Matt Park summarized some stats about SU’s success: We’ve had a 12-0 run or better in 5 straight games and a 7-0 run in every game this season. Coach extended his record of 20 win seasons and matched Adolph Rupp’s victory total.
Coach said “not too many teams in our league go to 20-0. It’s very difficult. We’ve had a great run but we need to get a lot better.”
Matt suggested it was important to the veterans on the team to beat Pitt as they’d never done. Pitt had won the last 5 games and 8 of 9. JB: “I don’t delve into that. We’ve done that to other teams, too. Those things happen. Sometimes you just miss some shots or sometimes the other team is better. All the games count the same, (in the conference). You don’t like to lose to anybody. But you can’t dwell on it. You’ve got to prepare for the next game.”
Brian in Tampa asked about the rebounding, which we lost to Pitt 28-40. He wanted to know how to improve it. Instead, JB launched his usual defense on this point: “We were even on the boards until the last game and now we’re down by one per game, which isn’t that much. We can accept that if we are getting turnovers and blocked shots. A lot of our blocks come after they’ve gotten an offensive rebound so the rebound really doesn’t count. A lot of their rebounds are just volleying under the basket. We were down only 9-15 in second chance points. We are leading the league in so many other things- field goal percentage on both offense and defense, turnover margin, etc.- those things overwhelm rebounding. The stats balance out way to our advantage. It would be more of a concern if we weren’t getting blocks or steals. We had one of our worst rebounding games vs. Pitt but we scored three lay-ups right off the bat because they had committed themselves to the boards.”
I called in and first congratulated the coach on catching Adolph Rupp and the likelihood of catching Dean Smith shortly. I pointed out both those coaches had been coached by Phog Allen at Kansas and that Allen’s coach had been Dr. James Naismith, who invented the game. (Naismith is the only Kansas coach with a losing record).
I told the coach that I’d been watching and reading too much of the basketball ’experts’ and that some of the things they said bordered on the comical: Stephen Bardo said that if SU played Kentucky, the Wildcats would win “because they play so hard”. Hubert Davis said we need an “offensive dude”. It made me wonder if Jeff Bridges can make a jump shot. That got a laugh.
Then I asked my question about what Doug Gottlieb and Chris Vannini had said. Coach warmed to the topic, saying that we play pretty hard. He agreed that the November and December schedule has an impact on how you play in January but not on how you play in March: the conference schedule prepares you for that. “But one year we had probably our toughest pre-season schedule and lost four of our first five league games.” (I suspect he’s talking about 1988-89 when we beat Indiana and Missouri in the first preseason NIT.) “You get tested more than enough in the league. Tom Izzo is a good coach and he has good players and that’s why he’s been so many Final Fours. Dean Smith played only average non-conference schedules and went to 11 Final Fours. Georgetown won a national championship and early won a couple of others and they had a weak non-conference schedule. Our schedule is rated pretty high. You’ve got to play tough opponents but it’s not an advantage to play 1-2 more tough teams than we do. It’s like saying that if you play five tough golf course, that will make you a better golfer. You can have ten tough games in a row and then lose a close one in the eleventh game. Louie Carnesecca was a great coach but one year his team was 0-8 in close games. The next year he was 8-0.”
They discussed criticisms the team gets. One of the prominent ones is about not being a good half court offensive team. “Half court offense is very different from what most people think. Good half court offense is getting a good shot on 0 or 1 or 2 passes. People have the false perception that it’s about making 10-15 passes. Princeton didn’t have a lot of talent so they used back-door cuts. Why would we run a lot of cuts for Dion Waiters? You want to shoot a good percentage and avoid turnovers. We get about 10-12 fast break points a game. The rest are in our half curt offense. We’re getting the shots we want. It puts more pressure on the defense to get a good shot in 1-2 passes. One dribble with Scoop and Fab’s man will cheat toward him. The result is an alley-oop. A lot of teams pass the ball around and all they wind up with an 18 foot jump shot.”
Dan in Tampa asked how the coach keeps the team focused with a 20-0 record. He said they need to realize that the team will be remembered based on what happens in late March. JB: “They realize that every game is important and they want to win every one. They’ve focused for 20 straight games. They’ve made key shots when we needed them - especially against Stanford and Pittsburgh - and that’s why they’re still going. It’s not hard to keep players ready to play. That doesn’t always mean that they will play well, but they are ready.”
Dave called in and praised the coach’s ability to net successful scoring plays out of time outs, especially the Waiters to Joseph for the three play vs. Pitt when they’d cut it to 4. “Trust me, some times it doesn’t work out. The way we draw it up. They were in the zone and we weren’t able to get it inside. We had Dion penetrate and pass back to Kris. Then Scoop penetrated and got it to Dion. Any one of those guys could make a three.”
They alerted fans to the ESPN Infiniti Coach’s challenge and hoped everyone would register and vote for Jim so the Jim and Julie Boeheim foundation could get the prize of $100,000 from Infiniti. Orangeye has a post about it with a link. JB still trails John Calipari last I checked.
