Head Coach Jim Boeheim Quotes - Oakland
Opening Statement:
“I thought we battled through it. Their big guys are very good. They do a great job of getting the ball inside and we are not able to defend the inside this year. We’ve got six days with two games and practices to try and get better down in there. But we got a little active at the end. The crowd picked up our defense just enough that we got a couple deflections and made a couple plays out of it.
We’re going to have games where we don’t make some shots that I think we can, but we made enough tonight. But our interior defense has to be better. Those two big guys that they have are really good. They made a great effort to get the ball inside to those guys. But when you do that, it gets hard to make a three as well. They made four and they really made three because of that prayer from half court (a desperation shot with the shot-clock running down that went in). When those things happen to you, you start to worry a bit. But we reacted well. We went right down, attacked and scored.
We haven’t been in too many close games like this. We made some good plays down the stretch, but we made some plays that we can’t make. Every game is going to be a fight for us. There’s not anything that’s going to be easy. We just have to keep working.
I thought Jesse (Edwards) did some good things in there and I thought Quincy (Guerrier) got to the basket and he made a couple of good plays.
Our turnovers were good. We only had seven today. That’s a nine difference so that makes up for the five-rebound differential. Elijah (Hughes) is playing well. We have to find a way for him and Buddy (Boeheim) to try and get to the foul line a little bit more. We’re settling and we need to get to the foul line a little more.
We have a couple days to prepare. North Florida is one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country coming in. They just made a bunch of threes against a very good man-to-man defensive team, so we have our hands full for Saturday. These games will help us get better."
Did you get nervous when Buddy (Boeheim) had a slow start from three?
“He started 0-5 from three last game and what did he do? Shooters shoot and they’re going to get going and make shots.”
Were Bourama (Sidibe) and Marek (Dolezaj) positioned where you wanted them to defend the inside?
“Yes. They were in position every time. But it’s difficult when the guy outweighs them by 100 pounds. They’re in position. The only way to make it better is to go back more and that’s a dangerous thing to do. If you do that against some teams, you’re dead because they’ll make 12 threes and then you lose. We can still win the way we’re playing.”
“I thought we battled through it. Their big guys are very good. They do a great job of getting the ball inside and we are not able to defend the inside this year. We’ve got six days with two games and practices to try and get better down in there. But we got a little active at the end. The crowd picked up our defense just enough that we got a couple deflections and made a couple plays out of it.
We’re going to have games where we don’t make some shots that I think we can, but we made enough tonight. But our interior defense has to be better. Those two big guys that they have are really good. They made a great effort to get the ball inside to those guys. But when you do that, it gets hard to make a three as well. They made four and they really made three because of that prayer from half court (a desperation shot with the shot-clock running down that went in). When those things happen to you, you start to worry a bit. But we reacted well. We went right down, attacked and scored.
We haven’t been in too many close games like this. We made some good plays down the stretch, but we made some plays that we can’t make. Every game is going to be a fight for us. There’s not anything that’s going to be easy. We just have to keep working.
I thought Jesse (Edwards) did some good things in there and I thought Quincy (Guerrier) got to the basket and he made a couple of good plays.
Our turnovers were good. We only had seven today. That’s a nine difference so that makes up for the five-rebound differential. Elijah (Hughes) is playing well. We have to find a way for him and Buddy (Boeheim) to try and get to the foul line a little bit more. We’re settling and we need to get to the foul line a little more.
We have a couple days to prepare. North Florida is one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country coming in. They just made a bunch of threes against a very good man-to-man defensive team, so we have our hands full for Saturday. These games will help us get better."
Did you get nervous when Buddy (Boeheim) had a slow start from three?
“He started 0-5 from three last game and what did he do? Shooters shoot and they’re going to get going and make shots.”
Were Bourama (Sidibe) and Marek (Dolezaj) positioned where you wanted them to defend the inside?
“Yes. They were in position every time. But it’s difficult when the guy outweighs them by 100 pounds. They’re in position. The only way to make it better is to go back more and that’s a dangerous thing to do. If you do that against some teams, you’re dead because they’ll make 12 threes and then you lose. We can still win the way we’re playing.”
