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 conference 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 probably do the second hour the following day.
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
First hour:
“Coach, last night made SU fans feel that anything is possible for this team. Two years ago I asked you if it would be a bad thing to go into the post-season undefeated because of the extra pressure. You said it would be a good thing to finish the regular season undefeated because a team that did that would be so confident that nobody would beat them in the NCAA tournament. We still have some serious challenges left but do you see the kind of confidence you described already forming in this team?“
Second hour:
“Coach, this has been one of our best rebounding teams but they’ve come up short, being out-rebounded by 11 in each game and giving up 16 offensive rebounds each time. Virginia Tech, the last place team in the league, out-rebounded them 43-28 and gave up only 6 offensive rebounds. Why can’t we rebound against Pitt the way the Hokies do?”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject)
Matt Park said that last night’s game was “A lot of fun for a lot of people.” JB: “Good game. Another easy one.” The fans were so enthusiastic and even grateful tonight that every caller started out with a congratulations and thanks for the coach and the team.
Jim said that with the UNC-Duke game postponed, “everyone was thinking about our game.” He wasn’t entirely satisfied with the team’s performance. He didn’t like the lapse on defense that put Zanna on the line with 4.4 seconds left. He felt “we should have forced them to try a jump shot”. He didn’t like the rebounding. But he really didn’t like our offense. “I’m worried that our offense should have been better. It’s no one thing- it just should have been better. …We didn’t play well and never got into a rhythm on offense. We kept trying to get back in it and never got control of the game.“
Matt noted that we’ve closed both Pitt games with 10-2 spurts to win it. He praised Ennis for getting a makeable shot off. “So many guys chuck it up at half-court when there’s still time left.” JB: “It’s hard to get down there, although Sulaimon got to the three point line against us….Tyler didn’t throw it in. It was a shot- a long shot, but a shot.” Do they practice that? “Guys practice it on and off but it’s not something we work on. We used to practice the full-court pass more but we don’t have a guy who can throw long and strong.”
“Sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t. We ran a play for CJ and he made a three. We got him in a iso and he made a jumper. He might have missed. We got a break when they were on the boards and we got a run-out. The defense should have held them to a jump shot. We played good defense the last 2-3 possessions before that. It was exciting but I would have liked for it to be easier.” Matt suggested that JB liked to win games with 10 seconds to go if he can. “Yes.”
Coach refused to second-guess Jamie Dixon on the time-out. “He’s a defensive coach first and foremost and he wanted to get his defense set. If we don’t make the shot, nobody is talking about it. We might have gotten the same shot anyway. Duke had no time-outs left. I don’t call a time-out if the other team doesn’t have one. We were looking at the long pass as our first option. CJ was one on one back there around the foul line. One bounce and he could be at the basket. We really wanted that.” Matt suggested it could have looked like the Christian Laettner or Conrad MacRae endings. Jim recalled that, before this the buzzer beaters we won on in games where we were behind were Conrad’s and GMAC’s against Cincinnati in New York, although the Bearcats had time for one more possession. Conrad’s was true buzzer-beater. “Any time you make a buzzer-beater it’s special – they don’t happen very often.” Matt said “You got some air on that jump shot . JB: “A Little.”
Pat praised “an unbelievable season and game” and asked about JB’s mindset. “I couldn’t believe the plays in the huddle and the smirking”. Jims aid “There’s nothing you can do about calls- and there were some crazy ones. I didn’t have a good view of it during the game but saw the call against Rak on Patterson on the tape. He was 2 feet away and couldn’t have touched him if he reached out. You just have to laugh about it or you will want to kill somebody. We all want to win. Some show it more than others. What a coach wants is control of his team. “ JB is no longer “The Whiner”. These day’s he’s “The Smiler”.
I called in my first question. He remembered his answer from two years ago and said “this team has a lot of confidence. If you make positive plays, you gain confidence by doing that. If Pitt had made some plays we wouldn’t have won, probably. Sometimes you make your breaks. Sometimes you get a break.”
Rob in Liverpool was “not quite sure how to ask this question”. JB: “Don’t worry. There’s no punishment here.” Rob: “It seems we don’t’ want to lose. When does it get to the point where you want to see how we will react?” JB: If you don’t lose, you don’t have to find out. If we do lose, we have to be grown up about it and get back to practice and try to get better. We don’t’ allow conversations about being undefeated. We are just thinking about NC State. Most players might have thoughts of other things but at game time it’s all about NC State.”
Later a caller named Joe “thought it was so bad that people want this team to lose.” They do? JB: “You won’t gain confidence, you’ll lose confidence. We don’t’ feel pressure. The NCAA is one and done. That’s the pressure. We may as well get used to it. We’re not uptight. We just want to keep winning.” Gomez asked if the player listen better after a loss. “We point things out after every game. They may listen more after a loss.” I remember Coach Mac saying that players listen better after a win. This team must have their ears wide open. “You have to play well to win and get into the tournament. Play 30 games and you should get better. That doesn’t mean you can’t stumble in the tournament. The more difficult games you have, the better prepared you are. This has been a good group to coach and they work and play very hard and people should be proud of them.”
