there.
Obviously Kris [Joseph] has to make shots for us to be successful. Other than the second half of the Northern Iowa game, he’s shooting 15%. He’s probably shooting 25% with that game, he has to be able to make shots. He’s a good player, a good driver and in this game if they’re going play off [of him], he’s going to have to make shots. That’s the bottom line.
We shot 2-of-17 in the first half from three, if we’re playing a good team in our league, we will be down 15 to 18 points if we play like this. Guys who are getting opportunities, we’ll see what they do. I thought Scoop [Jardine] made only one bad play and we got a three-point play out of it. That’s the only bad play he made the whole game; a 4-on-1 fast break and he throws it to a guy who hasn’t made a shot.”
Can you talk about how Scoop [Jardine] stepped up in the game today after not being asked to play that role in three years.
“He decided that we were going to win the game and without him we had no chance. He made some tough plays, some tough shots, 27 points and 8 assists, that’s a pretty good night. Five steals, that’s a pretty good night.
We’re better than this. We were definitely overrated in the first half tonight. If you just take the second halves we play, we’re not overrated.”
With the make-up of this team, is this the type of role that Scoop has to keep taking?
“He’s got to be in charge, there’s no question about that. I hope he’s not going to have to score 27 points every night. We have guys that can score, at least they can score in practice. We’ll find out if they can score in the games. Right now, they’re struggling big time.
In the first half, you created a lot of turnovers, but you didn’t seem to turn them in to many fast breaks, is this something you’re looking for this team to do?
“We haven’t been getting as many turnovers as we usually do. We’re not as good on defense, we’re not as active. We’re not blocking as many shots as we did, although tonight we did. We’re not getting the steals, although Scoop did tonight, but Andy [Rautins] did a lot of that. Wesley [Johnson] was good, Arinze [Onuaku] was good in the post and those guys were just veteran guys. They were better players. We’ve got to make shots and get better. It’s early and we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of young guys and they have to get better. They have to get used to coming in there and going right away. I thought Dion [Waiters] came in the game and got two great opportunities right away and he wasn’t ready. It’s hard to come off the bench sometimes when you haven’t done it, he wasn’t ready, he didn’t get going, and he never really did get going.”
