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 is at Carrabba's Italian Grill at 550 Towne Drive, Fayetteville, NY. The first hour, hosted by Matt Park, the Voice of the Orange, is on their general network. The second hour, which usually begins with the conference season, is hosted by Gomez, a local radio personality.
Their schedule: The AmeriCU Jim Boeheim Show Begins Tonight! - Syracuse University Athletics
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:
Submit a Question! - 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: TuneIn | Free Internet Radio | Live News, Sports, Music, and Podcasts
There’s now a third segment where Jim and Gomez can be seen on camera at:
The early shows tend to be in a one-hour format. I'll post a summary of them the same night. When they do two hour shows. I will do two posts: the Matt Park segment the night of the show and the Gomez segments the next day.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
1st Segment Question:
“Coach, traditionally you’ve used 10-11 scholarships on recruited players. After some years where you lost players to injury and other problems, you started using all 13 scholarships. You said “You have to protect the program”. Then last year we had massive defections with the opening of the transfer portal. You went back to 10 guys – why stockpile players if they are going to leave? But we were left with three guards and two point guards, one of whom is now hurt and the other went 1 for 9 with 6 turnovers. Will you be using all 13 scholarships next year?”
2nd Segment Question:
“Coach, in these last two losses, we are 15 for 28 from the line. We’ve got three 80% free throw shooters in our starting line-up and two 50% guys. The other team wants to foul the 50% guys. You’ve decided you’d rather put the other four players back on defense when we are at the line. Would it make any difference to put a couple of them at the lane to try to rebound the misses when the 50% guys are shooting?”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject. The quotes may not be verbatim –they are from my scribbled notes. I have not knowingly changed the meaning.)
Matt said he suspected that there will be a ‘spirited conversation’ tonight after Jim invited all his critics to call into his show on Orange Nation earlier today. JB: “It won’t happen. These people have idea that aren’t grounded in reality. 90% of the people who call into those shows don’t go to the games unless a friend has a ticket.”
On the Pittsburgh game: We had opportunities for shots but couldn’t do anything with it. These teams are all good enough to beat you if you don’t play well.”
On what he said about Jesse: “I called him the most improved player in the league. He was 210 or 205 when he came here, 215 last year and is now 228. Hughley was 240-250. Jesse never played basketball growing up and was on IMG’s JV team. He didn’t have the background or experience in basketball. If he did, he’d be even better.”
“Everybody on this team is trying. It‘s completely on the head coach. That’s a fact. I’m not picking on any players. If Joe didn’t play well, that’s what happened. But If we lose a game, it’s the program that lost the game. If people want me to take responsibility for it, I’ll take it. We make mistakes when we win, too, but nobody’s talking about it. The reasons are known.” He mentioned a couple of things and I missed on but the other was “a new front line”.
I called in my first question and JB was off and running. “We tried to get a fourth guard. Any good guard sin the portal want to start. Sy was from here and knew that he’d be asked to back up. Are you going to come here when we’ve got two veteran guards? We might have gotten a guard who couldn’t help us. Why do we need another guy who can’t play? We have 4 forwards and 3 centers. Most coaches want to keep it at 9-10. We’ve been at 10 for years. We have more than enough guys. We won the national championship with 9 players. We lost three good players to the portal and got three good players out of it. Our defense has been bad. Our offense has been good but was pathetic in the last game. We let two games get away from us and shouldn’t have lost to Colgate or Georgetown.”
“What I don’t think you and media people understand is that Steph Curry went 1 for 13 in a recent game but the Warriors still won that game because he had 8 rebounds and 9 assists. Guys miss shots sometimes. Cole Swider hasn’t played as well as we’d like, although he’s rebounding well. He had 12 good shots and made three. You have to play through a bad shooting night. Jimmy missed shots. Joe Missed shots. Buddy made some buckets but he missed some shots, too. We’ve beaten Indiana and Florida State, etc. We can beat these teams. Our next class is still a top 15-16 class in the country. [24th per 247] We’ve bene in the top 30. I think we’ve got a good team. We’ve just dug a deep hole for ourselves. We have 11 games left and a lot of opportunities. It’s never just the coach or one guy. It’s the team that wins and loses. But it’s my responsibility. We’ve had 45 good years and are now having a bad year. I’m good with that.” [By which I’m sure that he meant by that is that having 45 good years out of 46 is a good record, not that ‘he’s good’ with 9-11.]
Scott5 in Boston complained about Jim “calling out” his plays after games. He tried to go on about this but Jim kept saying “STOP! STOP!”. Matt finally got Scott to pause and Jim asked him “What did I say? Scott said that Jim had said “Jesse is as good as he can be after 3 years”. Jim: “That’s not what I said. I said he’s one of the best centers in the country and the most improved player in the league. He needs to be stronger.” Scott: “You said that Benny can’t help us.” Jim: “People ask me why he’s not playing. He’s not doing the things in practice or games he needs to do to play. That’s not calling out a player. I wasn’t that upset with Joe. He can’t just leave games when he’s not shooting well.” {By ‘leave’, I assume he means mentally checking out, not physically leaving.] “Saying he’s not trying hard is ‘calling out a guy’.”
