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Jim Boeheim’s radio show is on Thursdays from 7-9PM on ESPN Radio in Syracuse, which is AM1200 or FM 97.7 on the dial. The show originates from Delmonico’s Italian Steakhouse on Erie Boulevard in Syracuse. The first hour, hosted by Matt Park, the Voice of the Orange, is on their general network. The second hour, which begins with the Big East season, is hosted by Gomez, a local radio personality.
The first hour is eventually, (it can take weeks) podcasted on the SU Athletics website on this page:
http://suathletics.com/podcasts.aspx
You can call into the show locally at 315-424-8599 or nationally at 1-888-746-2873. For Gomez’s portion, use 315-437-7644. Or you can submit questions from this page:
http://www.suathletics.com/sb_output.aspx?form=4
I will be posting my rough transcript of the first hour the night of the broadcast and will do the second hour the following day.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
First hour:
Coach, we have 9 recruited scholarship players on this team. Two of them are seniors. That means, theoretically we have 7 guys coming back. We have another guy redshirting and 5 guys in next year’s recruiting class. I’ve heard that a member of the 2014 class wants to re-classify to 2013. That’s 7 guys back + 7 guys coming in. I believe the NCAA scholarship limit is 13 and you rarely have more than about 10 recruited scholarship guys on your team. Do you expect to lose more than the two seniors and does what happened to Nerlens Noel make it more likely that players will want to start making money off their talents as soon as they can?
Second hour:
Coach, there was an interesting article in the Post Standard this week about the revolution in basketball statistics and how it is affecting the approaches young coaches, including Buzz Williams and Mike Hopkins, take to the game. How much do you look at statistics in deciding how to prepare for a game and what decisions to make during a game? Has Coach Hopkins tried to sell you on the new numbers people like Ken Pomeroy have come up with?
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject)
With Matt Park:
The place was packed for Valentine’s Day. JB: You can’t even get into the parking lot!” Matt Park apologized: “For Valentine’s Day you got us schmucks and we didn’t bring in any chocolates”.
Matt briefly mentioned the Andy Katz thing. Jim laughed and said “That’s all over and done with”. It wasn’t mentioned again on the show until a caller named Dave in the second hour who congratulated the coach on his “comments to Mr. Katz” and then lauded him for all his success on the court and his charitable activities off of it, which said often get over-looked. JB: When we lose, people definitely overlook what you’ve done. Win and they’ll all like you again.”
Matt suggested that Connecticut had this game “circled on their calendar”. JB: They made their shots from the three point line. That’s all you need to talk about. We broke down on a couple of plays and missed a couple of easy ones. We had a 4 on 1 fast break and they scored. That’s not good. They beat Michigan State, probably the best team in the country and won at Notre Dame, where they’ve only lost 1 game in the last 2-3 years, so they are good.”
John in Syracuse called in. “Tough loss.” He said that Rakeem Christmas didn’t belong in there “if he can’t score against Lowlander”, (Olander) and made a comment about losing to a bunch of YMCA players”. That set JB off. He said Connecticut has four guys on their roster who were op 40 recruits, same as Syracuse. “You’ve got to be realistic. There’s other good teams and players out there. We just didn’t shoot well. Their guards are terrific. They can make shots and space you out defensively… In all honesty, Rakeem has to help us get a few more boards and we’ve got to get him the ball more. We could have gotten 10-12 points from our centers.” John later called back in the second hour and apologized for “pissing you off with that YMCA comment”. Jim said that was OK. “I’m glad you called so I could straighten you out about that”. John said that he appreciates Jim’s efforts because “other than you, there’s nothing else in Syracuse.”
Both he and another fan asked why CJ Fair was on the bench at the end of the game. JB: “CJ was not having a big game: 10 points, 5 rebounds and Jerami had shown a lot of energy. He had 9 rebounds in 21 minutes. We needed James for the three point threat to come from behind. CJ wasn’t rebounding as well as we need him to. We can only play two of those guys at a time. You’re not going to see CJ play 40 minutes with the other two available.”
