Matt Park started the show because Jim Boeheim was “still arriving”. He pointed out that the Bucknell game was a good win- they’d won the Patriot League last year and gone to the NCAAs and with four starters back, they were favored to do the same thing this year. Tulane won their first 9 games before losing and haven’t played since 12/11.
JB settled in and said we were really fortunate that Bucknell was missing it’s shots in the first half or it could have been a 6-8 point game at halftime: “We had a twenty point lead before they found the range. They missed two not very contested lay-ups and then two lay-ups that were contested. They missed 4 wide open jump shots and this is a team that makes 40% from outside. We ran the offense well and hit a few threes.”
Coach said it’s a good thing we’ve got ten guys who can play because somebody’s always going to be playing well even if others are playing poorly. “Brandon hand hurts- he has issues gripping the ball. CJ has been steady. Baye had a rare bad game when he wasn’t sharp. Even Fab didn’t play good defense. KJ and Scoop were very solid. We have ten guys who can play and not all are going to be “on” in the same game.”
Matt asked if the coach had made a decision to get Rakeem Christmas and Michael Carter-Williams some extra playing time so they could get good numbers and more confidence and ‘feel that they were a part of it.”. JB: “Rakeem did it himself when he made his first 3-4 shots. It was a good game for Michael to learn. Everybody wants to play. What they have to understand is that they aren‘t playing behind freshmen or bad players.”
Texas was playing North Carolina on TV and Rick Barnes had his arm in a sling. JB didn’t know why so Matt looked it up on “Google“: he had shoulder surgery. JB: “Roy Williams, who coached with his arm in a sling a couple of years back, told him ‘You can coach with your arm in a sling but not play golf‘, so Roy advised him to get the operation in season.”
I called in and congratulated the Coach on “winning the battle of the CJ’s” in North Carolina. I said that we were outnumbered in that battle but fortunately our players not named CJ were better than theirs. I also noted that Matt Park had punctuated every good play by Rakeem Christmas by saying “Ho Ho Ho” or ”Rum Tum Tum” and since Rakeem appears to be getting better, one shudders at what the future might bring from Matt. I advised Coach not to recruit any more players with Christmasy names. (I thought I heard him grunt in the background).
I asked my question about Fab drawing charges and how that differed from previous SU centers. JB: “The best defensive play you can make is to draw a charge. It keeps them from driving- gives them something to think about. That guys gets a foul and we get the ball. We’ve always wanted out center to draw a charge but not all of them can do it. They can get a block if they come in from the side. A charge is a huge play-it can change the course of the game.” (I just hope we keep getting the calls.)
Matt noted that North Carolina State had just barely beaten St. Bonaventure last night and CJ Williams had gotten only 4 points. CJ Leslie had 12 and 7 rebounds. Scott Wood scored 20 points. JB: “We gave him, (Williams), open looks. Sometimes we give people points they would not get vs. a man to man. We expected him to make some shots but he made everything. We extended ourselves to cover Wood and we held him in check. He’s one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen.”
Another Steve called and asked a generic question about how we would do in the Big East and got a generic answer. “We are playing well right now but must continue to improve. The Big East always has some good match-ups. The top teams are as good as last year and the middle teams are still good. There might be a couple teams on the bottom that aren’t good.”
They discussed Louisville’s close win over College of Charleston. JB said he felt Louisville had been outplayed but they got a couple of steals at the end to win it, much as we had done vs. Stanford. They noticed that Davidson beat Kansas in a tournament in Kansas City, something only three teams have been able to do, (we are one of them).
Tulane is 11-1 and Seton Hall is 9-1 and receiving votes in the national rankings, so we‘ve got some tough games coming up. The Pirates were leading Dayton 30-27 and Herb pope is the conference’s leading scorer and rebounded. Jim: “Tulane has just about everybody back from last year. They had a tough year. Players can learn a lot in a tough year, (13-17 last year). They know how to play. They are good with the ball and play good defense.
Matt noted that Roy Danforth departed Syracuse for Tulane. He asked JB for the back-story behind that. “They were going into the Superdome and wanted to go big-time. His wife was from the south. It was not a great move for him but it was for me.” Jim said he still doesn’t like being in big buildings. “In a Dome you can have 16,000 and there isn’t much noise. It’s not as noisy and it never will be except for big games.” (His biography indicated he almost came to blows with an assistant AD back in 1980 on the same issue. But see below re: the economics of the thing.)
Jim said that there was a female student about 5 feet behind the SU bench in Raleigh who would scream at the top of her lungs during every time out. Matt said Lazarus Sims told him that he heard that woman in his sleep that night. Jim said “I wouldn’t be surprised if a coach took a swing at that girl. Having students behind the bench is crazy. We don’t allow it in our conference and it’s going to be the first suggestion I’ll make when we join the conference. And it will be the first suggestion that will be turned down. (With a terrible southern accent) ’Sorry, coach but we all don’t do it that way down here.’” Matt noted that a friend of JB’s who hosted them for dinner said “What you need is a 16,000 Field House.” JB: “He wasn’t an economics major.”
