SWC75
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Jim Boeheim’s radio show is on Thursdays from 7-8 or 9PM on ESPN Radio in Syracuse, which is AM1200 or FM 97.7 on the dial. The show originates from Shaughnessy’s at the Marriott in Downtown 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 conference season, is hosted by Gomez, a local radio personality.
You can call into the show locally at 315-424-8599 or nationally at 1-888-746-2873. For Gomez’s portion, use 315-424-8599. Or you can submit questions from this page:
Syracuse University Athletics
Or on Twitter at mattpark1 or “askBoeheim”.
The show can be heard in Syracuse on FM 99.5. It’s sometime simulcast on AM 1200 or FM 97.7. You can also get it on: http://tunein.com
I will be posting my rough transcript the night of the broadcast focusing on my questions, the team and their last and next games and then a second post the next day on other things that were discussed.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
First Hour:
Coach, it’s obvious to other teams that we struggle against zones so we know we’ll be seeing a lot of them. We don’t have the outside shooting to “bust” a zone so we need to penetrate it and open it up by placing a man in the high post from where he can shoot, drive or pass, (I call that the “can opener”). You seemed to audition three guys for that role against Pittsburgh: Oshae Brissett, Matt Moyer and Marek Dolezaj. Could you give us you assessment of how they each did in that role?
Second Hour:
“Coach prior to the Pitt game a local radio program interviewed Dick Groat, who still does color commentary for Pitt basketball at the age of 87, although he has to do it from his home now. Dick was a basketball All-American at Duke but also played baseball and eventually made that sport as his profession, becoming the national league MVP and batting champion for the Pirates in 1960, the year they won the World Series against the Yankees. These days each sport seems to be a 12 month proposition at the college level. Does that serve our athletes well? Our can you be a two sport athlete these days? ”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject. In recent years they have started out doing one hour shows and then shifted to two hour shows in January. When they do two hour shows. I will do two posts: one on the night of the broadcast on the issues directly relating to the team on the other the next days on other things that were talked about.)
(They care now doing two hour shows. The second hour is hosted by Gomez, a local radio personality. There are three musical interludes, one every 20 minutes, so if you tune in at 8PM it’s going to sound as if the Boeheim show has ended but stick with it. As last year, the night of the show I will post comments relating directly to the SU basketball team. I’ll post “Part 2” on Friday, which will contain other topics that were discussed. )
“The Pittsburgh game was a defensive game. We were happy to get the win. We didn’t play well but made the plays we had to make to win.” Matt mentioned that Pittsburgh was using its 19th different starting line-up of the season. JB: “You’ve got to make shots to in on the road. You want them to take long threes. It’s tough to win on the road if you miss those threes… Trevor Cooney used to take 13-14 threes a game and made 6 or 7 of them a lot of times.” (In our dreams.) Tyus got going in the second half. Pitt is not a good offensive team. We should have done a better job on Stewart. Last year we had four guys who could shoot threes. This team defends and rebounds better…we were in trouble against Maryland, Connecticut and Buffalo and we made a lot of good plays to win. Notre Dame was a crushing loss. We should have at least been in overtime.“
“It’s tough to get back your confidence after four losses in a row. We practiced well yesterday and today. We have more time now. We are always trying to get better on offense and defense. After giving the players a day off on Sunday, we’ll start to get ready for BC…Boston College was down by only 1 late at Virginia and they beat Duke and Florida State….Battle and Howard vs. Robinson and Bowman will be quite a match-up They are really good players. They can score against anybody. They have tremendous perimeter scoring and driving. They can make plays in the lane. They are good at passing and ball handling.”
