Boeheim Quotes Iona
Syracuse vs. Iona
December 18, 2010
Syracuse, N.Y. – Carrier Dome
Head Coach Jim Boeheim Postgame Quotes
Opening Statement:
“Coming into this game, having watched Iona play -- they have two great perimeter shooters and a very, very good point guard. Michael Glover is about as good as anybody we’ll play against. They really attacked us well.
I thought our defense was good for the most part. The first half it was really good. We were forcing them a little bit out. The second half we got pulled back in a little bit and Kyle Smyth got some pretty good looks and he knocked them down. But they attacked us extremely well.
We felt that coming into the game we had to score. We’re going to have offensive opportunities and when we executed we got really good shots and knocked them down. But Iona is a very good team. The games they lost to earlier in the year they didn’t have one guy and they were playing in Cleveland. Cleveland State’s very good. This is a really good Iona team. They’re going to be hard to beat, I think in their league. I really liked their team and how they played against us.
We played very, very well on the offensive end to get control of the game, but with a three-point shooting team, they’re never out of it. They made some really good plays coming down the stretch and gave themselves a chance.
I thought overall it’s always difficult coming out of this exam break to get your rhythm. But I thought we played well offensively. Fab Melo was okay in the first half. He got tightened up from sitting and couldn’t go in the second half. C.J. Fair actually turned his ankle early and played the whole half. Probably played the best he’s played all year. And then halftime it just swelled up and he can’t walk right now. James Southerland did a good job on offense coming in but obviously those two guys out it really hurts our depth. It especially hurts the center position. We’re just going to have to see how they react the next couple of days and go from there.”
Is that one of the better games Brandon Triche has played this year?
“I thought he was positive right from the start. He was very good, very good. You have to understand this debate here. We have two point guards. Scoop may bring the ball up. I can bring the ball up. Anyone could bring up the ball if there’s no pressure, which there is no pressure. Once we get to the attacking zone, both guards become point guards. Brandon (Triche) had seven assists. Well that’s what point guards do. When the ball is in his hands he is now a point guard. We screen for him. Sometimes he doesn’t need a screen. He can penetrate on his own.
Duke is playing with three "2" guards right now. They’re still pretty good. That’s all just talk, talk show talk. We don’t need to designate. They’re guards. Dion’s (Waiters) a guard. He drives, he gives screens, he makes plays. Brandon just has to relax and go out and play like he did tonight like he’s done many times. He’s a tremendous player. Point guard is something for people to talk about. It really is not relative to anything, absolutely anything.”
I’m guessing that this is the kind of performance you’d like the see out of Kris (Joseph), the way he played tonight?
“Yes. I thought Kris (Joseph) was really good. He took two bad jump shots. Other than that he was very good on offense. Not so good on defense.”
Can you talk about Morgan State and the challenges they present on Monday night.
“ I haven’t looked at the tapes. I’ll look at the tapes tomorrow. They’ve been to the tournament two years in a row. Obviously, we knew scheduling these games we play really good teams.
These games put you in pressure situations where you’ve got to make plays and you need to get in the situations now. The bottom line is it doesn’t matter who you play. There are a lot of good teams, a lot of good basketball players. Tennessee beat two of the best teams in our league, two of the best teams in the country and then lost to a team that’s won what, one or two games this year and lost at home to Oakland. Oakland’s a pretty good team. Michigan beat them by 18 today. But you get those teams on their night and you don’t play well. Illinois’ good, UIC beat them. UCLA almost won at Kansas, almost broke their win steak and then went home and lost to Montana. This is college basketball. Iona is really good. They’re better than all those teams.
But you can lose anytime if you don’t play really, we played really well on offense. We didn’t play as well on defense has we had been. But we played really well on offense. And defensively they only shot 29% from the three, that’s reasonable. We did nothing with Glover and maybe we can’t. He’s pretty good. His last three or four games he’s 14-for-17, 16-for-, actually we did better than that. He was only 9-11. That’s college basketball. Baylor was undefeated. Gonzaga’s lost three or four games. They go down and beat them at Baylor. That’s just the way college basketball is. But Iona’s a really good team. They can beat a lot of people I think.
There was a stretch in the second half where Rick (Jackson) was sitting. Was that just because James (Southerland) was playing so well?
“James kind of got going. I thought they’d start fouling sooner. So I wanted James (Southerland) in there. Rick (Jackson) sometimes doesn’t get back at that forward spot, corner. He got caught on the back-door dunks twice and the corner jump shots. So I was hoping we would get something there. I thought Baye (Moussa-Keita) might foul out and I wanted to make sure Rick was ready defensively to go in. Rick’s been good all year. He wasn’t good tonight. But he’s been good all year. For us everybody’s going to be up and down.
How about Dion (Waiters) tonight?
Really good on offense. Really good. Unfortunately there’s two ends.
With the defensive trouble you had, did that base off of closing out on the shooters?
“Well, I think there’s a little bit of that. Glover got lose behind us more than anybody has in a long time. Their shooters were 11-for-37, 29%. I mean not too bad really overall. We didn’t control Michael Glover, that was the biggest problem. They’re going to make shots. When they take 37 threes, they’re going to at least make 11. I think 11 is the low side. They could have made more. But we didn’t control Glover. That was the biggest problem. I’m not sure we can, but we’d like to think we could do a little better than we did tonight."
