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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 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, in the wake of the Duke game a comment I’ve heard over and over is that it should have been a no-call: “Let the players decide the game”. It seems to me that not calling a foul is not a neutral decision. If you let players foul each other than their talent s will not decide the game. If it’s a foul with 10 minutes to go, it should be a foul with 10 seconds to go. Do you think the final minute of a game should be refereed any differently than the first 39 minutes?”
Second hour:
“Coach, everybody says that what counts is how the season ends: how far did we go in the NCAA tournament? There is no official ACC regular season championship. But playing an ACC schedule and coming out with more wins than anybody is still quite an accomplishment. How much would it mean to the players and the coach on the SU team to do that?”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject)
JB: “It’s cold outside”. Indeed, it is.
The immediately changed the subject and started talking about Virginia. “They are tremendous. With any kind of start they’d be in the top 5. They are playing tremendous basketball. Their defense is great but they are very good on offense, as well. They have a lot of strength inside, some big guards,. When they changed their point guard, everybody got on the same page. The only game they’ve lost since was against Duke in Cameron when a three pointer bounced way up and back in. Otherwise they’d be unbeaten in the conference.” Matt described their loss to Tennessee as a “teaching moment”. JB: “Teams come together and play great and that’s what they’ve done. People are missing the boat. They are a strong defensive team but they are a very good offensive team. They have good shooters and rebound well. They are one of the absolute elite teams in the country. To be 15-1 in this conference you have to be really good.”
Matt commented that Jim had been to Cameron. JB: “For a while.” That led to a discussion of the end of the Duke game and JB’s reaction. I felt it was a block and that’s how you react in those situations. We were never going to be down 2 with ten seconds left. We would have fouled immediately on the in-bounds and Duke, being a good free throw shooting team was more likely to make two than miss two. In fact, they did make two.”
“One thing we could have done better is shoot. The game is so much easier when you make shots. We made shots early against Maryland and got up 10. This team is remarkable for the comebacks we have made. With close games it’s one thing if you have been ahead the majority of the time, as at Maryland . But we were behind against Pittsburgh, Miami and Boston College, (both games) and NC State and Duke and came back to win. There’s a big difference.”
They discussed the game on TV: Arkansas at Kentucky. The Razorbacks needed a big win- probably a couple- to have a shot at the NCAA tournament. “Kentucky is paying some 2-3 zone. They are long and big- bigger than we are, 6-11, 6-10, 6-6 guards. But he gets out of it pretty quick when they make a shot against it. I talked with him about the zone earlier in the year, But you go back to your natural instincts.”
I called in my first question about whether the game should be officiated in the final minute the same way it was officiate din the 39 minutes before that. “Absolutely. It might be a little less. If it’s just a touch. But if it’s just a touch, you shouldn’t call a foul at any time. That play has been a block all year. Mike Gbinije earlier had gotten there earlier than Hood did and got called for a block. CJ started his upward motion. Before if a guy was there first it would be a charge regardless of upward motion. They’ve been calling it a block with upward motion all year. “
“We point things out all year- the calls, the schedule, injuries. But it’s not an excuse. It doesn’t matter. You have to try to win the game anyway.”
Matt said that the SU-Duke game was the highest rated cable TV show of the week. JB said that the two SU-Duke games were the highest rated college basketball games of the year “by a wide margin. Duke had won 30 straight games at home. We didn’t shoot well and still had a chance to win at the end.”
He praised Trevor Cooney’s play in the Maryland game, despite all the shots he missed. “Trevor’s steal when he was the only man back was a great play and I’m told his pass to Tyler in the lane was the #1 highlight on Sports Center.” Matt noted that Tyler was being praised for anticipating that pass. “A great play all around. T hen there was Baye getting back on defense. Think of that play Page made off of a made free throw against NC State and he scored. Maryland got it in transition and Baye made the play. We missed him in the BC game.” Was there a foul at the end of the Maryland game? “No, there was almost no contact.”