There was discussion about how the line-up could be changed to utilize CJ, Jerami and James all at once, either with Grant playing center or Southerland guard. JB: I’ve thought about those things a bit, even today. It’s very hard to put a freshman at center when he’s never played there before. Once, in foul trouble we had Ryan Blackwell play center but he was a junior at the time. We’ve tried James at the 2 and gave up two fast breaks because he’s not used to getting back. Our centers are the key to our defense. It’s also easier to do something like that in a man for man than in a zone. If we were 12-12 instead of 20-4 I might consider it but now is not the time for big changes”. (Even if you are down ten with 3:30 to go, coach?)
Matt said that Baye had a “three-four minute stretch where he was a beast”. (Actually he had three offensive rebounds in one possession where we didn’t score and one rebound the rest of the night.) JB: Offensive rebounds are only good if you score.”
I then called in for my first question. I opened by joking that that guy who was featured in an article in the paper who reads Jim’s lips and then posts the results on twitter must be frustrated when he’s on the radio. Matt said he never has any problem understanding what the coach is saying during the game as he can hear him from the broadcast table. I then backed up his point about making shots being a key to the game by saying that I figured out that if we’d shot the percentage that Connecticut did on our two point, three point and one point, (foul) shots and they’d shot the percentage we did, (with the same number of attempts), we’d have won the game 85-42. I said getting points for putting the ball in the basket was probably Naismith’s first idea and also his best one.
Regarding my question about over-recruiting and the Noel injury possibly causing more players to go early, Jim said that the reclassification, (of Chris McCullough whose name he could not mention), “wasn’t happening” so we would have no more than the NCAA limit of 13 scholarship guys next year. “It’s the world today. You have to plan for 2-3 guys going. But you can’t make money if you leave early and don’t get drafted. It’s a two year contract now- the rest is up to the club. They can send you to the D-league for two years but they will have two more first round draft picks in that time. It’s a different world in the NBA. They used to have a four year deal. You need to go to the NBA prepared and get the highest pick you can get. “
About injuries, he said that with modern rehab and weight training, players can come back actually stronger than they were before. He noted Adrian Peterson in the NFL. “Some guys don’t come back as strong often it’s that they didn’t work as hard. We had two players with torn ACLs a couple of eyars ago, Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf. They worked 3-4 hours a day for 8 months to get back and were stronger than ever. Nerlens just came down funny, (yeah, hilarious). You wonder why it doesn’t happen more. “ I think from those comment you know what speech JB gives to guys thinking of going pro.
Matt noted that Minnesota had scored only six points with 9:40 left in the first half vs. Wisconsin. He also recalled the night earlier in the season where Georgetown had 37 points, Tennessee 36 and James Southerland 35. JB: “It’s not easy to score in modern college basketball. The defenses are a little better. With guys going to the pros, (and they are almost always your best offensive guys) there’s less firepower. I can’t remember games where 10 minutes in a team had 6-8 points. The game has changed.”
Later Pat called in and asked if there was tendency for coaches to “over-manage” games and that that might contribute to a lack of scoring. JB: “There might be some truth to that. Defenses are better. There’s less running and fast breaking and more half-court, which reduces scoring. “ Pat suggested it might also be that more teams are playing zone. JB said “there’s a little more zone”.
Matt stated that “of late, the punch has not been there.” JB: “it’s hard to overcome really bad shooting. Defenses contract and get into the paint. It’s hard to score. Defenses are tough today, especially with the amount of physical play they allow.