Scott: “I don’t think we are getting as good as shot as we need to.” Jim: “We lack penetrating ability. Joe’s looks were all good. Jimmy’s shots are good. Cole had 12 good looks. In some situations, the shot clock is in play.” Scott: “Do you want Joe taking those step-back jumpers? Jim: “Against Clemson he took one of o those and it went in. Did you complain about that?” Scott: “He takes it too early in the shot clock.” Jim: “No, he doesn’t. He can make that shot. He makes it in practice.” Scott hung up and Jim said “Nothing he said makes any sense. You don’t get a great shot every time. We don’t have a lot of options past the 10-15 second mark.”
Josh in Boulder enjoys defense and wondered it it’s possible to win a game just with defense. [Intuitively, no. You can’t win with zero points.) Jim: “100%. But we’ve bene better defensively, bigger and stronger. Our national championship team beat Miami 49-46 on Super Bowl Sunday.” [54-49, actually.] “It was the worst offensive game I’ve even seen.” [Worse than 39-61 at Georgetown on 3/9/13?) “We scored the last 6 points to win.” [Which means you need offense, too.] The best we’ve ever played defense was beating Indiana and Washington [Marquette] to go to the Final Four in 2013.”
John in Liverpool wondered why we don’t get New York City kids anymore.” JB: “Because they aren’t in New York City anymore. They’re in prep school. It’s the same in Philadelphia. All the guys we recruited are in prep schools.”
John in Syracuse wonders why we aren’t focusing on getting to the line more and settling for jump shots. JB: “You just answered you own question. We aren’t great on the drive. Buddy does it 2-3 more times than before. Cole is not a driver. We’re still shooting more free throws than our opponents.” [384-306]
Batten down the hatches: Kyle in Lowville wonders why we stick with the zone. JB: “We’d be worse in man for man. We practice it and we’re not very good at it. We’re not really stopping anybody inside or out. Notre Dame shoots 42% from three and it’s all again man-for-man defenses. They shoot less against us because we focus on it.” Kyle suggested that playing the zone causes the NBA to be less interesting our players. JB: “The NBA drafts for offense. Anyone will tell you that. We had the most NBA draft picks when we were in the Big East. In recent years we haven’t had the talent level. But we’ve had guys drafted that nobody thought would be drafter – Jonny Flynn, Tyler Ennis, Oshae Brissett. When you lose, everybody wants to change. It’s a good thought but we might have won 4 games in a man for man.” [Which ones?] “For years we’ve recruited players for offense and taught them the zone. To play man-to-man, we’d have to recruit more athletic players and work with them all summer and fall. We’d have to switch to all man-to-man because there wouldn’t be time to learn the zone. It would take a couple of years. It’s not even something I’d think about. “
The women lost big again. “They’re just too small and don’t have the firepower.”
Jeff in Houston had some numbers. “We’ve been out-rebounded 6 of the last 7 years and out-assisted in 5 of 10. We have the lowest gap in assist ratio we’ve since [I didn’t write that one down for some reason]. Has the game changed?” JB: “You’re going to have some trouble rebounding in a zone. We are typically down 1-2 rebounds per game. That’s not going to turn the game. We force more turnovers. They get more assists because you have to pass against a zone. You can’t dribble.” [Unless it’s this year’s zone.] “If you’re driving, there’s no assist.” Matt said we were down 0.6 rebounds per game and up 1.0 turnovers a game. JB: “It’s usually more.”
“Wake Forest is playing the best in the conference. They are blowing teams out. NC State has bene up and down. Everybody has played well at times. It’s a balanced league. We just have to keep playing and try to get better and try to win.”
I’ll do the Gomez segments tomorrow but here are two bonuses: the answers to my second question and one I asked on Twitch:
About having rebounders on the lane for our 50% free throw shooters: “We just aren’t a good rebounding team. Our two biggest guys are the ones who struggle from the line. We’d have to put guards on the lane.”