Will Jerami Grant be able to play against Virginia? “We’ll see about Jerami. He has some soreness. He’s not going to play if he’s got no movement. If your back is hurt you can’t jump and run. We think he can play. But we want to keep him healthy.”
Matt went to the questions he’d received via Twitter, “which is always a crap shoot”. An S. Revette asked for a comparison of the ACC to the old Big East. JB: “Similar physical, a lot of physical teams. Close, tough, physical games. Tough home courts. Nothing has come as a surprise.”
Someone else wondered why we don’t “keep going to the basket when we are ahead”. JB: “In the last 4-5 minutes we are going to take time off the clock. If we hadn’t made tow really bad turnovers against Maryland we’d have been ahead by 4-5 points at the end. You can’t plan strategy based on turnovers. They had only 10 seconds at the end instead of 25-30 seconds. That doesn’t mean you don’t try to score. Somebody on the radio said I told Trevor, (did he mean Tyler), not to fast break. He was 1 on 2 and it would have been poor clock management. The clock is your best friend in the game. If you are up 4 with a minute and a half to play and there are no turnovers, you are going to win.” (Better make your free throws, too. )
Chris in Rome wanted to talk Xs and Os with the coach. He wondered why we never run high screens for Trevor Cooney, just low screens, saying that Gerry McNamara and Andy Rautins scored a lot off of high screens. JB: “We call it the ‘2’ play and still use it. We have a couple of other middle screen plays. Teams have seen that and are jumping it. We got Trevor 10 good looks against Maryland. He made his first two and we thought he was going to make 5-6 of them but he missed 8 in a row, then made a really tough turn-around. We have a few penetration and kick-out plays. Trevor doesn’t get his shot off as quickly as Gerry or Andy. Gerry had the quickest release we ever had. Andy was 6-7 so he could shoot over people. Trevor needs to be better putting it on the floor and driving so he can get to the foul line. He’s our best free throw shooter. There are some benefits to them playing him tough- it opens things up for other players. If we get him 10 shots, he should hit four and could hit six. His defense is good. Tyler and Trevor are leading the league in steals.”
Arkansas had a 12 point lead over Kentucky. “This is college basketball- it’s crazy.” They talked about how the teams we played in Maui were doing. Baylor had a four game winning streak. Minnesota “could be a tourney team”. California “is funny- they’ve slipped a bit. All three are right on the edge of the tourney.”
Jim in Syracuse liked “Tyler Ennis’ faster pace and more aggression.” He said it opens things up for Trevor Cooney., JB: “He needed to score with Jerami out, CJ in foul trouble and Trevor missing shots. He’s a very capable scorer. “
Jim, (the caller), thought the call at the end of the Duke game was “gutless. It cheated everybody. I’m glad you reacted as you did. The right call would have been a no call.” JB: Thank you. It was disappointing. Sometimes games end like that. You don’t want the game to end on a call- you want it to end on a play. We could have had it end on Duke’s possession or in overtime.” Matt said that many fans said they were doing the same thing in their living rooms that the coach did on the court. Jim laughed at that. He wondered if Jim was “sticking it to the old guard of the ACC”. “Not a chance.” Did he get a text after the game from Gary Williams. Another chuckle. “Referees try to be fair and objective. No referee is going to try to get Duke calls. I’ll reserve judgment until we have a few games with Duke. They got a little bit better of the refereeing. But that’s normal on the road.”
Arkansas was up by 12 late in the first half. “Both teams are playing zone now.”
Will Wichita State win out? “They are a tremendous team. They went to the Final Four last year and could have beaten Louisville. And they may be better this year. I don’t care who they’ve played. They are an elite team. “ Arizona has “figured out who they are without Ashley. NC State would be in the NCAAs but for two plays. The Big Ten is really good. It’s just that they are all beating each other. “
Next week’s show will be the last of the season.