Jim in Phoenix asked for the coach’s “personal take” on having such a deep bench. “It’s not frustrating. Normally a guard like Scoop would play 35 minutes. Don Waiters would play 32-34 minutes. Kris Joseph would play 35 minutes. They have more energy but it’s unusual to limit guys like that. Normally we like to play 7-8 guys. They all would like to play more if they could voice their sentiments about it. It could help to have so much depth in the Big East Tournament where you have consecutive games. It can help when you have Saturday-Monday games. But it would mean more if we didn’t have TV time-outs. Players have plenty of opportunity to catch their breath and get their second win now.”
Steve in Liverpool asked about the pressure the team must feel. “The pressure comes off when you play well. It’s when you lose that the pressure mounts. But this team will be fine. The shooting varies but we play pretty consistently. There are no easy game sin this league. Notre Dame has lost one home game in two years. The fight helped Cincinnati unbelievably well. They’ve been playing great since them. Before that they were something like 8-4 and had lost to Presbyterian. They lost to Marshall. They are 10-1 since.”
Another caller re-asked the question about whether the player rotation is based on a set plan or a “gut feeling”, (it was answered last week). “With 7 guys it’s easy- you just have to sub a couple of players. With 10 guys you need more structure. We sub for Fab first because he’s a big guy and gets in foul trouble. The Dion comes in, then CJ. As the game unfolds you’ll see James and Michael unless we need the veteran guards in.” Matt asked who would produce the biggest drop off if we had to do without them due to foul trouble or injury. “Fab’s presence is monumental. Scoop is a better playmaker than Dion or Brandon.” (Imagine saying that Fab’s presence is ’monumental’ last season?) “If you rely on two guys like Seton Hall with Pope and Theodore and they both have off nights, you’re done.”
Matt brought up the controversy over the gray uniforms, saying that the fans were “aghast” over the idea. JB: “They shouldn’t be aghast since they don’t know what they look like. Nike likes to change things up. They don’t go through me. They got through the administration. Gray and orange might not be too bad. If all we are concerned about is the new uniforms, we’re in pretty good shape.”
Gomez took over and another discussion about food commenced. They were still talking about this show where gourmet food is cooked at various diners. Gomez had traced one down to a place a few miles from South bend. JB said he couldn’t get there because they don’t have individual transportation. But there’s another in Cincinnati at “Terry’s Turf Club”. That interested JB. Gomez said he’s already “called ahead” on behalf of the coach. They even pulled up an on-line menu and discussed it. JB knew how to pronounce everything so I guess he’s an aficionado. (Why isn’t he fat?) He said he’d been to a five star restaurant in Cincinnati once, the only one they have, (I checked- it must be Club Mediterranean). Gomez invited fans to call in and ask about basketball- or food. “Food works” said JB.
A caller asked about Fab’s aggressive move to the hoop in the first half. JB said it “could be a good play if a defender is out of position. It was a close call. But when you go from 15 feet against a good defense you’re going to draw a charge. You want your center to avoid fouls on the offensive end because he’s going to draw them playing defense.”
Matt asked about Dion’s thumb: was it still hurting or was the wrap a “fashion statement”? Jim said the thumb still hurts “when he misses” but that the big problem in the last game was that he was congested. “I told him that I had one of my best games when I was congested. I don’t know if it was true or not but he had a big game.”
A caller noted that Jay Bilas complained about the rule that a team can inbound the ball and then get it at midcourt. JB: “Jay’s a friend of mine but I am ambivalent about it- it doesn’t come up very often.” Another asked about the bench technical- Pitt had had the ball- why didn’t we get it after the fouls shots? “They changed that rule a couple of years ago. Now you just get the two foul shots. I think it’s fair.” The caller asked if it’s considered a turnover when the team with the ball gets tied up and the possession arrow goes the other way. JB said that counts as a turnover. “That may not be right but it makes sense.”
A caller wanted to know how Pitt closed the lead to 3 after the 13-0 opening run. “Going to the end of that game we were something like 3 for 16 from three. Then Kris and Dion made those shots. If we’d shot the ball well, we could have broken the game open a couple of times. Johnson made three really tough threes- one from nearly half court.”
A caller wanted to know which teams Coach would be concerned about playing due to match-ups. “Notre Dame and Cincinnati. (Laughs) There’s nobody we’re playing that wouldn’t be a tough game. We wanted to get off to a good start because we knew the schedule was back-ended.” He said that Notre Dame was “not quite as good a shooting team as they normally are. But they have been better than expected and they’ll be tough at home.”
Gomez told a story that Mike Brey, searching for something to say that would get his player’s attention, finally said “You guys looked good out there.” His players were so unused to praise they all perked up. Jim said that he’d had two or three occasion when he didn’t have much to say to a team at halftime so he simply told them “You guys know all the answers. You’re not listening to me.” He then walked out. “I think we won all those games. If we‘re not winning and we should be, the smart players know what they are doing wrong. Sometimes you‘ve got to tell some players when they‘ve made a mistake.”
The subject of games films came up. They used to go to games to scout teams but these days everyone has to give everybody else tapes of their games- it’s a rule. They usually tape some games on their own. They have about 7-8 tapes of each opponents games.
