Matt congratulated the Coach on achieving the #1 ranking. JB: It’s a great honor and privilege to be ranked #1 and I hope we can keep it for a while. The players are mature and they realize that it’s not our ultimate goal and that North Carolina State will be a big challenge.
Joe in Hamilton called SU, “an historical team in the making” but wondered if we do enough rebounding. JB: We are getting better. Our big men are our youngest players and as the season progresses, we will rebound better. Of course it’s harder to rebound in a zone but we feel there are compensations. We avoid fouls, we get more steals and more running situations. If they get a couple more rebounds and we get 8 steaks, that’s to our advantage. We’ve won tournaments breaking even on the boards or even being slightly behind.”
I called in my comments and Coach agreed that Ernie Davis was one of those exceptional athletes who could excel in more than one sport. “His high school team won 60 straight games. I never met Ernie Davis and it’s one of my great disappointments. I’ve met a lot of people but I never met him. People have always said it was an unbelievable experience to meet him because he was such a nice person. Matt talked about all the prominent people who had been in New York to honor Ernie, including the second black Heisman Trophy winner, Mike Garrett, Dave Bing, Floyd Little, (who did a lot to bring all these people together), Billy Hunter, (who played behind Floyd Little at tailback). Coach had been unable to be there but said “It must have been a great place to be.”
They discussed SU’s strong defensive play. JB: “You want your defense to always be there. Offense can be inconsistent. Defense keeps you in the game. Against Marshall our offense was not great but our defense made some steals and we were able to stay ahead of them.
They talked about future opponents. Tulane is 10-1. Bucknell was in the NCAAs last year. NC State will come in with some confidence because they almost beaten us here last year. They are 7-3 and very easily could have won all three games they lost. Matt noted that they have a lot of athletic 6-6 to 6-8 guys. JB said that Wood was as deadly accurate a long range shooter as I’ve seen in a long time but he’s a good basketball player as well- a good all-around player.”
Justin wanted to know if there were any upcoming opponents that especially concerned him. JB noted that we’d already played several teams that easily could have beaten us- Virginia Tech, Stanford, Florida , Marshall, “and we’re going to have a lot more games like that. Nobody plays as many ranked or top ten teams as we will. Louisville and Connecticut are #2-3 in our league and we will play them twice each. Providence is 8 or 9-2 and we play them twice.”
Matt noted that this was our first true non-conference road game. JB: “At this stage of the year most teams play 1-2 games like that and that’s it. We’re pretty normal.” Matt noted that our strength of schedule was listed at #11. JB: “That’s very high. I’m surprised it’s that high this time of year. I’ll take it.” We are #2 in RPI. behind Duke. NC State is #64.
Jim In Cicero asked about the location for the ACC tournament. It’s in Atlanta this year and generally shifts between there, Charlotte and Greensboro. JB: “We’ll get it in New York about once every 10 years“.
Jim also wanted to know how they split up recruiting. “We recruit mainly in the Northeast. Each assistant is given a certain area. They do the preliminaries and keep in constant contact. Then I come in at the end, see them play and talk to them and try to convince them to come to Syracuse.”
The next caller said that Jim was “absolutely the tops at getting ‘under the radar’ players“. He wanted to know why Rakeem Christmas starts over CJ Fair. JB said it gave us a bigger line-up to start with. He wants to see what Rakeem will do that night. He likes bringing in CJ off the bench to add some offensive punch. The same thing with Dion Waiters. Both would be playing the same number of minutes as starters. “Starting used to be very important when I had seven guys and five guys played 36 minutes.” Matt went over the minutes per game totals, noting that not too many teams have no one averaging 30 minutes per game. “This is the fewest minutes we’ve given to starters in 35 years. When we get to the tough games, Kris Joseph will play for 36 minutes”. He said Rakeem will become a bigger factor as the season progresses.
They discussed Andy Rautins. JB said that Andy will like come back to Syracuse to work out, then look to latch on with a European team, then maybe come back to “try and get noticed” in the summer leagues. “He’d be a perfect European player. He can pass and shoot and play both guard positions.”
A caller suggested that the best games must be in practice between SU’s first and second teams. JB: “They are very, very competitive. We actually don’t play 1 vs. 2 all the time because we don’t want to wear them down. The first team will play the last five guys sometimes.” Do they have certain players try to “impersonate” an opposing star player? Yes they do. Trevor Cooney is “playing” Scott Wood this week. What if you don’t have a guy who can shoot like the other team’s star? “We just announce before practice that any shot that guy gets off is ’good’. We want to guard him. The hardest guys to imitate are the guys who can put the ball on the floor and drive, like Kris Joseph and Dion Waiters. Not many players at this level can do that.” They used to simulate Manute Bol by having a player hold a broom. “We’ve never done that.”