On twitch I asked, with 5 freshmen coming in next years, are we going into the transfer portal to replace the starters we will lose this year. “There will be 2-3 freshman starters next year and all of them will play. I think Benny’s coming back next year and with Jesse, Frank, Joe and Symir that’s ten guys. We won’t need transfers.” FYT: 247 rated Benny the 32nd best recruit in the country. Next year’s class consists of #96 Chris Bunch, #108 Justin Taylor, #142 Quadir Copeland, #235 Malik Brown and #264 Peter Carey. Jim insists they are under-rated. I hope so. If we are going to get 3 starters and 5 rotation guys out of that, we’re in for an even bumpier ride than this year
Their schedule: The AmeriCU Jim Boeheim Show Begins Tonight! - Syracuse University Athletics
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:
Submit a Question! - 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: TuneIn | Free Internet Radio | Live News, Sports, Music, and Podcasts
There’s now a third segment where Jim and Gomez can be seen on camera at:
The early shows tend to be in a one-hour format. I'll post a summary of them the same night. When they do two hour shows. I will do two posts: the Matt Park segment the night of the show and the Gomez segments the next day.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
1st Segment Question:
“Coach, traditionally you’ve used 10-11 scholarships on recruited players. After some years where you lost players to injury and other problems, you started using all 13 scholarships. You said “You have to protect the program”. Then last year we had massive defections with the opening of the transfer portal. You went back to 10 guys – why stockpile players if they are going to leave? But we were left with three guards and two point guards, one of whom is now hurt and the other went 1 for 9 with 6 turnovers. Will you be using all 13 scholarships next year?”
2nd Segment Question:
“Coach, in these last two losses, we are 15 for 28 from the line. We’ve got three 80% free throw shooters in our starting line-up and two 50% guys. The other team wants to foul the 50% guys. You’ve decided you’d rather put the other four players back on defense when we are at the line. Would it make any difference to put a couple of them at the lane to try to rebound the misses when the 50% guys are shooting?”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject. The quotes may not be verbatim –they are from my scribbled notes. I have not knowingly changed the meaning.)
Matt said he suspected that there will be a ‘spirited conversation’ tonight after Jim invited all his critics to call into his show on Orange Nation earlier today. JB: “It won’t happen. These people have idea that aren’t grounded in reality. 90% of the people who call into those shows don’t go to the games unless a friend has a ticket.”
On the Pittsburgh game: We had opportunities for shots but couldn’t do anything with it. These teams are all good enough to beat you if you don’t play well.”
On what he said about Jesse: “I called him the most improved player in the league. He was 210 or 205 when he came here, 215 last year and is now 228. Hughley was 240-250. Jesse never played basketball growing up and was on IMG’s JV team. He didn’t have the background or experience in basketball. If he did, he’d be even better.”
“Everybody on this team is trying. It‘s completely on the head coach. That’s a fact. I’m not picking on any players. If Joe didn’t play well, that’s what happened. But If we lose a game, it’s the program that lost the game. If people want me to take responsibility for it, I’ll take it. We make mistakes when we win, too, but nobody’s talking about it. The reasons are known.” He mentioned a couple of things and I missed on but the other was “a new front line”.
I called in my first question and JB was off and running. “We tried to get a fourth guard. Any good guard sin the portal want to start. Sy was from here and knew that he’d be asked to back up. Are you going to come here when we’ve got two veteran guards? We might have gotten a guard who couldn’t help us. Why do we need another guy who can’t play? We have 4 forwards and 3 centers. Most coaches want to keep it at 9-10. We’ve been at 10 for years. We have more than enough guys. We won the national championship with 9 players. We lost three good players to the portal and got three good players out of it. Our defense has been bad. Our offense has been good but was pathetic in the last game. We let two games get away from us and shouldn’t have lost to Colgate or Georgetown.”
“What I don’t think you and media people understand is that Steph Curry went 1 for 13 in a recent game but the Warriors still won that game because he had 8 rebounds and 9 assists. Guys miss shots sometimes. Cole Swider hasn’t played as well as we’d like, although he’s rebounding well. He had 12 good shots and made three. You have to play through a bad shooting night. Jimmy missed shots. Joe Missed shots. Buddy made some buckets but he missed some shots, too. We’ve beaten Indiana and Florida State, etc. We can beat these teams. Our next class is still a top 15-16 class in the country. [24th per 247] We’ve bene in the top 30. I think we’ve got a good team. We’ve just dug a deep hole for ourselves. We have 11 games left and a lot of opportunities. It’s never just the coach or one guy. It’s the team that wins and loses. But it’s my responsibility. We’ve had 45 good years and are now having a bad year. I’m good with that.” [By which I’m sure that he meant by that is that having 45 good years out of 46 is a good record, not that ‘he’s good’ with 9-11.]
Scott5 in Boston complained about Jim “calling out” his plays after games. He tried to go on about this but Jim kept saying “STOP! STOP!”. Matt finally got Scott to pause and Jim asked him “What did I say? Scott said that Jim had said “Jesse is as good as he can be after 3 years”. Jim: “That’s not what I said. I said he’s one of the best centers in the country and the most improved player in the league. He needs to be stronger.” Scott: “You said that Benny can’t help us.” Jim: “People ask me why he’s not playing. He’s not doing the things in practice or games he needs to do to play. That’s not calling out a player. I wasn’t that upset with Joe. He can’t just leave games when he’s not shooting well.” {By ‘leave’, I assume he means mentally checking out, not physically leaving.] “Saying he’s not trying hard is ‘calling out a guy’.”