On the 7 day break: This is longer than normal. You have to get one weekend off.U usually you got from Wednesday or Thursday to the following Wednesday…. We don’t need to do a lot of things: make a couple less turnovers, get a couple more defensive stops….Frank has not had this level of responsibility before. Tyus was not the main guy. The other guys were the main guys in high school last year. ”
I don’t even try to beat Liam from Pompey to the punch anymore and Marty form Ithaca is getting in there, too. Liam wanted to congratulate Jim for the win against Pitt but it sounded like he used the word “apologize” for it instead. “You’ve got a little while to prepare for BC and a lot of work to do. What is your take on what the team needs to do?” Jim: “Every win is good. It’s the losses that aren’t good. As I said earlier…..”(see above)
Marty thinks we seemed “more confident on offense- how can we keep it going. Also why did we press so early against Pitt?” JB: “We mixed in the press a little. It wasn’t very effective. Pitt played all zone. We haven’t seen that much. You’ve got make some threes. With a struggling offense it takes a while to get going. Our zone expands and contracts to keep contact with shooters. Most teams that dabble in zone just keep everybody back. It’s tough when the main defense is in the lane with 4-5 guys. You need to make shots. It’s hard to get offensive rebounds.”
Matt noted that Pitt makes lots of turnovers but Frank Howard had only one compared to 5 steals. JB: “It’s the one negative he’s had. I think he’ll do better now.” That led to tonight’s trivia question: who set the SU record for steals in a season? (They also discussed who led for a career.) Matt noted that Howard Washington was “very active out there” and Frank Howard is currently among the league leaders.
The women’s team was playing. Jim said “They shoot quickly and are a fun team to watch.” He marveled at the point guard, Tiana Mangakahia, who had 10 assists on SU’s first 12 baskets. “They’ve done wonders with so many new players.”
I finally called in and said that Coach Boeheim had also done wonders with new players. He laughed and said “Not nearly enough!” As to my first question: “You’d think that Oshae could do well in the high post because he can shoot and drive but he wasn’t comfortable there. He didn’t get to the open spots. Matt is not good there. Marek is the best. We also got the guards some screens and got them into the lane and to the foul line. It’s hard to drive against a zone but we are working on it. We don’t’ expect to see too many zones the rest of the way. Most teams that switch to zones practice it but it’s not a great zone and you have to make the shots that are open.”
Matt made some comment of gambling in a zone that the other team is going to miss. JB jumped on that. “Playing zone is not a gamble. We are not hoping that they will miss. They are being guarded. Most teams that depend on threes do a lot to get their men open. We hold those teams down. The other thing is that they are not looking to get inside or to the line. Our defense is pretty good. Our offense is not good at all.” Matt noted that we’d been top 20 in defense according to Ken Pomeroy 7 years in a row until last year. And we are currently 13th. JB: “That’s a little misleading. Teams take longer to shoot against us.
Mas in Clay wonder what the impact of losing our big man coaches has been: Bernie, then Hop, now Allen Griffin. He point out those guys were all guards coaching big men. “Pete Newell, the greatest big man coach ever, was only 6-1. You don’t have to play a positon to coach it. I coached Rosie Bouie. It’s not rocket science.” (But coach, is it rocketship science?) “Most coaches are guards. It’s just hard work, drill work, simple stuff. Maybe guards are smarter. Also, great players often are not great coaches. Jerry West said he became frustrated that his players could not do what he could do. He wanted them to play like Jerry West.”
Gomez later noted that Jim had said that Paschal Chukwu, after a couple of misses, “got mad” and jammed the ball in and that Jim had called him “too nice”. He wondered if it was a common that big guys are too nice and have to learn how to play mean. JB: “Not necessary at all. I talked to Paschal today. I didn’t want him to think I don’t like him. Oshae and Marek are learning that they aren’t going to get the calls they got early in the season driving to the basket…Bourama is a really good player. He’s hurting- he’s not even at 60%. Bourama would be huge if he were healthy. He was moving the best of our centers early on. Even then he was hurt a bit. It’s gotten worse as the season progressed. We are giving him rest this week but the other side of that is that he’s not practicing.”