Chris in Watertown asked if we will see more of the man-to-man defense as the season progresses. JB: “Man-to-Man hasn’t been a great defense for us. It’s very hard to learn two defenses. Most teams just play one. Most play man to man and got to the zone to force outside shots. They tend to just stand around in a circle. It’s hard to switch from a zone to man for man.”
A caller named Wayne wanted the curtain back to increase the noise level in the Dome. No, he wasn’t “Blue Curtain”. He wanted an Orange Curtain. Jim said that he didn’t believe a curtain would increase noise. Matt said the curtain had been removed so fans could see the video board on the other side of the Dome.
Fred in Albany wanted to know if we’ll have a rotation of 7-8 players in Big East games or will we stay at ten? JB?: “8 guys is a lot. Most any team I know plays 8- maybe a couple other guys get in there for a minute or two. We’ll just have to see how the game goes and play the guys who are playing the best. Some guys start slow and then get 14-15 points in the second half. I might replace James with CJ and CJ will play fine but James might have hit 3-4 threes. We don’t know. You don’t have hind sight. You aren’t always sure…you aren’t always sure.”
Matt: “Ten guys doesn’t exactly make us upset-proof but…” JB: No you’re not.” Matt suggested that having more players who can contribute makes it less likely that we’ll have a bad game. JB: “It’s a good theory but that doesn’t make it true. You’ll develop more consistency with 8 guys, especially if you’ve got a guard and a forward who can play two spots.”
“If you win everything’s OK. If you lose people look for reasons. Some people have it in their gene pool to hate scoop. One guy said we should be playing James Southerland all the time because he’s our best player. You are never going to make that guy happy. The best advice I ever got was from my high school guidance councilor. He said ‘Jim, you can’t make everybody happy.’ Of course some would go beyond that and say that I can’t make very many people happy.” (Gomez, waiting to take over, laughed in the background.)
Matt noted that Derrick Rose “would be picking up a lot of checks” with his new contract. JB said that he deserves it. “He is the lithest athlete I’ve ever seen. If he became a good jump shooter, no one could guard him. He works harder than anybody. Stars are worth the money. They sell the tickets. They make the team. They should make $25-30 million. It’s the guy who makes $8 million who can’t play who makes you broke.”
Jeff in San Francisco, (yes, San Francisco), asked how JB will find a place for Coleman and Grant next year, (he said Blair and Cooney at first but correct himself-of course we’ll have to find a place for Cooney as well). JB: “We know that KJ and Scoop will be gone. My gut tells me that we might lose 1-2 other guys. I actually thought Scoop would be gone this year- that’s why we got Cooney. But Scoop came back and we are glad to have him. You have to be realistic My best feeling is that it might be Waiters, Fab or Christmas, if they play well in the tournament. You have to be prepared in case guys leave.”
Gomez took over for the second hour. He asked what was the longest run we’ve had as the nation’s #1 team. JB said he had no idea. “It’s a good accomplishment and something to be proud of.” Matt Googled it and it was 10 games in 1989-90. Jim marveled at Google. “Every time somebody looks up something on there they find it. I don’t know much about that stuff. I don’t even know how to turn it on. I know it‘s good and I wish I could learn nit. I‘m really bad when I start things and I don‘t have the time now.” Gomez suggested he might like a “Nook“ since he likes to read novels. Matt noted that there are about 20 nooks on every team plane flight. JB will stick with his old fashioned books.
Gomez noted that Mart Gottfried had said of SU that we were “Good on tape, better in person.” When did the coach last have that reaction to a team? It wasn’t that long ago. “Both Virginia Tech and Stanford were better than we had thought.” He went on to go back over the NC State game. “Our defense wasn’t what it can be but we shot the ball as well as we have all year. You get surprised. NC State played better on offense- if we’d played normal on offense we’d have lost that game. Florida played a little worse than we had expected.”
They talked about the Bucknell game. At the end of the half, “we got greedy. We had a couple of fouls to give but we wanted another possession. We let them get a three. We forced turnovers but they were inside turnovers and didn’t get lay-ups off of them. We won’t get very many lay-ups off the good teams. And they will mostly be off of rebounds.
They discussed what players on the roster the NBA might be interested in. “Pro scouts tell me that we have no top ten draft choices. There’s no Carmelo Anthony out there. The most highly rated players are the two freshmen and Fab Melo. Players will merge during the season but we don’t have any great players.”
I quickly called in again to ask what the scouts had said about Dion Waiters: are they more interested in the freshmen than him? JB didn’t specifically address Dion. “The pro guys were here the first couple of days of practice. They were from 5-6 different teams. They noticed Fab’s movement, Dion’s better conditioning and what he can do. They weren’t raving about anyone. It’s a big year for the draft. A lot of players stayed in school. There was not one guy where he made them say ’I want that guy!’”
He talked about how few freshman are able to make an immediate impact. “We had four other guards when Gerry came here and weren’t sure he’d play right away. Carmelo grew bigger and stronger in a hurray. We thought Fab would do last year what he’s doing this year.”