Scott: “I don’t think we are getting as good as shot as we need to.” Jim: “We lack penetrating ability. Joe’s looks were all good. Jimmy’s shots are good. Cole had 12 good looks. In some situations, the shot clock is in play.” Scott: “Do you want Joe taking those step-back jumpers? Jim: “Against Clemson he took one of o those and it went in. Did you complain about that?” Scott: “He takes it too early in the shot clock.” Jim: “No, he doesn’t. He can make that shot. He makes it in practice.” Scott hung up and Jim said “Nothing he said makes any sense. You don’t get a great shot every time. We don’t have a lot of options past the 10-15 second mark.”
Josh in Boulder enjoys defense and wondered it it’s possible to win a game just with defense. [Intuitively, no. You can’t win with zero points.) Jim: “100%. But we’ve bene better defensively, bigger and stronger. Our national championship team beat Miami 49-46 on Super Bowl Sunday.” [54-49, actually.] “It was the worst offensive game I’ve even seen.” [Worse than 39-61 at Georgetown on 3/9/13?) “We scored the last 6 points to win.” [Which means you need offense, too.] The best we’ve ever played defense was beating Indiana and Washington [Marquette] to go to the Final Four in 2013.”
John in Liverpool wondered why we don’t get New York City kids anymore.” JB: “Because they aren’t in New York City anymore. They’re in prep school. It’s the same in Philadelphia. All the guys we recruited are in prep schools.”
John in Syracuse wonders why we aren’t focusing on getting to the line more and settling for jump shots. JB: “You just answered you own question. We aren’t great on the drive. Buddy does it 2-3 more times than before. Cole is not a driver. We’re still shooting more free throws than our opponents.” [384-306]
Batten down the hatches: Kyle in Lowville wonders why we stick with the zone. JB: “We’d be worse in man for man. We practice it and we’re not very good at it. We’re not really stopping anybody inside or out. Notre Dame shoots 42% from three and it’s all again man-for-man defenses. They shoot less against us because we focus on it.” Kyle suggested that playing the zone causes the NBA to be less interesting our players. JB: “The NBA drafts for offense. Anyone will tell you that. We had the most NBA draft picks when we were in the Big East. In recent years we haven’t had the talent level. But we’ve had guys drafted that nobody thought would be drafter – Jonny Flynn, Tyler Ennis, Oshae Brissett. When you lose, everybody wants to change. It’s a good thought but we might have won 4 games in a man for man.” [Which ones?] “For years we’ve recruited players for offense and taught them the zone. To play man-to-man, we’d have to recruit more athletic players and work with them all summer and fall. We’d have to switch to all man-to-man because there wouldn’t be time to learn the zone. It would take a couple of years. It’s not even something I’d think about. “
The women lost big again. “They’re just too small and don’t have the firepower.”
Jeff in Houston had some numbers. “We’ve been out-rebounded 6 of the last 7 years and out-assisted in 5 of 10. We have the lowest gap in assist ratio we’ve since [I didn’t write that one down for some reason]. Has the game changed?” JB: “You’re going to have some trouble rebounding in a zone. We are typically down 1-2 rebounds per game. That’s not going to turn the game. We force more turnovers. They get more assists because you have to pass against a zone. You can’t dribble.” [Unless it’s this year’s zone.] “If you’re driving, there’s no assist.” Matt said we were down 0.6 rebounds per game and up 1.0 turnovers a game. JB: “It’s usually more.”
“Wake Forest is playing the best in the conference. They are blowing teams out. NC State has bene up and down. Everybody has played well at times. It’s a balanced league. We just have to keep playing and try to get better and try to win.”
I’ll do the Gomez segments tomorrow but here are two bonuses: the answers to my second question and one I asked on Twitch:
About having rebounders on the lane for our 50% free throw shooters: “We just aren’t a good rebounding team. Our two biggest guys are the ones who struggle from the line. We’d have to put guards on the lane.”
On twitch I asked, with 5 freshmen coming in next years, are we going into the transfer portal to replace the starters we will lose this year. “There will be 2-3 freshman starters next year and all of them will play. I think Benny’s coming back next year and with Jesse, Frank, Joe and Symir that’s ten guys. We won’t need transfers.” FYT: 247 rated Benny the 32nd best recruit in the country. Next year’s class consists of #96 Chris Bunch, #108 Justin Taylor, #142 Quadir Copeland, #235 Malik Brown and #264 Peter Carey. Jim insists they are under-rated. I hope so. If we are going to get 3 starters and 5 rotation guys out of that, we’re in for an even bumpier ride than this year