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, in the wake of the Duke game a comment I’ve heard over and over is that it should have been a no-call: “Let the players decide the game”. It seems to me that not calling a foul is not a neutral decision. If you let players foul each other than their talent s will not decide the game. If it’s a foul with 10 minutes to go, it should be a foul with 10 seconds to go. Do you think the final minute of a game should be refereed any differently than the first 39 minutes?”
Second hour:
“Coach, everybody says that what counts is how the season ends: how far did we go in the NCAA tournament? There is no official ACC regular season championship. But playing an ACC schedule and coming out with more wins than anybody is still quite an accomplishment. How much would it mean to the players and the coach on the SU team to do that?”
COACH BOEHEIM
(I have, in some instances, put together statements from different parts of the broadcast on the same subject)
JB: “It’s cold outside”. Indeed, it is.
The immediately changed the subject and started talking about Virginia. “They are tremendous. With any kind of start they’d be in the top 5. They are playing tremendous basketball. Their defense is great but they are very good on offense, as well. They have a lot of strength inside, some big guards,. When they changed their point guard, everybody got on the same page. The only game they’ve lost since was against Duke in Cameron when a three pointer bounced way up and back in. Otherwise they’d be unbeaten in the conference.” Matt described their loss to Tennessee as a “teaching moment”. JB: “Teams come together and play great and that’s what they’ve done. People are missing the boat. They are a strong defensive team but they are a very good offensive team. They have good shooters and rebound well. They are one of the absolute elite teams in the country. To be 15-1 in this conference you have to be really good.”
Matt commented that Jim had been to Cameron. JB: “For a while.” That led to a discussion of the end of the Duke game and JB’s reaction. I felt it was a block and that’s how you react in those situations. We were never going to be down 2 with ten seconds left. We would have fouled immediately on the in-bounds and Duke, being a good free throw shooting team was more likely to make two than miss two. In fact, they did make two.”
“One thing we could have done better is shoot. The game is so much easier when you make shots. We made shots early against Maryland and got up 10. This team is remarkable for the comebacks we have made. With close games it’s one thing if you have been ahead the majority of the time, as at Maryland . But we were behind against Pittsburgh, Miami and Boston College, (both games) and NC State and Duke and came back to win. There’s a big difference.”
They discussed the game on TV: Arkansas at Kentucky. The Razorbacks needed a big win- probably a couple- to have a shot at the NCAA tournament. “Kentucky is paying some 2-3 zone. They are long and big- bigger than we are, 6-11, 6-10, 6-6 guards. But he gets out of it pretty quick when they make a shot against it. I talked with him about the zone earlier in the year, But you go back to your natural instincts.”
I called in my first question about whether the game should be officiated in the final minute the same way it was officiate din the 39 minutes before that. “Absolutely. It might be a little less. If it’s just a touch. But if it’s just a touch, you shouldn’t call a foul at any time. That play has been a block all year. Mike Gbinije earlier had gotten there earlier than Hood did and got called for a block. CJ started his upward motion. Before if a guy was there first it would be a charge regardless of upward motion. They’ve been calling it a block with upward motion all year. “
“We point things out all year- the calls, the schedule, injuries. But it’s not an excuse. It doesn’t matter. You have to try to win the game anyway.”
Matt said that the SU-Duke game was the highest rated cable TV show of the week. JB said that the two SU-Duke games were the highest rated college basketball games of the year “by a wide margin. Duke had won 30 straight games at home. We didn’t shoot well and still had a chance to win at the end.”
He praised Trevor Cooney’s play in the Maryland game, despite all the shots he missed. “Trevor’s steal when he was the only man back was a great play and I’m told his pass to Tyler in the lane was the #1 highlight on Sports Center.” Matt noted that Tyler was being praised for anticipating that pass. “A great play all around. T hen there was Baye getting back on defense. Think of that play Page made off of a made free throw against NC State and he scored. Maryland got it in transition and Baye made the play. We missed him in the BC game.” Was there a foul at the end of the Maryland game? “No, there was almost no contact.”