A caller wanted to reminisce about the old, old days. The first game he ever say was a freshman game in 1967 where the SU frosh took on Niagara with Calvin Murphy, who scored 50 points. He wondered how many more he would have scored that night with a three point line. That got Jim going. He said Calvin would have had about 10-12 three pointers and that he was two feet in the air, (from the floor to the bottom of his shoes), when he released his jump shot. “Two great unbelievable games and we beat them both times. I was helping out with that team”. He noted that Calvin got his scholarship, (I think he meant augmented it), by twirling his baton at halftime of Buffalo Bills games. “He’s the only male baton twirler I ever heard of) .
When I called in my second question, (in the Gomez segment), I recalled those games with Niagara, probably our biggest rival at the time. Our freshmen were undefeated at 16-0 and then went 15-1 the next year. The 1966-67 team had 6-8 Wayne Ward who averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds a game, (actually it was 19.8 and 16.1) and 6-0 Ernie Austin who averaged 30.0 while Murphy averaged 49.8. They really put up some numbers in those days! The next year the freshmen had 6-11 Bill Smith who averaged 21.0/13.6, 6-7 Bob McDaniel averaged 24.8/16.1 and 6-0 Tommy green averaged 14.0, (they didn’t keep track of assists) and shot 81% from the foul line. That would have made a heck of a line-up in the late 60’s but those players were never on the court at the same time. Ward was arrested for a couple of robberies while Austin and McDaniel had academic problems. I expressed my s=frustration that we never got a chance to see what those players could have done together. The problem, Jim said, was that three of those guys were centers. Actually, McDaniel was a forward all the way and Ward could certainly have played power forward next to Smith. The big problem is that somebody had to play defense and none of those guys were ever famous for that. Jim agreed.
A fan said that Michael Carter-Williams sometimes seems frustrated and commits bad fouls. “Are you working on that?” JB: “He’s pretty good about that. He knows what to do. He didn’t foul out until the Connecticut game was basically over. The Villanova game was the one that really hurt us. Unlike a lot of coaches I don’t take guys out after 2 fouls. Our defense can help them stay in the game.”
Dan Docket, when doing the St. John’s game at the Dome had pronounced the Big Ten “The best scouted conference in America”. JB: “What does that mean?” Matt said that Docket was referring to the long tenure of coaches in the Big Ten. JB felt that Big East coaches have been around for a while, too. He did acknowledge that the Big Ten had the best conference this year.
A fan in Washington DC asked what parameters Jim had for his players shot selection. “If James, CJ or Brandon get a good shot, I want them to take it. If you miss 2-3 in a row you don’t have good rhythm and you need to start driving to the basket and only take threes at the end of the shot clock. In hindsight, we could have taken 4-5 fewer threes but you don’t play a game in hindsight. You have to give players freedom. We haven’t shot well from three this year but we haven’t shot well from 2, either. We have one of the lowest figures we’ve ever had, 42%. (Actually we are hitting .505 from two and .449 overall on field goal attempts). The threes we’ve had were good- they went in and out. Brandon didn’t have good rhythm. If it doesn’t go in, it’s not necessarily a bad shot.”
Matt said he liked seeing Trevor Cooney “make a fake and go up for a 17 footer without hesitation”. JB: “He wasn’t quite set on the next two.”
Matt said that James Southerland’s 35 foot attempt was what they call in the NBA a “heat check”: too long and too early in the shot clock JB: “That was too far. But the other shots were ones he’s made before. He made them at Louisville.” (No, he made them at Arkansas.)
Matt said that the three Boatwright made at the end of the half was a big shot. JB: “It was well guarded. All three of the three she made were off-balance, difficult shots.” (Were they?)
Etan Thomas will be honored at a banquet at the Oncenter in “about two weeks”, where he’ll get the Conrad McRae Fund award.
They briefly discussed the upcoming games against Seton Hall, who has had some injuries but are “still a good team” and Providence, who “gave us all we wanted” and has won 3 games in a row.