Perry in Sandy Creek wanted a breakdown of the play at the end of the 1st overtime vs. FSU, when Brissett missed the jump shot. “Brissett should have driven to the basket. He had a good opening and could have scored or been fouled. But he had an open shot and had hit a couple of threes. Tyus was being doubled by his man and Oshae’s man.”
On recruiting: “Guys ranked 20-40 are not always good. Some guys are overlooked and better than McDonald’s All-Americans”. Some are better in high school but don’t turn out that way in college….Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round. Oshae was ranked around 130 – I don’t know how- and he’s easily one of the top 20 freshmen in the country.“ Of course there’s nothing wrong with being a McDonald’s All-American, which Darius Bazley is and Jalen Carey “just missed. Darius is real good and Jalen is real good, too. We’ll have a little bit more talent next year.”
“Team’s benches, (in the ACC), are a little shorter this year. The top 2-3 players on most teams are playing 35 minutes a game. There’s no difference between 35 minutes or 38-39 minutes.”
Josh Bender of Colorado thinks our ‘momentum’ is “killed when our guards just pass the ball back and forth, holding the ball.” JB: “We’re not very smooth on offense. We use lots of pick and rolls- it’s better for us. Our best offense is those guys trying to create something. We don’t get a lot of assists but we do get offensive rebounds. Even with Pitt, until we started to drive we weren’t successful. But it’s not conducive to fluid movement. There are too many defenders in the lane because we can’t shoot. We have a couple of guys who can’t make perimeter shots. Guys have to dribble more than I’d really like.”
We’ve played pretty good on the road. We let a couple of games get away. We were underdogs against Virginia and Florida State. Against Notre Dame we defended well but didn’t shoot or rebound well. We’re playing good enough to win. Now we have to play better. We need to eliminate a couple fewer mistakes and a couple more shots. We’re going to have to knock off some people down the stretch…. Guys have been in Saturday night and Sunday afternoons to practice.” Are there any NCAA restrictions on that? “There are no restrictions. We can’t tell them to come. They’ve done a lot of work in the extra time. “
(I’ll get to my second question and other comments not directly relating to the team in part 2, tomorrow.)
You can call into the show locally at 315-424-8599 or nationally at 1-888-746-2873. For Gomez’s portion, use 315-424-8599. Or you can submit questions from this page:
Syracuse University Athletics
Or on Twitter at mattpark1 or “askBoeheim”.
The show can be heard in Syracuse on FM 99.5. It’s sometime simulcast on AM 1200 or FM 97.7. You can also get it on: http://tunein.com
I will be posting my rough transcript the night of the broadcast focusing on my questions, the team and their last and next games and then a second post the next day on other things that were discussed.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
First Hour:
Coach, it’s obvious to other teams that we struggle against zones so we know we’ll be seeing a lot of them. We don’t have the outside shooting to “bust” a zone so we need to penetrate it and open it up by placing a man in the high post from where he can shoot, drive or pass, (I call that the “can opener”). You seemed to audition three guys for that role against Pittsburgh: Oshae Brissett, Matt Moyer and Marek Dolezaj. Could you give us you assessment of how they each did in that role?
Second Hour:
“Coach prior to the Pitt game a local radio program interviewed Dick Groat, who still does color commentary for Pitt basketball at the age of 87, although he has to do it from his home now. Dick was a basketball All-American at Duke but also played baseball and eventually made that sport as his profession, becoming the national league MVP and batting champion for the Pirates in 1960, the year they won the World Series against the Yankees. These days each sport seems to be a 12 month proposition at the college level. Does that serve our athletes well? Our can you be a two sport athlete these days? ”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject. In recent years they have started out doing one hour shows and then shifted to two hour shows in January. When they do two hour shows. I will do two posts: one on the night of the broadcast on the issues directly relating to the team on the other the next days on other things that were talked about.)
