Inside Syracuse's Unique Hoops Culture - Andy Katz

[Czar]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bas...eim-syracuse-basketball-culture-always-unique

Has anyone read this? It has a veritable gold mine of stuff I had not heard a thing about until now, is all of this really true?

Boeheim is in control, yes. But he orchestrates the program much like an NBA franchise.


...

Syracuse basketball has worked well for more than three decades because Boeheim created a way to coach and control his program without it appearing as if he was micro-managing every detail.
"It's a pro model," another assistant coach said. "This is a program that over time has been built to run itself. He's not a 7 a.m. in the morning guy. But he knows when he wants the information, it better be done. He knows the talent he wants.
"He gives you the freedom to coach and he also gives you the chance to have a home life. In this business, a lot of people don't."

 

[Knicks411]

Good read

 

[Oakland]

When asked last week by ESPN if he had ever discussed with Fine the school's 2005 investigation into the former assistant, Boeheim said no.
"You have to understand as the basketball coach, I don't get involved in that stuff," Boeheim said. "That's not something I should be involved [with]. That's something whoever does the investigation, whether that's the police, the district attorney, the newspaper, ESPN, they're going to do what they have to do, and we wait and see what the results are and that's all we can do."

That sounds very JoePa to me.

 

[Rocco]

All in all, it was a good read. Andy's digging up coaches from the past.

 

[NKR1978]

Great story and great insight on SU basketball. You can tell Katz put a lot of work into that.

 

[Czar]

When asked last week by ESPN if he had ever discussed with Fine the school's 2005 investigation into the former assistant, Boeheim said no.
"You have to understand as the basketball coach, I don't get involved in that stuff," Boeheim said. "That's not something I should be involved [with]. That's something whoever does the investigation, whether that's the police, the district attorney, the newspaper, ESPN, they're going to do what they have to do, and we wait and see what the results are and that's all we can do."

That sounds very JoePa to me.

How? JoePa's line was that he knew everyone very personally, knew everything about you and made you a family friend and not just a coach or player.

 

[MaxwellCuse]

How? JoePa's line was that he knew everyone very personally, knew everything about you and made you a family friend and not just a coach or player.

Yep. JB doesn't sound like JoePa in the slightest. Plus JB has never insisted that the coaches shower together after every game or practice.

 

[CuseGrad94]

Jb has always done it like this. This is why he had the reputation for years as a guy who just recruited and rolled the balls out onto the court and let the players play. I am 40ish grew up in cuse and went to Cuse. What a lot of fans that are "kids" today dont realize is that he was killed for just this in the early years. I played ball in hs with guys that had the old "catholic league" mentality of how basketball sound be played (ball shouldnt touch the ground on a fastbreak etc)that would kill him. We would argue for hours. Funny how winning the big one changes opinions.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[Cusefan95]

When asked last week by ESPN if he had ever discussed with Fine the school's 2005 investigation into the former assistant, Boeheim said no.
"You have to understand as the basketball coach, I don't get involved in that stuff," Boeheim said. "That's not something I should be involved [with]. That's something whoever does the investigation, whether that's the police, the district attorney, the newspaper, ESPN, they're going to do what they have to do, and we wait and see what the results are and that's all we can do."

That sounds very JoePa to me.

I've been told by HR to forward any damaging info to them, to let them handle the investigation, and Not to talk about with anyone, including the people they interviewed/investigated. It looks bad now in retrospect...but I question if this was simp,y university SOP that they'll re-evaluate.

Personally I'm not reading anything JoePa like into it, because I've been personally instructed to handle events exactly the same way JB did...

 

[OrlandoCuse]

That is a fantastic read. Really gives you insights into JB and how he operates as a coach outside of gametime.

 

[OrangeMaNPD]

I knew a couple of kids who were managers on the bball team when I was there and they always said it surprised them how little Fine did considering how long he had been there. That's not to say he didn't contribute anything, but they made it seem like he didn't really do to much which I always found surprising.

 

[TinyManInside]

I think this is a must read for any Syracuse fan, and it also provides a lot of perspective on why the university would want to promote from within when it comes time to replace JB.