Jim had a chance to talk to Jim Calhoun before the game. “He gets paid a lot to do nothing. He’d just come from playing golf. He doesn’t have many hobbies. He gets a little antsy. He attends practices and games.” Jim said that he won’t do that when he retires. “I’ll have an office and may do some fund raising. I’ll use the weight room. But I may not even go the games. I’ll be out of here.”
The first hour is eventually, (it can take weeks) podcasted on the SU Athletics website on this page:
http://suathletics.com/podcasts.aspx
You can call into the show locally at 315-424-8599 or nationally at 1-888-746-2873. For Gomez’s portion, use 315-437-7644. Or you can submit questions from this page:
http://www.suathletics.com/sb_output.aspx?form=4
I will be posting my rough transcript of the first hour the night of the broadcast and will do the second hour the following day.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
First hour:
Coach, we have 9 recruited scholarship players on this team. Two of them are seniors. That means, theoretically we have 7 guys coming back. We have another guy redshirting and 5 guys in next year’s recruiting class. I’ve heard that a member of the 2014 class wants to re-classify to 2013. That’s 7 guys back + 7 guys coming in. I believe the NCAA scholarship limit is 13 and you rarely have more than about 10 recruited scholarship guys on your team. Do you expect to lose more than the two seniors and does what happened to Nerlens Noel make it more likely that players will want to start making money off their talents as soon as they can?
Second hour:
Coach, there was an interesting article in the Post Standard this week about the revolution in basketball statistics and how it is affecting the approaches young coaches, including Buzz Williams and Mike Hopkins, take to the game. How much do you look at statistics in deciding how to prepare for a game and what decisions to make during a game? Has Coach Hopkins tried to sell you on the new numbers people like Ken Pomeroy have come up with?
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject)
With Matt Park:
The place was packed for Valentine’s Day. JB: You can’t even get into the parking lot!” Matt Park apologized: “For Valentine’s Day you got us schmucks and we didn’t bring in any chocolates”.
Matt briefly mentioned the Andy Katz thing. Jim laughed and said “That’s all over and done with”. It wasn’t mentioned again on the show until a caller named Dave in the second hour who congratulated the coach on his “comments to Mr. Katz” and then lauded him for all his success on the court and his charitable activities off of it, which said often get over-looked. JB: When we lose, people definitely overlook what you’ve done. Win and they’ll all like you again.”
Matt suggested that Connecticut had this game “circled on their calendar”. JB: They made their shots from the three point line. That’s all you need to talk about. We broke down on a couple of plays and missed a couple of easy ones. We had a 4 on 1 fast break and they scored. That’s not good. They beat Michigan State, probably the best team in the country and won at Notre Dame, where they’ve only lost 1 game in the last 2-3 years, so they are good.”
John in Syracuse called in. “Tough loss.” He said that Rakeem Christmas didn’t belong in there “if he can’t score against Lowlander”, (Olander) and made a comment about losing to a bunch of YMCA players”. That set JB off. He said Connecticut has four guys on their roster who were op 40 recruits, same as Syracuse. “You’ve got to be realistic. There’s other good teams and players out there. We just didn’t shoot well. Their guards are terrific. They can make shots and space you out defensively… In all honesty, Rakeem has to help us get a few more boards and we’ve got to get him the ball more. We could have gotten 10-12 points from our centers.” John later called back in the second hour and apologized for “pissing you off with that YMCA comment”. Jim said that was OK. “I’m glad you called so I could straighten you out about that”. John said that he appreciates Jim’s efforts because “other than you, there’s nothing else in Syracuse.”
Both he and another fan asked why CJ Fair was on the bench at the end of the game. JB: “CJ was not having a big game: 10 points, 5 rebounds and Jerami had shown a lot of energy. He had 9 rebounds in 21 minutes. We needed James for the three point threat to come from behind. CJ wasn’t rebounding as well as we need him to. We can only play two of those guys at a time. You’re not going to see CJ play 40 minutes with the other two available.”
