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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4579670, member: 289"] Part 2 Matt asked about the practice schedule when the team comes home from road games.. Jim said the team gets a day off if they can practice two days before a game. He said they had a ‘hard’ practice today. [They practiced very hard or everything they tried to do seemed hard?] “We’re just not covering areas. The younger players on the team seem worn down. Our guards need help on offense… Pete Moore, [Director of Athletic Communications], gave some stats that all the people who now everything may not know. We are horribly bad on defense in the first half. The second half is much better. Some of it is adjustments and we shoot more free throws in the second half. [And some of it is that we are way behind at halftime and the game is basically decided.] We are down 3 rebounds a game but up 4 turnovers a game, so we wind up ahead. [Against Duke is was -13 and +2 and against Clemson it was -10 and -4.) “We’re giving up too many open threes. It’s been good ball movement but also poor coverage.” “We’ve won some good wins. It’s not easy to win at Boston College, at Florida State and even Georgia Tech. We knew this team would struggle coming into this year. 16 wins is pretty close to what people projected. People complained we haven’t been ranked in the last 10 years. We went to sweet 16s and a Final Four and wound up ranked. [We went from not getting any votes to #10 in 2016, from no votes to the most votes of anybody not in the Top 25 in 2018, from no votes to no votes in 2019 when we lost in the 8/9 game and from no votes to #25 in 2021. No Syracuse team from 2015 on has received a single vote for the Top 25 in the last poll before the NCAA tournament. 9 years. Zero votes. Nobody anywhere thought we were a Top 25 team.] “I don’t predict. I always think we could be a tournament team. We knew this would be a tough struggle and we’re playing through it. If somebody asks me if we could be a tournament team I’ll always say ‘Yes!’. That’s not a prediction. We knew this year would be tough.” Michael from Charlotte took issue with that. He alleged that 4 months ago Jim had not said that the team ‘could be’ an NCAA team but that they would be. Jim insisted he’d said ‘could be. “I would say that every year before every season.” Michael pressed the issue, referring to our record the last 9 years. “The regular season matters and being relevant and ranked is part of our experience. We’re ready for a change. The fans are not part of a beehive, following the Queen Bee. A lot of fans are ready for a change.” Jim responded that “We’ve been to 4-5 [Matt said it’s 5 but it’s 4: 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021] NCAA tournaments in 9 years and one we kept ourselves out of, (to try to avoid harsh NCAA penalties), and one wasn’t held, (due to Covid). We want to do well in the regular season. We knew this year would be difficult. People are not happy with 16-12 We’ve had a couple of bad years in a row. That’s unusual. A lot of schools would take that, (our record over the last 9 years) and be happy with it.” [So we should?] “I decided to go with freshmen. They’ve played well but struggled at times. We’ve recruited the best freshmen we could get but have adapted to taking transfers. We’ve gotten 8 phone calls from players who are interested in transferring here. Pitt’s average age is 23 years old. They use their transfers. Everybody’s doing that. We knew we were losing everybody. We decided ‘Let’s bring in a good group of freshmen’. From now on, we’ll be looking to bring in 2-3 portal guys. Each year there will be 1200-1500 guys in the transfer portal and 40-50 could make a difference. 700-800 can’t help you. North Carolina took a Northwestern transfer and it hasn’t helped. Notre Dame last year had a Ivy League guy who beat us. Joiner on NC State may be the best guard (in the league?). Ole Miss’s Hinson, (Blake, on Pitt), has bene great. (Tyree) Appleby (from Florida), has been great for Wake Forest.” Matt suggested that JB has been “leaning left when everybody else is leaning right”. [Going to the high school ranks rather than transfers] This produced my biggest take-away from the show: “I knew we were losing guys and I didn’t want to wait until the end of the year, (to secure their replacements through the portal). The portal will be something you’ll have to do every year. (After getting the 6 freshmen commits) We had two guys at every position. You don’t go to the portal to be a back-up.” [Right. You go to the portal for instant starters and to the high schools for guys who might be willing to be back-ups until their position becomes open. We wound up starting three frosh – Benny was essentially one and he wound up on the bench – and backing them up with two more. I just brought this up on Brian Higgins’ show and he said that when JB had to make this decision, “We didn’t know yet what the portal and NIL was going to mean.’ Pitt and the other schools at the top of the conference sure did.] “Our guards and center are OK but our forwards and our defense has been a problem.” Mike in Florida changed the subject, suggesting that the best shooter on the team and staff is Gerry McNamara. JB: “He doesn’t shoot as much as he used to but he’s still good.” That brought up the shooting contest last week between Buddy Boeheim, who had a chance to come home for a few days and Demetris Nichols. [I had reported this as Buddy vs. GMAC but it was Nichols] “Buddy claimed he won but Demetris insisted that the game be extended.” [“The game ends when I’m ahead!”] They talked about the celebration of the 2003 teams next week. There will be a banquet with a panel discussion with the players Friday night and a presentation at the Wake Forest game the next day. After Jeff from Jamesville called, (see above), Jim got to talking about Bud Poliquin. “Bud was critical but fair. He told me I could coach forever. I told him ‘No.’ The year before the Sweet 16, they wanted me to retire. I was allowed a little bit more after 46 years. If I couldn’t get a good recruiting class I wouldn’t have come back. I re-evaluate retirement every day. It’s a university decision. They’ve always had the option. I’ve coached many years that nobody knew was the last year of my contract. It was not made public because it hurts recruiting. We have a good plan. In most places there is no plan.” He mentioned North Carolina and other places where they’ve replaced long-term coaches recently. Matt asked “Is you interest in coaching here connected to the roster?” JB: “My plan started with getting this group in and see how we could get them to play.” The Orangewomen were up by 30 on Pitt. [Maybe they should play Pitt Saturday.) They hit 11 treys. On this day in Orange history, 2/23/03 we beat Michigan State in East Lansing, 76-75. Chris Hill set a record by hitting 10 threes against us. That game is the reason why Paulie Scibilia never flies. Their plane going there had to make an emergency landing and they had to switch to another plane. Paulie drove back from the game and has been driving to and from games ever since. [Jim keeps telling him that that’s actually more dangerous, to no avail.] Eric Devendorf as at that game – as a Michigan State recruit. “Melo had a tip in. We’d been just OK. That was when we go our momentum going.” [We were 18-4 and 15th ranked went 12-1 the rest of the way, only losing to UCONN in the BET and won the national championship.] Tony in Liverpool thanked Jim for “47 good winters” and said his vote was for Jim to stay. He added that he missed the Big East. He said Clemson got away with a lot of “bumping and fouling and nothing was called”. JB: “I know there’s at least a couple people out there that like me. They committed 100 fouls, but it had no impact on the game.” [?] “It was our defense.” Did he consider taking an intentional technical to inspire his team? [Matt had asked Jimmy Satalin the same question and that Jim said that he’d done that on occasion.] “Not really.” Larry wants us to run a pro-style offense, with an emphasis on shooting off of high screens. He should be happy because that’s what we’re doing. JB: “We’re running 4-5 NBA sets, one that Golden State uses. We don’t get enough shots but we run pro sets.” Larry started describing in detail a play he likes that involved the point guard passing off the drive. JB: “That’s what we were trying to do. Most point guards have to pass because they can’t finish. Judah can finish.” BC beat Virginia by 15, 63-48. “Virginia struggled when they took their center out. They were pretty small. BC’s center, Post [well-named] is really good and they have veteran guards.” Mike in Westvale [“Night of the Mikes”] recalled what it was like to land in Detroit after we beat Michigan State in 2018. “There’s nothing cooler than Jim Boeheim and SU basketball.” He asked what expectations we should have. “Making the NCAA tournament, which we’ve done 5 times in the last 10 years with 2 Final Foul and 4 Sweet 16’s”. [That’s if you view “the last 10 years” as 2012-13 through 2021-22.] He said that was a solid record but that it’s gotten harder to do as the ACC is getting fewer and fewer teams in the tournament. “The NET hurts us. We’ve got 3-4 bad NET teams.” Gomez was supposed to take over at this point but his whereabouts were unknown so Matt stayed on. JB: “You never know what he’s off doing.” “Clemson is tough at home. We lost to them once here when I wasn’t the coach.” [I thought we weren’t supposed to put those games on Mike Hopkins because it wasn’t his team.] Valerie in Manlius said he’s been a Boeheim fan “since the early 20’s”. They decided she meant HER early 20’s – and that THIS is the early 20’s. Valerie couldn’t see us having any other coach. She’s a waitress and waited on Jim a couple of times. What are his favorite local restaurants? The only one Jim would mention is “St. Urbans – they have a different menu, but it’s good.” [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.sainturbanwinebar.com/[/URL] Holden in Syracuse asked the weekly “How’s Buddy Doing” question. “Buddy is playing in the G League. He’s played 30-40 games with 20 more to go. Last night he had 19 points in the first 8 minutes. He’ll be called up to the Pistons in March. They tell you. If the veterans get hurt, they will play the younger players. He’s added 10 pounds of muscle. He’s told us how much better he feels.” Matt asked about the “Paddy cake” NBA all-star game. Someone had suggested that these guys play hard in the summer: why can’t they play hard in an All-star game? JB: “That ship has sailed. The Elam ending almost made it interesting. Maybe if they had rule that they can’t fast break.” They discussed Mac McLung, who won the slam dunk competition. “Buddy played against him last night. He’s averaging 7 points. He’s played in 2 career NBA games. It was wild. H jumped over a man holding a boy 7 feet 9 inches in the air.” They talked about having to “re-recruit” the team. “We talk to everybody and see what their thinking is We don’t want anybody to leave.” John in Liverpool wondered if rumors about the NCAA tournament expanding to 90 teams are going to come true. JB: “The NCAA brought it up, so there must be something to it. It’s OK if they can add it into the framework. The tournament has expanded ever since it started. [it was 8 teams in two regionals – East and West followed by a single championship game until 1950. It went to 16 teams in 1951 but had two 8 team regionals leading to a title game. In 1952 they split into four regions and the first ‘Final Four’. In 1953 they went to 22 teams with byes, in 1954 to 24 teams. It varied slightly over the years, 23-25 teams with byes. In 1975 they went to 3 – which I thought was perfect. They pushed it to 40 in 1979 and 48 in 1980 and finally to 64 in 1985. I thought that would be it but they went to 65 in 2001 because another conference became eligible and that became the “first four” in 2011.] “I don’t’ see adding 32 teams. That would require 3 more sites and too many play-in games for 12,11 and 10 seeds. They want automatic qualifiers to have a chance.” There will probably be a team trip abroad this summer, like the ones in recent years to Canada and Italy. “We will go to Israel and maybe Dubai for 3-4 games”. He said “We”. [/QUOTE]

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