Coach Boeheim
NCAA Selection Press Conference
NCAA Selection Sunday
Carmelo K. Anthony Center – Syracuse N.Y.
March 14, 2010
Opening Statement:
“We are proud to be a number one seed. This team has worked extremely hard and has been consistent all year. We are excited to be a one seed and go to Buffalo and play. The tournament is always going to be challenging. There are not any easy games anymore. I happened to watch Vermont play BU over the weekend. They played extremely well. It will be a challenge right off the bat.
"Arinze (Onuaku) has not practiced. He has good mobility, but I do not think he will be practicing tomorrow or Tuesday. I would say at best he is unlikely to play this weekend. That could change at the end of the week, but that is my thinking right now. He has made some progress -- He is moving around a little bit. At this point in time, I would be very skeptical of him playing this coming weekend, I wouldn’t say it is impossible. Everybody else has worked hard, DaShonte Riley would be a factor if Arinze cannot play and that is something that we have thought about. If (Arinze Onuaku) cannot play Friday, Kris Joseph will start and we will go with a team that has played a lot together. We like to have Kris come off the bench because he gives us a little more mobility and we can get up and down a little bit better with our small lineup. We have played the small lineup probably over 60% of the time this year in games so it is not as radical as it could be. It is always disappointing when a senior gets an injury this late in the year. It is very disappointing for our team, but it is more disappointing for (Arinze Onuaku), he has worked so hard and been so productive for us. To have him get hurt at this stage is disappointing. We will see how the week goes. It is only 72 hours away from when he got hurt and he has made a lot of progress -- we have no way of knowing what the next 72 hours will bring. We are very guarded in what we are saying, but I think it would be hard for him to play on Friday if he cannot get to practice by Wednesday.”
On reaction of fourth number one seed:
“I am not going to split hairs about that, being a one seed is pretty good.”
On playing Vermont:
“I remember that team -- they have a new coach and new players, we have a new coach and new players. They are a good team, I have seen them play -- I happened to catch most of their game (America East Championship against Boston University) and we will have tapes. I probably saw 25-30 minutes of their game and they are a good team. There are no easy games in the tournament anymore.”
On overall bracket:
“You always look at the practices, but you don’t think past the first game. Gonzaga has been in the top ten for most of the year and I had them 15th in the pole this week. I don’t see how they can be anymore than a 5 or 6 seed, but that’s the way it comes out sometimes. Florida State has been really good this year -- it is similar to last year, when we played Arizona State in second game, they were a tremendous team. They are all good at this stage.”
On crowd at Buffalo:
“I don’t know. I was surprised when we went to Boston and had so much support and the same in Albany. We are close, we’ll see what happens. Hopefully, we will have a few people there in orange.”
On status of Arinze Onuaku in next two weeks:
“I don’t know and I really don’t want to say. He has played in a lot of pain before, probably two or three months last year -- he had pain the whole year. I would not sell him short as far as being able to come out and play. If he is strong and feels strong, he may not be able to play 25 or 30 minutes, but maybe he will be able to play 15 or 20, we will have to see. There have been a lot of games where he has played 10 or 15 minutes this year -- certainly we would like to have him for that much. Both with him and Rick (Jackson) at center, we have played the small group most of the year. I haven’t calculated, but it is probably more than 60 percent -- probably 70 or 80 percent of the time we have played the small lineup. It is difficult to lose a player like this, but we think we can adjust to it.”
On if status of Arinze Onuaku affected the committee’s decision:
“They wouldn’t know. They can’t move us down because they do not know how good we are or are not. If we would have played a couple games without him and didn’t play very well then they could say ‘well I guess they are not that good.’ I don’t think that they could not see us play, we are 28-4. We have been the top three the last part of the year and the only losses we have our to teams in the NCAA tournament.”
On Kris Joseph’s brother playing on Vermont team affected the committee’s decision:
“They always can be coincidences. That is life, who knows. I think they got enough sitting in that room to figure out who is getting in and who is not getting in to try to think maybe we should throw this team against that team. I do not think they have that much time. I do not think they have that much time and energy to be thinking of those kinds of things.”
On BIG EAST teams in the tournament:
“Our conference got a lot of respect, twos and threes. Georgetown moved up from eighth place in our league to a three seed, they played like it and they looked like it. Villanova went to a two, that is surprising. Based on the year that we have had in our conference, we have had a great year."
On how well the BIG EAST prepares you for the tournament:
“You have seen everything that you can possibly see -- you play with all kinds of styles, small teams, big teams. Through the course of the season with such a big conference you see so many different styles. You see 15 different looks during the conference season, thirteen non-league games. That is 28 different teams you are playing, which is a lot of different looks."
On Wes Johnson’s hand:
“Wes is fine, he is a 100 percent. Kris is better and he should be a 100% by this weekend. They haven’t been for awhile -- those two guys will be back full strength by Friday and I think we will be fine.”
On losing one guy:
“Nobody wants to lose a player like (Arinze Onuaku). I am not trying to rationalize things here, but we have had seven starters. We are not all of a sudden taking somebody and saying you need to start this week, (Rick Jackson) has played center half the time so we are not telling him he needs to play a new position. He has played center and he knows how to play that position and might even be his best position. Now, Kris is playing 30 minutes a game in the BIG EAST, there is nothing new. It would be different if we didn’t have a guy like that. If we had a guy that had been playing 15 minutes a game and said you have to play 30, that’s hard to do, that is a big change. We will be fine because of the fact that we have played seven guys. DaShonte (Riley) has been playing better in practice -- he has gotten in there a couple of games. He has played better in practice and I think this week he knows he is going to play. He will get some practice time and get some attention, it is a little easier for him because we do play zone, to step in there. He doesn’t really hurt us on offense because he is a very good passer and he can give us a few good minutes. We will play a three guard lineup -- if (Rick Jackson) were to get in foul trouble we will play DaShonte, but we will also play Wesley (Johnson), Andy (Rautins) and Kris (Joseph) out front and play the two guards. It is a significant loss to lose (Arinze Onuaku), but there is nothing we can do about it. It is unfortunate that it had to happen to anybody, especially a senior, but we are hopeful. Two or three days from now maybe he will feel that much better, we’ll see. It all depends on how he feels and what he feels he can do. I do not know what the answer to that is.”