There was discussion about how the line-up could be changed to utilize CJ, Jerami and James all at once, either with Grant playing center or Southerland guard. JB: I’ve thought about those things a bit, even today. It’s very hard to put a freshman at center when he’s never played there before. Once, in foul trouble we had Ryan Blackwell play center but he was a junior at the time. We’ve tried James at the 2 and gave up two fast breaks because he’s not used to getting back. Our centers are the key to our defense. It’s also easier to do something like that in a man for man than in a zone. If we were 12-12 instead of 20-4 I might consider it but now is not the time for big changes”. (Even if you are down ten with 3:30 to go, coach?)
Matt said that Baye had a “three-four minute stretch where he was a beast”. (Actually he had three offensive rebounds in one possession where we didn’t score and one rebound the rest of the night.) JB: Offensive rebounds are only good if you score.”
I then called in for my first question. I opened by joking that that guy who was featured in an article in the paper who reads Jim’s lips and then posts the results on twitter must be frustrated when he’s on the radio. Matt said he never has any problem understanding what the coach is saying during the game as he can hear him from the broadcast table. I then backed up his point about making shots being a key to the game by saying that I figured out that if we’d shot the percentage that Connecticut did on our two point, three point and one point, (foul) shots and they’d shot the percentage we did, (with the same number of attempts), we’d have won the game 85-42. I said getting points for putting the ball in the basket was probably Naismith’s first idea and also his best one.
Regarding my question about over-recruiting and the Noel injury possibly causing more players to go early, Jim said that the reclassification, (of Chris McCullough whose name he could not mention), “wasn’t happening” so we would have no more than the NCAA limit of 13 scholarship guys next year. “It’s the world today. You have to plan for 2-3 guys going. But you can’t make money if you leave early and don’t get drafted. It’s a two year contract now- the rest is up to the club. They can send you to the D-league for two years but they will have two more first round draft picks in that time. It’s a different world in the NBA. They used to have a four year deal. You need to go to the NBA prepared and get the highest pick you can get. “
About injuries, he said that with modern rehab and weight training, players can come back actually stronger than they were before. He noted Adrian Peterson in the NFL. “Some guys don’t come back as strong often it’s that they didn’t work as hard. We had two players with torn ACLs a couple of eyars ago, Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf. They worked 3-4 hours a day for 8 months to get back and were stronger than ever. Nerlens just came down funny, (yeah, hilarious). You wonder why it doesn’t happen more. “ I think from those comment you know what speech JB gives to guys thinking of going pro.
Matt noted that Minnesota had scored only six points with 9:40 left in the first half vs. Wisconsin. He also recalled the night earlier in the season where Georgetown had 37 points, Tennessee 36 and James Southerland 35. JB: “It’s not easy to score in modern college basketball. The defenses are a little better. With guys going to the pros, (and they are almost always your best offensive guys) there’s less firepower. I can’t remember games where 10 minutes in a team had 6-8 points. The game has changed.”
Later Pat called in and asked if there was tendency for coaches to “over-manage” games and that that might contribute to a lack of scoring. JB: “There might be some truth to that. Defenses are better. There’s less running and fast breaking and more half-court, which reduces scoring. “ Pat suggested it might also be that more teams are playing zone. JB said “there’s a little more zone”.
Matt stated that “of late, the punch has not been there.” JB: “it’s hard to overcome really bad shooting. Defenses contract and get into the paint. It’s hard to score. Defenses are tough today, especially with the amount of physical play they allow.
A caller wanted to reminisce about the old, old days. The first game he ever say was a freshman game in 1967 where the SU frosh took on Niagara with Calvin Murphy, who scored 50 points. He wondered how many more he would have scored that night with a three point line. That got Jim going. He said Calvin would have had about 10-12 three pointers and that he was two feet in the air, (from the floor to the bottom of his shoes), when he released his jump shot. “Two great unbelievable games and we beat them both times. I was helping out with that team”. He noted that Calvin got his scholarship, (I think he meant augmented it), by twirling his baton at halftime of Buffalo Bills games. “He’s the only male baton twirler I ever heard of) .