Matt noted that North Carolina State had been making “positive plays” to win 5 of 6. TJ Warren scored 34 points to lead them over Wake Forest 82-67. He’s leading the conference in scoring with 23.1ppg, 8th in the country. The Wolfpack are now 16-8 and 6-5 in the conference. Another challenge.
They talked about the postponement of the Duke-UNC game which will be played at 9PM on Thiursday, 2/20. “There’s just no enough time to postpone games. I don’t know where we’d put one.“ Will NC State make it to Syracuse? “Things change quickly down there- it might be 50 degrees tomorrow….With this much notice I would think they would get someplace where they could get here. If they have a charter, it’s no problem. ”
Vito was impressed that “all the national shows are starting out with discussions of Syracuse basketball”. He asked if there was a “code of honor” about coaches criticizing coaches. In case there was, Vito ripped into Jamie Dixon for being “an incredibly sore loser”. JB called him “an incredibly poor handshaker”. Vito complained that Dixon “talked about a Hail Mary but why didn’t he tell Patterson to cover Fair?”
They talked about the rebounding problems. “Pittsburgh always positions one guy under the basket of offense, in the middle of our zone and it’s hard to move him out of there. You hope the ball bounces to one of the other two spots. It’s a problem in the zone but Clemson, one of the country’s top defensive teams, plays man to man and we got 13 offensive rebounds against them and scored 7-8 baskets off of them. Pitt knows they are going to miss a lot of shots so the give you trouble on the boards.” Matt noted that Pitt has out-rebounded us by 10 in their last 6 games against us, but that we’ve now won 4 of the last 5.
Vito says he’s already bought his tickets to Buffalo. JB hopes to see him there.
A caller named Jim asked if Coach Jim would be headed for the broadcast booth when he retires. Coach Jim: “I don’t think you should plan anything until you go. You’ll spend your time thinking about it. I’ve been coaching for 48 years, since I was 21. Do people normally do something for 48 years?
Stefan said “I wish every game could end like that one” Jim: “I don’t.” Stefan wanted to know if the team thinks about the undefeated streak or do they focus on one game at a time? Guess what the answer was. “They have confidence they can win because of the games they’ve won but they don’t think about streaks or rankings because that doesn’t help them. No matter how much you win, you make mistakes and we work on the mistakes. They know by game time that they are playing NC State.”
They talked about top teams around the country: “Florida is very good. They have a big game against Kentucky on Saturday. Arizona is still good. The Big Ten teams are good but they keep beating each other. It’s a tough league but then all the leagues are tough this time of year. You’ve got to give credit to Wichita State. There are a lot of 17-6 teams. There’s be 16 teams on the bubble battling for four spots.
Does Jim have a place to “go and scream” after the games? “I just go home and relax, do some reading. I watched the Beatles show which I have on tape. It takes a few days to get back on schedule and ready to get going again.” How was the Beatles show? “Really, really good. I wasn’t into music back then and I didn’t watch Ed Sullivan. But it was hyped so much I watched it anyway. It’s amazing that two people like John Lennon and Paul McCartney find their way together. George Harrison was good, too and Ringo Starr was good at what he did.“ Matt said “Ringo had an easy ride” and JB chuckled.
John congratulated Coach on “a great last 5-6 years. JB: “What about the 32 before that?” John was in Philadelphia for the 1980 NCAA games against Iowa when JB got a technical at a critical moment of the game. John was so mad a t Jim in that moment. JB: “After 4 bad calls in a row, you have to do something!”
What does he look for in recruiting? “Guys who are good and can get better. Guys who played on winning teams and are winners. Guys with good character and good families. Guys who work hard and have a chance to get better. You never know how 18 year olds are going to work out. We took Michael Carter-Williams really young and unrated….We’ve frequently turned down highly rated players who want to be stars and don’t’ play well with others. We have one active McDonald’s All-American. UNC and Duke have 7-8 of them. We’ve turned down 3-4 McDonald’s All-Americans because they wouldn’t be a good fit….we want guys who will listen to the coach and get along with their teammates and respect the game. Some guys can learn to fit in but it’s risky.”
How do you get them to wait their turn? “They aren’t great players at the start. Trevor Cooney gained weight and had to lose it. Michael had too many guys ahead of him and we had to get him to be patient. A lot of practice is individual work to get guys better. That move CJ uses- one dribble to setup the shot: we work on that every day.”
“We don’t know what is going to happen with Baye Moussa Keita. It could be 5 days. It could be 10 days. We have no idea and we are not going to say anything when we don’t even know.”
Matt mentioned that Dick LeBeau, the long-time Steelers defensive co-ordinator, is a big fan of Jim Boeheim’s, (they both love the zone), and he gave Matt Park a tour of the Steeler’s facilities. Dick, like Jim is a scratch golfer.
Matt said that he’s not going to bring up LeBron’s “Mt. Rushmore because the Mt. Rushmore concept is on the Mt. Rushmore of lame ideas.” He did ask about Derek Jeter. Jim: “In New York City it’s easy to make a mistake every two weeks. Derek Jeter did everything right for 20 years.”
Jeff in Mattydale said “It’s nice to see a team having lot of fun playing basketball.” JB: “You’d better be having fun at 24-0. A lot of 12-12 teams aren’t smiling too much.
Tomorrow: the Gomez segment, although much of it was included in the above due to similar subjects.