Rick Pitino announced that he doesn’t plan coaching past 2017. “That’s along ways away. He told me he’d never coach past 50. Then 55. He must be 60 by now. I think he’ll be coaching after that. I’m just trying to get past the next game.” (Rick will be 60 on 9/18).
Coach was asked whether Villanova and Pittsburgh have a chance to make the NCAA tournament this year. Jim thinks that Nova will have a hard time but that Pitt, with 11 wins, could get possibly 9 more and “knocking on the door.”
Gomez said that he’d read that this was JB’s best coaching job and that eh should get coach of the year. “It was on the internet, so it must be true.” JB: “I can’t comment on that. One loss and they’ll say I’m over the hill, just like they said 3-4 weeks ago. Everybody thinks they could do your job better than you can do it. They are very smart people who didn’t play much basketball but they think they can do your job. I’ve watched plenty of doctor shows but I don’t want to operate on anybody. If you think can do somebody’s job you are crazy. Things look easy but they aren’t.” Interesting that JB responded to a positive compliment with such negative thoughts.
He went on to suggest other possible candidates for coach of the year: Steve Fisher at San Diego State, who lost several players but they are still good, Nick Cronin, Ed Cooley, who would have won 20 games if he hadn’t lost best player, “The Dukes guys” Tommy Amaker at Harvard and Johnny Dawkins at Stanford, John Beilein and Bob Huggins. Then he thought of Bill Self, who has won the Big 12 seven times in a row and could make it 8, “despite losing 2-3 great players“.
CJ in Syracuse, (no not that CJ), wanted to know if Jim had ever entertained any NBA offers and if he would ever write his memoirs. Jim said he’d thought about a book, and made reference to Scott Pitoniak’s book “a good chronicle”. But that’s not the type of book he would write. He’s write a book “about the inner workings of what goes on. But I can’t write it and coach because some of it might be too harsh. There would also be humorous anecdotes. I may do that and I may not. To get an NBA job you have to really go after it. After the first few times I really didn’t want to do the interviews because it disrupts recruiting. I’m comfortable here. I did do an interview once here in Syracuse. Every college coach who coached in the pros liked the pros better. You just coach basketball- nothing else. But college coaches tend to get jobs with bad organizations and it’s hard to out-coach other coaches 3-4 times a week. They usually only last a year or two. It‘s not about the money. College coaches used to make more than NBA coaches. Then NBA coaches made more. Now college guys make more. It‘s not that big a difference.”
“Coaching the Olympic team really got me interested in the pros, watching those players play. The Olympics is fun. But it’s way too late for me now, (to think about the NBA). 20 guys have been nominated for this year’s team. For the first time ever, they have all said they want to play. We have to get the roster down to 12. That will involve a lot of difficult decisions.”
I called in my second question about Fab Melo and the NBA. He admonished me that the 40% future was “just an estimate”. I told him I understood it could actually be 41 or maybe 39%. That got a laugh. “Bud doesn’t follow the NBA. He doesn’t know that they don’t practice in the NBA. They have shoot-arounds and games. If they did practice that would be a great place for Fab to learn his trade. But if he was on the Knicks behind Tyson Chandler, he’s not going to go against Chandler when Chandler played 40 minutes the night before. In college we practice five times a week. You get the basic fundamentals, which Fab really needs. He will develop more in college. You are right that the more skills you have the easier the transition to the NBA will be. Derek Coleman played four years here and he became and instant star in the NBA. Dante Green stayed one year and is playing very little with a bad team. Players like Kobe or LeBron can play right away. Every case is a little different. Many players who went to early are out of basketball or in Europe when they might have been able to play in the NBA. If Etan Thomas had left early, he’s have been out of the NBA in 1-2 years.
Steve in Utica, (we are all over the place), said that James Southerland “had a great stroke” but said that he was a stand still shooter and wondered if he could learn to dribble-drive. “He works on it but still ahs a lot of work to do. He’s worked hard on his defense but needs more work on his rebounding. We like to have him out there because he can shoot. Sometimes great shooters can’t put the ball on the floor and sometimes guys who can put the ball on the floor can’t shot.”
Gomez mentioned that Jim Tressel was rumored to be up for the Indianapolis Colts job, (his players could get as many taboos as they wanted). Jim said that he got to know Tressel when he was here and he he’s a great coach and a good guy. Nick Saban was on the same staff- a pretty good staff.” (They weren't on the same staff- Nick was on Frank Maloney's 1977 staff and Jim was on Coach Mac's staff in 1981-82.)
The Heat-Lakers game was starting. Lebron James was reported to not be feeling well. “Sometimes sick guys get 40.” Gomez talked about an incident in which Big Baby Davis dropped his pants to protest a call. (With that nickname?) “It was an unusual protest. Take that!” (Somewhere Ashton Broyld is smiling). Another rumor has Blake Griffin being traded for Dwight Howard- would JB make that trade? He thought about it for a while. “A close call. The best low post guy by a lot for a great young player. I just don’t know.”
Gomez closed by asking about Notre Dame. JB: “Notre Dame is very good at home- much better than people thought. And it will be a very tough game in Cincinnati.”