A caller noted that we are suing the press more this season and JB agreed they are using it “as a weapon” this year instead of just a desperation move. The caller wondered if could sue a 1-3-1 press. JB prefers the 1-2-1-1 with man-to-man principles until the ball is in-bounded, when they will trap. And he doesn’t like to use multiple presses because it could create too much confusion in assignments. The caller asked about a “containment” press and Jim doesn’t like to use that. He wants to get steals out of the press. He also wants to “have a shot-blocker back there”. Against George Washington, they sometimes didn’t have one and we gave up a couple of long passes. “We were in control of that game and could afford to take chances. We got 2-3 steals out of it.”
Matt went over NC State’s history vs. #1 teams. They’ve beaten five of them, most notably Houston on 4/4/83 for the national championship. The last one was in 2004 vs. Duke. But they get a lot of shots at #1 teams because they play Duke and North Carolina all the time. They are 5-25 overall and have lost the last 4 and 6 of the last 7.
Matt asked about the Chris Paul trade that finally Eric Derek Gordon is a heck of a player. He might have been good enough to swap even up. Then they got Aminu and the big guy, Kaman. They also got a draft choice- it could wind up being one of the top 4-5 players in the draft. I think they got the better of the deal.”
Gomez took over for the second hour. “It’s like Man vs. Food over there.” JB: “Can’t you talk for a couple of minutes- you have a radio show, don’t you?” Gomez: “I have some stories to tell.” JB: “The problem is, nobody wants to listen to them.” Gomez talked about being in a marathon with Julie and chasing down a guy who stole some Christmas presents from his car.
A caller named George,. Who said that last year he was called “Uncle George”, professed an admiration for Gomez. JB: “There are a couple of you out there.” Then he asked “What is all this crap about you having a target on your back just because you’re ranked #1”. Matt cut him off and JB simply said “Everybody wants to beat the #1 team. We’re still a work in progress. We have 6 freshmen and sophomores and the schedule will get a lot tougher. The players know that and that’s a good thing.”
Gomez asked if any of the players have surprised him this year. “We see them in practice before the public sees them. We knew Fab and Dion were going to come back in better shape this year. But it was probably a surprise to the fans to see them like that.
Gomez noted that Mark Gottfried, the coach who beat SU when he was at Alabama, was the new NC State coach. “he was very successful at Alabama. They went to the tournament almost every year. He inherited a lot of talent at NC State. They almost beat us up here and will have plenty of confidence. They played good defense against us.” Will they be a different team with a different coach? “They have so many guys back. They will be a little different.”
A caller mourned the loss of top chef Brian Shore, who was a good friend of the Boeheims. They gave him tickets to games and he was strong SU fan. The caller knew Brian and wanted to think Jim for the tickets and said they made a difference in Brian’s life. Jim called him “one of the best chefs ever” and said that he and Julie would dine at any place he was cooking. (Brian, who suffered from depression, recently killed himself.)
Gomez asked if basketball teams simulate crowd noise like football teams do. JB said they usually don’t. Syracuse only needs to play in the Dome to understand crowd noise. “Good teams and players can handle that.”
I called in again to note that Scott Pitoniak’s book on Jim, “Color Him orange”, keeps talking about the long winter drives Jim had when he was playing in the Eastern league and how he took 40 trips to Kendall to recruit Rosey Bouie and 40 trips to Albany. The snow hasn’t started to fly in Central New York yet but did he have any winter driving trips for the fans trying to get to the Dome. “leave early and drive very, very carefully. We have the best snow plowing and road preparation anywhere right here in Central New York and not enough gets said about that. Fortunately, NCAA rules limit you to 6-7 visits so I don’t have to take so many trips like that any more. It was tough finishing #2 for Sam Perkins.”
Gomez asked if the Big East would be stronger this year than last. Jim thinks the top will be as strong but the lower half of the conference might not be as good. He hasn’t seen Louisville yet but they have a lot of good players and are playing very well.
A caller asked why Doug Gottlieb and Dick Vitale hate Syracuse so much. JB: “Dick’s been very good. Doug doesn’t like us very much, although he’s loosened up a little bit and says something nice once in a while.”
Another caller asked if anybody was unhappy with their minutes and will our increased depth give us an advantage in the tournament? JB skipped the part and said “Teams usually play fewer guys in the tournament. They have TV time-outs and good teams are not going to wear down. You have to play better than the other guys to beat them.”