(They care now doing two hour shows. The second hour is hosted by Gomez, a local radio personality. There are three musical interludes, one every 20 minutes, so if you tune in at 8PM it’s going to sound as if the Boeheim show has ended but stick with it. As last year, the night of the show I will post comments relating directly to the SU basketball team. I’ll post “Part 2” on Friday, which will contain other topics that were discussed. )
“The Pittsburgh game was a defensive game. We were happy to get the win. We didn’t play well but made the plays we had to make to win.” Matt mentioned that Pittsburgh was using its 19th different starting line-up of the season. JB: “You’ve got to make shots to in on the road. You want them to take long threes. It’s tough to win on the road if you miss those threes… Trevor Cooney used to take 13-14 threes a game and made 6 or 7 of them a lot of times.” (In our dreams.) Tyus got going in the second half. Pitt is not a good offensive team. We should have done a better job on Stewart. Last year we had four guys who could shoot threes. This team defends and rebounds better…we were in trouble against Maryland, Connecticut and Buffalo and we made a lot of good plays to win. Notre Dame was a crushing loss. We should have at least been in overtime.“
“It’s tough to get back your confidence after four losses in a row. We practiced well yesterday and today. We have more time now. We are always trying to get better on offense and defense. After giving the players a day off on Sunday, we’ll start to get ready for BC…Boston College was down by only 1 late at Virginia and they beat Duke and Florida State….Battle and Howard vs. Robinson and Bowman will be quite a match-up They are really good players. They can score against anybody. They have tremendous perimeter scoring and driving. They can make plays in the lane. They are good at passing and ball handling.”
On the 7 day break: This is longer than normal. You have to get one weekend off.U usually you got from Wednesday or Thursday to the following Wednesday…. We don’t need to do a lot of things: make a couple less turnovers, get a couple more defensive stops….Frank has not had this level of responsibility before. Tyus was not the main guy. The other guys were the main guys in high school last year. ”
I don’t even try to beat Liam from Pompey to the punch anymore and Marty form Ithaca is getting in there, too. Liam wanted to congratulate Jim for the win against Pitt but it sounded like he used the word “apologize” for it instead. “You’ve got a little while to prepare for BC and a lot of work to do. What is your take on what the team needs to do?” Jim: “Every win is good. It’s the losses that aren’t good. As I said earlier…..”(see above)
Marty thinks we seemed “more confident on offense- how can we keep it going. Also why did we press so early against Pitt?” JB: “We mixed in the press a little. It wasn’t very effective. Pitt played all zone. We haven’t seen that much. You’ve got make some threes. With a struggling offense it takes a while to get going. Our zone expands and contracts to keep contact with shooters. Most teams that dabble in zone just keep everybody back. It’s tough when the main defense is in the lane with 4-5 guys. You need to make shots. It’s hard to get offensive rebounds.”
Matt noted that Pitt makes lots of turnovers but Frank Howard had only one compared to 5 steals. JB: “It’s the one negative he’s had. I think he’ll do better now.” That led to tonight’s trivia question: who set the SU record for steals in a season? (They also discussed who led for a career.) Matt noted that Howard Washington was “very active out there” and Frank Howard is currently among the league leaders.
The women’s team was playing. Jim said “They shoot quickly and are a fun team to watch.” He marveled at the point guard, Tiana Mangakahia, who had 10 assists on SU’s first 12 baskets. “They’ve done wonders with so many new players.”
I finally called in and said that Coach Boeheim had also done wonders with new players. He laughed and said “Not nearly enough!” As to my first question: “You’d think that Oshae could do well in the high post because he can shoot and drive but he wasn’t comfortable there. He didn’t get to the open spots. Matt is not good there. Marek is the best. We also got the guards some screens and got them into the lane and to the foul line. It’s hard to drive against a zone but we are working on it. We don’t’ expect to see too many zones the rest of the way. Most teams that switch to zones practice it but it’s not a great zone and you have to make the shots that are open.”