Gomez quoted Jay Bilas who said that we “needed more ball movement and better execution in the backcourt. He said we aren’t getting to the foul line enough” JB: Jay’s good but he doesn’t know everything. We have taken 180 more free throws than our opponents. (Actually 50 more: it was 119 last year.) We’re #1 in the country in turnovers. Hubert Davis said that we were relying too much on three pointers. Back when he was playing for Coach Smith, if the coach had told him not take those same shots, he wouldn’t have been very happy.” (It’s interesting he knows what Hubert Davis said during the game, that some people criticize Scoop all the time and that some people suggested that we weren’t a good offensive team, which he said in the Bucknell presser.)
Gomez began asking about Brandon Triche. JB was trying to order his dinner and wondered why Gomez couldn’t fill the space. Gomez asked if he should repeat the question. JB: “You repeat the question and I’ll see if it’s a good one.” The question was about Brandon’s confidence and aggression, which had been an issue in previous years. JB said that Brandon has shown confidence and been more aggressive this year. His thumb has affected his game. “He and Dion are good players but Kris Joseph is the key- we can weather a storm in other areas but we need Kris to be good.”
Gomez looked at Rick Barnes on the TV and commented that he looked like author John Gresham. Jim said that he was once in a restaurant in New York, waiting for a table. He turned around and Gresham was there. He said “Rick…” Gresham said “No, coach…” Gresham is a big basketball fan and knew who JB was and that he looked like Rick Barnes.
A caller suggested that last year’s team had gotten off to a good start, just like this one but had “run out of gas”. JB took exception to that, saying that we’d played well at the end of the year, winning several games in a row before losing to Connecticut in overtime. (Matt Googled it: it was 6.) Then we beat Indiana State. “We didn’t play well against Marquette but they’d already beaten us during the season but they did it again. We made a couple of bad plays and there was a bad call.” JB recalled what when GMAC had his run in New York, “there was not a lot of energy left for the tourney” but that was not the problem last year.
Gomez complimented Kris and Scoop for “saying the right things” in post game interviews. JB said that he never tells his players what to say, “except to stay positive and not say anything negative about other players or teams- or me.”
Gomez wanted to know why Marquette was rated “far below us” since they beat us twice last year and were undefeated. JB: “They are rated 10th- not ‘far below us’. They are as good or better than last year. They will be a handful.” Gomez also noted that Georgetown was “getting less ink than any other top 20 team.” (How much ink does anyone get in the age of Google?).
Gomez noted that Rick Pitino had moved Kyle Couric to the middle of the court on the advise of his assistant. Does JB ever take the advise of assistants during games- or does he stick with the game plan? JB: “I don’t have a plan. I go by how games develop. An assistant might say this guy is tired or James could help us here. Then I process it. You have to coach it by yourself.”
They talked about Baylor, a nationally ranked team, playing “Paul Quinn”, an NAIA school with an enrollment of 195 male students. “It’s like football. You can play one non-division one team. It’s not an exhibition.”
They talked about the St. Joseph’s situation. “If you graduate and have a year of eligibility left, you can transfer to another school and play immediately. But you need to be released by your current school. I don’t know why Phil Martelli won’t release him. I’ll have to ask him when I see him. It’s more common in football. That’s how Wisconsin got their quarterback.” Gomez noted Greg Paulus used the same rule to switch sports and play quarterback for SU.
They discussed the Ohio State situation. “Every case is a little different. Ohio State did the best they can do. I knew Jim Tressel and respected him and admired him but he just didn’t report it right away.”
Gomez noted that Georgia coach Mark Richt had paid his assistants some bonuses from his won salary only to find out that was illegal. JB didn’t know that rule either. “Boosters can’t pay assistants. I’ve paid my assistants salaries for working at my camp or for my corporation for years. So have other coaches. There’s nothing illegal about that.”
Regarding Todd Graham: “Coaches get fired all the time after a year or two. Nobody complains about that. If a better job because available, anybody would move to the better job. But you need to stay and tell your players.”
Kobe Bryant will be out for a few weeks. “They gave up Odom- a tremendous loss. They didn’t get Chris Paul. Bynum is injury prone. And now, without Kobe, they are really in trouble.”
A caller asked for comments on Pat Summitt. “I saw one of their games and during timeouts, her assistants did all the talking. It’s very sad. This will probably be her last year. If healthy, she could have coached another ten years and won 1500 games. Any list of the greatest coaches- men or women- has to include her.”
Gomez brought up a deal the New York Mets are offering: for $20 million you get 4% ownership, a luxury box, free parking, a “discount on food”, you can throw out the first ball and Mr. Met will entertain at parties. JB: “$20 million doesn’t buy what it used to.”
Aaron Rodgers is going to get the male athlete of the year award. JB met him at the ESBYs in 2004. “A really nice guy. Very positive, very down to earth. Great players work hard to get a chance. Today guys want it to be given to them right away.”