When I called in my second question, (in the Gomez segment), I recalled those games with Niagara, probably our biggest rival at the time. Our freshmen were undefeated at 16-0 and then went 15-1 the next year. The 1966-67 team had 6-8 Wayne Ward who averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds a game, (actually it was 19.8 and 16.1) and 6-0 Ernie Austin who averaged 30.0 while Murphy averaged 49.8. They really put up some numbers in those days! The next year the freshmen had 6-11 Bill Smith who averaged 21.0/13.6, 6-7 Bob McDaniel averaged 24.8/16.1 and 6-0 Tommy green averaged 14.0, (they didn’t keep track of assists) and shot 81% from the foul line. That would have made a heck of a line-up in the late 60’s but those players were never on the court at the same time. Ward was arrested for a couple of robberies while Austin and McDaniel had academic problems. I expressed my s=frustration that we never got a chance to see what those players could have done together. The problem, Jim said, was that three of those guys were centers. Actually, McDaniel was a forward all the way and Ward could certainly have played power forward next to Smith. The big problem is that somebody had to play defense and none of those guys were ever famous for that. Jim agreed.
A fan said that Michael Carter-Williams sometimes seems frustrated and commits bad fouls. “Are you working on that?” JB: “He’s pretty good about that. He knows what to do. He didn’t foul out until the Connecticut game was basically over. The Villanova game was the one that really hurt us. Unlike a lot of coaches I don’t take guys out after 2 fouls. Our defense can help them stay in the game.”
Dan Docket, when doing the St. John’s game at the Dome had pronounced the Big Ten “The best scouted conference in America”. JB: “What does that mean?” Matt said that Docket was referring to the long tenure of coaches in the Big Ten. JB felt that Big East coaches have been around for a while, too. He did acknowledge that the Big Ten had the best conference this year.
A fan in Washington DC asked what parameters Jim had for his players shot selection. “If James, CJ or Brandon get a good shot, I want them to take it. If you miss 2-3 in a row you don’t have good rhythm and you need to start driving to the basket and only take threes at the end of the shot clock. In hindsight, we could have taken 4-5 fewer threes but you don’t play a game in hindsight. You have to give players freedom. We haven’t shot well from three this year but we haven’t shot well from 2, either. We have one of the lowest figures we’ve ever had, 42%. (Actually we are hitting .505 from two and .449 overall on field goal attempts). The threes we’ve had were good- they went in and out. Brandon didn’t have good rhythm. If it doesn’t go in, it’s not necessarily a bad shot.”
Matt said he liked seeing Trevor Cooney “make a fake and go up for a 17 footer without hesitation”. JB: “He wasn’t quite set on the next two.”
Matt said that James Southerland’s 35 foot attempt was what they call in the NBA a “heat check”: too long and too early in the shot clock JB: “That was too far. But the other shots were ones he’s made before. He made them at Louisville.” (No, he made them at Arkansas.)
Matt said that the three Boatwright made at the end of the half was a big shot. JB: “It was well guarded. All three of the three she made were off-balance, difficult shots.” (Were they?)
Etan Thomas will be honored at a banquet at the Oncenter in “about two weeks”, where he’ll get the Conrad McRae Fund award.
They briefly discussed the upcoming games against Seton Hall, who has had some injuries but are “still a good team” and Providence, who “gave us all we wanted” and has won 3 games in a row.
Jim had a chance to talk to Jim Calhoun before the game. “He gets paid a lot to do nothing. He’d just come from playing golf. He doesn’t have many hobbies. He gets a little antsy. He attends practices and games.” Jim said that he won’t do that when he retires. “I’ll have an office and may do some fund raising. I’ll use the weight room. But I may not even go the games. I’ll be out of here.”