Matt made some comment of gambling in a zone that the other team is going to miss. JB jumped on that. “Playing zone is not a gamble. We are not hoping that they will miss. They are being guarded. Most teams that depend on threes do a lot to get their men open. We hold those teams down. The other thing is that they are not looking to get inside or to the line. Our defense is pretty good. Our offense is not good at all.” Matt noted that we’d been top 20 in defense according to Ken Pomeroy 7 years in a row until last year. And we are currently 13th. JB: “That’s a little misleading. Teams take longer to shoot against us.
Mas in Clay wonder what the impact of losing our big man coaches has been: Bernie, then Hop, now Allen Griffin. He point out those guys were all guards coaching big men. “Pete Newell, the greatest big man coach ever, was only 6-1. You don’t have to play a positon to coach it. I coached Rosie Bouie. It’s not rocket science.” (But coach, is it rocketship science?) “Most coaches are guards. It’s just hard work, drill work, simple stuff. Maybe guards are smarter. Also, great players often are not great coaches. Jerry West said he became frustrated that his players could not do what he could do. He wanted them to play like Jerry West.”
Gomez later noted that Jim had said that Paschal Chukwu, after a couple of misses, “got mad” and jammed the ball in and that Jim had called him “too nice”. He wondered if it was a common that big guys are too nice and have to learn how to play mean. JB: “Not necessary at all. I talked to Paschal today. I didn’t want him to think I don’t like him. Oshae and Marek are learning that they aren’t going to get the calls they got early in the season driving to the basket…Bourama is a really good player. He’s hurting- he’s not even at 60%. Bourama would be huge if he were healthy. He was moving the best of our centers early on. Even then he was hurt a bit. It’s gotten worse as the season progressed. We are giving him rest this week but the other side of that is that he’s not practicing.”
Perry in Sandy Creek wanted a breakdown of the play at the end of the 1st overtime vs. FSU, when Brissett missed the jump shot. “Brissett should have driven to the basket. He had a good opening and could have scored or been fouled. But he had an open shot and had hit a couple of threes. Tyus was being doubled by his man and Oshae’s man.”
On recruiting: “Guys ranked 20-40 are not always good. Some guys are overlooked and better than McDonald’s All-Americans”. Some are better in high school but don’t turn out that way in college….Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round. Oshae was ranked around 130 – I don’t know how- and he’s easily one of the top 20 freshmen in the country.“ Of course there’s nothing wrong with being a McDonald’s All-American, which Darius Bazley is and Jalen Carey “just missed. Darius is real good and Jalen is real good, too. We’ll have a little bit more talent next year.”
“Team’s benches, (in the ACC), are a little shorter this year. The top 2-3 players on most teams are playing 35 minutes a game. There’s no difference between 35 minutes or 38-39 minutes.”
Josh Bender of Colorado thinks our ‘momentum’ is “killed when our guards just pass the ball back and forth, holding the ball.” JB: “We’re not very smooth on offense. We use lots of pick and rolls- it’s better for us. Our best offense is those guys trying to create something. We don’t get a lot of assists but we do get offensive rebounds. Even with Pitt, until we started to drive we weren’t successful. But it’s not conducive to fluid movement. There are too many defenders in the lane because we can’t shoot. We have a couple of guys who can’t make perimeter shots. Guys have to dribble more than I’d really like.”
We’ve played pretty good on the road. We let a couple of games get away. We were underdogs against Virginia and Florida State. Against Notre Dame we defended well but didn’t shoot or rebound well. We’re playing good enough to win. Now we have to play better. We need to eliminate a couple fewer mistakes and a couple more shots. We’re going to have to knock off some people down the stretch…. Guys have been in Saturday night and Sunday afternoons to practice.” Are there any NCAA restrictions on that? “There are no restrictions. We can’t tell them to come. They’ve done a lot of work in the extra time. “
(I’ll get to my second question and other comments not directly relating to the team in part 2, tomorrow.)
