Syracuse vs. St. John's
Boeheim Quotes
Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse vs. St. Johns
March 2, 2010
Carrier Dome-Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening Statement:
"In some ways I was concerned about this game as any game that we have played. You come off the game that we had here Saturday and need to come back and be able to focus and concentrate. This team has done this all year. They have been very focused to come out to play every game. St. Johns sometimes doesn't shoot it well, but tonight they made some shots and we were still able to do what we needed to do. Arinze (Onuaku) was as good as he has been all here. He is starting to come on. Kris Joseph was hurt in practice yesterday. He came out and had a solid game for us. It was a good all around game. Everybody did what we had to do. I think we have only wont this league it once before. We have tied a few times. To win this league outright is a tremendous accomplishment for these kids. It doesn’t really matter where you are picked. To be able to win this league is very difficult. To win it with a game to go is even better. They deserve to be called champions. They have played like that all year long. We have one tough game left on Saturday. For the first time in awhile we have a few days off before we have to play in New York. That will be good for us to get some rest and get some bruises and bumps healed up. This team deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the way they have played all year long. I can't say enough about this group."
On senior night:
"It is always tough for seniors to play well and they both played extremely well on both ends of the court. They both had great games. Arinze (Onuaku) is coming on. He is more active then he has been. He is going to the boards the best that he has all year. We struggled a little bit on the boards tonight. I thought the defense was good except for that.
Andy (Rautins) and Arinze (Onuaku) have been there from day one. They are fifth year seniors. TO see how they have matured over the years and how they have contributed to this program. They have both been exceptional people and exceptional leaders. They have really pulled this team together from day one. I can't say enough about them. We have so many new guys in new positions. Kris (Joseph), Scoop (Jardine), and Brandon (Triche) didn't play last year. When you have three new guys on the perimeter that is a big question mark for the team. Ricky (Jackson) and Arinze we knew could do what they need to do. Andy is making that position switch and Wesley (Johnson) hasn't played for us. They are a lot of unknowns that to be able to win this league is a great accomplishment. Those two guys have led the way for us."
On potential of Rautins and Onuaku as incoming freshman:
"We expect the best from our players. We expect everybody we recruit to develop into a really good player. We didn’t have any expectations that they were going to be okay. We do not recruit that way. We do not recruit that way. We think everybody we give a scholarship to has a chance to be an outstanding player. It helped them both that they had the red shirt year. Andy got a lot stronger. Arinze's knees are better now than they have been since he has been here. We expected those guys to be able to be good players in this league and they are very good players. You can make a strong case that Andy is the most valuable player in the league. I think you could make that case very easily. Wes (Johnson) was carrying for a long time, but after he got hurt he struggled in the last eight games. Andy has been making shots and making plays. Our success is the team balance that we have of Rick's (Jackson) improvement, Arinze to be able to come back healthy and Scoop's (Jardine) improvement. If Kris Joseph isn't the best sixth man in the country I don't know who is. He's been there every night for us. He had 13 points, six rebounds a couple of assists and no turnovers. He is a tremendous player.
On how Scoop played tonight:
"He has been playing good. He didn't make his jump shot tonight. He really would have had a monster first half, but fortunately he made them Saturday."
On the hard work of Andy Rautins and how it has paid off:
"We have had a lot of guys like that. Allen Griffin, Jermone Brown. We can go back and name a lot of guys that we have recruited here that have attributed and gotten better every year. There is a list of 20 or 30 guys. We look for guys that we think can improve and become really good players, like Hakim Warrick that are not McDonald's all Americans. We do not have a McDonald's All-American on this team. We have beaten the teams that have five or six McDonald's All-Americans on their team. It doesn’t matter. You have to be good players and you have to develop into good players and these guys have.
On resting guys, especially Wes Johnson:
"We have time. After Saturday we do not play until Thursday. We are going to see how he is after the Louisville game. If he is done at 5:00 Saturday we do not play until Thursday. He has Sunday, Monday. He is still not right. He is still not where he was. Any stretch would strengthen that hand and I would like to hope by Thursday that he would be a lot better. Even if we do play in New York, not matter how long we play we won't play for five, six days after that. We hope for those two five six day periods that it would make a difference. If he was still in a lot of pain when we went to New York than I might not play him, but that would be an extreme case."
On potential of team at the beginning of the season:
"I told everybody that we could be a real good team. If you look at the league the teams at the top of the list last year took hits. They all dropped. They all lost really good players. In last years league we probably would have been where we were last year. Last year this league had some players in it. Pittsburgh lost two pros. Louisville lost two first round picks. Villanova's Cunningham, which I thought was one of the best players, if not the most valuable player in our league last year. Thabeet and Price. We lost eight great players out of those teams. They had to drop a little bit. We had Wesley (Johnson) to replace Paul (Harris), there was not ground lost. We had Andy (Rautins) to go back into Eric's (Devendorf) spot. We are not going to score like Johnny (Flynn) scored, but Scoop and Brandon together have done a pretty good job. I am not surprised that we could do well."
On key to this team:
"The key to how good this team is that we have won against all the ranked teams that we have played by something like 12 points a game. On the road we have a margin of maybe more than we do at home, except for the last two games. We played really well on the road. We have never had a team go undefeated on the road since I have been here. I know Connecticut did it one year, but not many of teams have done that in this league.
We have great balance. We have inside, outside. We have good ball handling. We have good size. Our defense is good. We are a good defensive team. We are getting to be a good rebounding team. That can still get better. We are leading the country in field goal percentage. We are close to leading the country in steals, assists. We are close in the conference in field goal percentage of defense against the three. Field goal percentage we are up there at the top. I think we are leading the conference in steals. Assists we are leading the conference. If you look at all of those categories we should win.
We have a big test Saturday. It will be a real tough game down there. They beat us here, so they are going to have a lot of confidence. It will be a tough game for us. These guys deserve a lot of credit an awful lot of credit."
On if St. Johns improved from a year ago:
"They are improving. Mason (Anthony) coming back has thrown them off a little bit. I think that has changed some things. They have a lot of juniors. They could be very good next year. They played very good this year at times. They haven't been consistent. They have a lot of juniors that I think are very good players