Will Jerami Grant be able to play against Virginia? “We’ll see about Jerami. He has some soreness. He’s not going to play if he’s got no movement. If your back is hurt you can’t jump and run. We think he can play. But we want to keep him healthy.”
Matt went to the questions he’d received via Twitter, “which is always a crap shoot”. An S. Revette asked for a comparison of the ACC to the old Big East. JB: “Similar physical, a lot of physical teams. Close, tough, physical games. Tough home courts. Nothing has come as a surprise.”
Someone else wondered why we don’t “keep going to the basket when we are ahead”. JB: “In the last 4-5 minutes we are going to take time off the clock. If we hadn’t made tow really bad turnovers against Maryland we’d have been ahead by 4-5 points at the end. You can’t plan strategy based on turnovers. They had only 10 seconds at the end instead of 25-30 seconds. That doesn’t mean you don’t try to score. Somebody on the radio said I told Trevor, (did he mean Tyler), not to fast break. He was 1 on 2 and it would have been poor clock management. The clock is your best friend in the game. If you are up 4 with a minute and a half to play and there are no turnovers, you are going to win.” (Better make your free throws, too. )
Chris in Rome wanted to talk Xs and Os with the coach. He wondered why we never run high screens for Trevor Cooney, just low screens, saying that Gerry McNamara and Andy Rautins scored a lot off of high screens. JB: “We call it the ‘2’ play and still use it. We have a couple of other middle screen plays. Teams have seen that and are jumping it. We got Trevor 10 good looks against Maryland. He made his first two and we thought he was going to make 5-6 of them but he missed 8 in a row, then made a really tough turn-around. We have a few penetration and kick-out plays. Trevor doesn’t get his shot off as quickly as Gerry or Andy. Gerry had the quickest release we ever had. Andy was 6-7 so he could shoot over people. Trevor needs to be better putting it on the floor and driving so he can get to the foul line. He’s our best free throw shooter. There are some benefits to them playing him tough- it opens things up for other players. If we get him 10 shots, he should hit four and could hit six. His defense is good. Tyler and Trevor are leading the league in steals.”
Arkansas had a 12 point lead over Kentucky. “This is college basketball- it’s crazy.” They talked about how the teams we played in Maui were doing. Baylor had a four game winning streak. Minnesota “could be a tourney team”. California “is funny- they’ve slipped a bit. All three are right on the edge of the tourney.”
Jim in Syracuse liked “Tyler Ennis’ faster pace and more aggression.” He said it opens things up for Trevor Cooney., JB: “He needed to score with Jerami out, CJ in foul trouble and Trevor missing shots. He’s a very capable scorer. “
Jim, (the caller), thought the call at the end of the Duke game was “gutless. It cheated everybody. I’m glad you reacted as you did. The right call would have been a no call.” JB: Thank you. It was disappointing. Sometimes games end like that. You don’t want the game to end on a call- you want it to end on a play. We could have had it end on Duke’s possession or in overtime.” Matt said that many fans said they were doing the same thing in their living rooms that the coach did on the court. Jim laughed at that. He wondered if Jim was “sticking it to the old guard of the ACC”. “Not a chance.” Did he get a text after the game from Gary Williams. Another chuckle. “Referees try to be fair and objective. No referee is going to try to get Duke calls. I’ll reserve judgment until we have a few games with Duke. They got a little bit better of the refereeing. But that’s normal on the road.”
Arkansas was up by 12 late in the first half. “Both teams are playing zone now.”
Will Wichita State win out? “They are a tremendous team. They went to the Final Four last year and could have beaten Louisville. And they may be better this year. I don’t care who they’ve played. They are an elite team. “ Arizona has “figured out who they are without Ashley. NC State would be in the NCAAs but for two plays. The Big Ten is really good. It’s just that they are all beating each other. “
Next week’s show will be the last of the season.