Gomez noticed the latest bracketology. JB: “Are they doing that already? It’s way, way, way too early, it’s like doing your Christmas shopping in June.” Gomez noted that Lunardi had us in Boston. JB liked that, noting we’d played there when we won the national title. Harvard was a #7 seed. “They have a very good team.” So does Indiana “Zeller has been a real impact player”. Baylor has “quietly put together a solid program. They could win that conference. Kansas isn’t quite what they were. “
Gomez asked about the plan by the NCAA to pay a stipend of $2000 to scholarship players. JB: “Scholarships normally come with a ’cost of living’. The actual annual cost of living is $6000 but at least it’s something. It would be an easy thing to do but all these people are against it due to the possibility that the amounts might be different and more men would get the stipend than women. The smaller schools will vote it down. The top 95-100 schools have talked about breaking away to form their own organization. They’d have to have their own staff and run their own championships but they’d have the basketball tournament and they could have a football tournament. It’s not going to happen for a while but it could happen down the road.
Gomez asked about the Cincinnati-Xavier brawl. “When you get guys talking back and forth, something is going to happen. They didn’t stop it soon enough. There’s only one rule about suspensions- you get one game for the first time you throw a punch, then you lose the rest of the season for the second incident. People say that 6 games isn’t enough- it should be ten games. They don’t realize how long six games is to a kid who loves to play basketball. It’s like when people complain that 6 years isn’t a long enough prison term- it should be ten years. 6 days in prison is a long time. We used to have much bigger fights in the old days before they tightened up. We had fights in four straight games once in the old Big East.” (And Dolph Schayes can tell you about the old NBA.)
Pat called in to say he was enjoying the season so far. JB: “So Far.” Pat said he tapes games “to check on how bad the officiating was.” He asked about the bad three point shooting we have been having. “We shot 3 for 17 vs. Marshall but missed four fast breaks where we should have gotten lay-ups. That would have made it a 16 point game, (14). And they are a very good team. They beat Cincinnati and beat Iona by 20.
A caller said we “go for too many pump fakes.” JB: “We run at the shooter to get him off the three point line. He may get past us but then he’s in where we can block the shot or tip the ball. We can actually benefit from that. We actually practice going after the ball like that and going 4 on 5 defensively as a result.” The caller wondered if Gomez got all that. JB: “Gomez has no idea what we just said.”
Gomez asked if basketball strategies are as complicated as football strategies. “Football is more complicated because you get to stop and regroup after ever play. In basketball it’s constant action and you have to do everything on the run. You don’t have a lot of time to think about it. There are little nuances. A reporter asked John Wooden what adjustments he made for a particular opponent. He said he moved one guy over about two feet.”
Gomez asked if Jim tapes the games and watches them afterwards. “I use the DVR to record them at home. I can’t handle tapes or discs- I can never put them in right. I sometimes listen to what the commentators say. 10-15 years ago I used to take it personally but not now. Nobody ever said I knew what I was doing or that they did, either.” Gomez wondered if it matters who the commentator was- for example Bobby Knight. “Coach Knight comes in to talk about the game with me afterwards. He’s one guy I do listen to. Nobody- nobody - knows more about basketball than he does. But I wouldn’t necessarily do the same thing with my players than he would.” (Oh, to be a fly on the wall to listen to a coach with 903 wins and a coach with 866 wins talk basketball).
Gomez asked what the coach likes to read when he’s traveling. “James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell, Silva- mostly mystery, detective, spy things. I still bring books- I can’t quite graduate to reading devices.”
Gomez asked if the Lakers are still the best team in LA. JB thinks so and suggests they might make some moves of their own. Bynum is one of the 5-6 best centers in the league when healthy. They should keep Lamar Odom if the can. He’s a “tremendous player. When he came an and demanded a trade, they should have brought over the entire Kardasian family to have lunch with him and convince him to stay. He‘s a big piece of the puzzle.”
Gomez noted they’d gotten through almost the whole broadcast without mentioning Tim Tebo. What did the coach think of him? “A winner. He inspires players and is a good guy and a good teammate. I don’t know if he can play quarterback in the NFL long-term. I don’t know enough about football. But he’s one of the few guys you can have run and he hurts the bother guy. Michael Vick is 5-11 185, (actually 6-0 215 but Tebo is 6-2, 236). He doesn’t hurt anybody.”
A caller asked who is “in your focus right now as far as a tough team to beat.” JB: “NC State. You’d better focus on every single team.”
The next show will be Wednesday of next week as there is a game on Thursdays. The remainder of the season the show will be on Thursdays.