This is also very consistent with the impression that I got from watching at least a hundred practices from when I was a grad student at SU. All of the individual skills work is handled by the assistants. Much of the organization of the practice was overseen by Hopkins. Boeheim would usually interject comments during the course of observation. When it came time to scrimmage, Boeheim would be more vocal, but it was more about pointing out perspective and approach than it was about dissecting every little move from each player. He is a GREAT teacher of the game from a big picture standpoint. You could see how he thoroughly prepared his team without making it complicated for his players. Honestly, I learned a lot about the playing the game of basketball just through watching his practices. Things that I still think about every time I play hoops myself.

Again, I think this points to why you'd want to promote from within to maintain that sort of consistency in approach. I don't think most programs are run like this.

Mason

 

[pearl31]

The part about Laurie Fine going to ESPN to try and get Bernie a HC gig is, well, amusing.

Also interesting that JB apparently stopped being willing to even recommend BF for HC openings.

 

[TinyManInside]

Great story and great insight on SU basketball. You can tell Katz put a lot of work into that.

He put a lot of work into it in terms of tracking down assistant, both current and former, for quotes. But in terms of the everyday running of the program, there is nothing in it that hasn't been known for years. I'm sure Katz already had a great idea of the model that Boeheim uses to run the program.

 

[Oakland]

How? JoePa's line was that he knew everyone very personally, knew everything about you and made you a family friend and not just a coach or player.

This is very similar to JoePa saying that he told his AD and didn't consider it after that. Just like JoePa didn't follow up with Sandusky, JB didn't follow up with BF.

 

[pearl31]

This is very similar to JoePa saying that he told his AD and didn't consider it after that. Just like JoePa didn't follow up with Sandusky, JB didn't follow up with BF.

Um, he didn't know about the BF stuff until the others within the university knew about it—2005 when Davis brought them the allegation and they investigated.

 

[jcuse44]

That is a great read. Katz stepping up and giving Jim some relief with this a bit. Sad that Bernie had his wife try and find him a coaching gig. I'm surprised she had time with all that sleeping around with Bobby Davis.

 

[realorange]

This is very similar to JoePa saying that he told his AD and didn't consider it after that. Just like JoePa didn't follow up with Sandusky, JB didn't follow up with BF.

JB didn't follow up what with BF?

 

[orangecuse]

Thanks for the link...a truly great read indeed!

 

[marz09cuse]

This is very similar to JoePa saying that he told his AD and didn't consider it after that. Just like JoePa didn't follow up with Sandusky, JB didn't follow up with BF.

What? Was JB given a first hand account of one of the accuser's being molested AT an SU facility? No, he was probably one of the last people to find out about this investigation, with ESPN, the PS, SPD and the higher ups at SU all knowing of the situation before he did. What exactly was he supposed to follow up on? Was he supposed to investigate BF himself, and report his findings to SPD?

 

[Madbiker]

I always figured BF was not interested in a head coaching job. Certainly after the 1987 FF run and the very successful teams in 1988 and 1989 you would think that was his window to be a hot assistant in demand for a HC job somewhere. Sounds like he might have been interested only after 2000 when he was put aside for Hop but then maybe its only Laurie who was really interested in leaving.

 

[Scooch]

Great piece.

I've always thought JB would have been a great NBA coach.

 

[Millhouse]

Great piece.

I've always thought JB would have been a great NBA coach.

i think a lot of coaches in a lot of sports could learn from boeheim. if a coach is a great golfer, he probably runs a simple repeatable system

 

[swish7]

Yep. JB doesn't sound like JoePa in the slightest. Plus JB has never insisted that the coaches shower together after every game or practice.

Completely agree with both of you. Until evidence somehow ties Boeheim into Fine's mess, people need to stop writing Boeheim into the story. The more I learn about this situation, the more infuriated I get at the abuse groups and shock-journalists that want him fired.

If you look at the facts present to JB at the time of his now-offensive statement(s), the statements are not so offensive.

 

[MyMeloMyMan]

Boeheim has always been a roll the balls out type. Everyone knows the assistants run the practices and Bernie Fine did nothing the past 2 decades.