|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE OPERATION BASKETBALLOctober 29, 2014Jim BoeheimCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA Q.  Talk about Trevor Cooney and Rakeem; what can you say about their demeanor and their poise going into the season? JIM BOEHEIM: You know, both guys have had tremendous starts to their careers. They really have. Trevor is in his fourth year. He's only a junior eligibility‑wise, but he's been with us four years, and of course Rak has been with us four years. They've brought a lot to the program, but I believe that they've got a lot more in them. I just think they'll have tremendous years this year. They've been great in practice. Their leadership has been great, along with Mike Gbinije, another four‑year player, we've got three guys that have been in college basketball for four years, and that's probably better than a lot of teams in terms of experience, and obviously we need our young guys to play well, but that's pretty much true of every program in the country. Q. You've got a year under your belt now in the ACC. What was the biggest thing you learned playing in this conference? JIM BOEHEIM: I just thought it was a great experience. I really thought, you come from a great conference and you're in a great conference. A lot of times you'll see a different level, something like that. It wasn't like that at all. It was a great conference. We had great games in the conference from top to bottom. There really were no easy games in the league last year. I mean, we had a great start, but we're really winning games by the thinnest of margins against everybody, not the good teams‑‑ not just the good teams, but everybody. It was a constant battle. I think we expected that going in. It wasn't anything that was unexpected, but it was just a great year in terms of competition within this league and pretty much what you would expect coming in. Q. You lost a lot of key players from last year. What will be this team's identity, and then if you had to name one player that would be an X factor, who would that player be? JIM BOEHEIM: Well, that's a great‑‑ you made a great point. We've lost more than we've ever lost in terms of our offensive production. I didn't know that until I read that someplace the other day. But obviously our two freshmen have to step up. Last year we had a freshman point guard at this time of the year, we were asking him to step up, and it's the same thing this year. We have a freshman point guard that needs to step up. Certainly as I mentioned, our veteran players are going to have to be there, but it's not any one guy. It's really the group of young players that we have. They really all have to step up a little bit. Q. Kaleb Joseph will be your starting point guard at this point; is that pretty much the case? JIM BOEHEIM: We haven't said that yet, but yeah, I think that's a pretty good‑‑ he's the only point guard we have. I guess he'd better start. Q. With the way Tyler developed last year and became one of the great clutch players in the ACC, I know it's real early and maybe you don't have the answer to this yet, but does Kaleb have any similarities to that? JIM BOEHEIM: Well, if you watch practice this year and you watch what Kaleb has done and you watch practice last year and you watch Tyler, you would think, man, these guys are both good players. They both play‑‑ they're both good. You wouldn't necessarily think, well, there's a big difference. They play a little differently, but they both have a big impact on practice. They make good plays, good decisions. I think the difference, and this is something you never know, when the games started, Tyler rose‑‑ took his game up to another level. He played even better. Usually that's unusual for a freshman to actually play a lot better in games, in big games, than he would in practice. But that's what he was able to do, and I think Kaleb certainly has the tools and the ability to do that. It's just, let's see how it all goes, see how the games come. Tyler Ennis, he led the league, a very good conference, in assists and steals and assist‑to‑turnover ratio. He just had an unbelievable freshman year. I think Kaleb Joseph is certainly capable of doing things like that, and we would certainly like to see that. Q. With the hearing coming up tomorrow, is there a hope that it's finally all going to be over? Is there a sense of nervousness or concern? JIM BOEHEIM: As you well know, I'm not going to talk about that. Q. Mike Krzyzewski was talking about his relationship with you through USA Basketball a little while ago, and I was just wondering, I know on the court you guys are trying to beat each other's brains in, but between you and Mike and Roy and now with Rick coming into the league, guys who have been around a while, do you have any kind of bond off the court that kind of precludes the whole competition on it? JIM BOEHEIM: You know, everything off the court‑‑ I've been playing golf with Roy Williams for over 30 years. We started playing golf together at least 30‑plus years ago, and I hired Rick Pitino 38 years ago, 39, and I've known and been good friends with Mike for 30‑some years. When we play, I'm trying to beat Duke. I don't think about Mike. I really don't. I'm worried about the guys they've got on the court and how they're doing. It's not head to head in the sense that everybody else thinks it is. It really isn't. It's not ever about that. I'm trying to coach against Duke's players. Mike is making no shots. He's making no passes. We're trying to beat Duke in every way we can, and he's trying to beat Syracuse in every way he can. That's what we are. That's what we're about. There's no coaches in this business that aren't competitive. There might be some of us that take it to another level, because I never let my daughter beat me in Candyland, and I never would, and she knows that. Q. Coach Williams on the golf course, who wins on the golf course? JIM BOEHEIM: We don't even disclose our golf games anymore. At one time we actually could play. Now we're not good enough to even worry about it. Q. When you look at the committee of B.J. Johnson and Tyler Roberson and Chris McCullough coming in new, what can you say about them in practice and how they're gelling together? JIM BOEHEIM: Well, you know, everybody looks good in practice. I think sometimes we get fooled a little bit, and we forget they're playing against each other. They're doing what they can do. They're working hard. I'm happy with what they've done. But you know, you really don't know about your players individually or you really don't know about them as a team until they come together, until they get in competition. I'm excited, Sunday we're playing a team that should have beat us last year. We had a pretty good team last year, and they should have beat us. They were 10 points with four minutes, three minutes to go in the game, and they're better this year. We're playing an exhibition game against a team that's better than us, I think. Hopefully that'll be a good kind of a benchmark for what we need to do, and it's always good for players to see that, because players think they're good. Sometimes that's why losses really help you more than wins. When players win games, they think they're good. Even if they didn't play well, even if it was a bad team. When they lose, they look in the mirror and they start to realize they've got to do something to get better. But I'm happy with what our freshmen and sophomores‑‑ they've worked hard, they've put the work in, they really have given every effort. There's been nothing that I would ask them to do that they haven't done. Q. As a coach, do you feel it's hard to build a program with players one‑and‑done and then moving on to the pros? JIM BOEHEIM: That's just the landscape now in college basketball. Guys are going to leave. You have to try to prepare for that. We've been pretty successful in doing that. When Carmelo left, we had Hakim and Gerry. We had replacements. When Wes Johnson left, we had replacements. This year Tyler is leaving. We do have a point guard that we think is good. You'd obviously always like for those guys to stay a little bit longer, but that's the nature of college basketball. You have to be prepared for it. I remember one year we brought in a couple freshmen because we thought we really needed them, and then two guys stayed that we thought would leave, so we had an extra guy or two that year. It's hard to balance it. Q. Over the years you've wanted Rakeem to be more aggressive, more assertive. Do you feel like this is the year that he finally does that for you? And how much more important will it be this year given the fact that you have a lot of young guys? JIM BOEHEIM: Well, Rakeem, you know, has been in a position where even last year, C.J. Fair was our first option on offense, and Trevor was always a big guy that we wanted to get going, and then Tyler started to be more offensive minded as the year went along, and Jeremy was‑‑ so Rakeem was really down the list in terms of options. I don't think we've really been able to get a good indication of just how good he is offensively because we have not really got him the ball as we got those other guys the ball. And that's not unusual for a big guy. Arinze didn't get the ball very much until his last year. I think Rak will have a good year this year offensively because he'll get the ball, and I think he's more ready for that role, and I think he will be aggressive. I think last year at the end of the year when Baye didn't play, he learned how to play 30 minutes, 35 minutes a game. So I think he understands what he has to do to be in the game for 30‑35 minutes. I think he's better offensively and I think he'll get the ball in more situations this year. He had more shots in a scrimmage the other day than he's had since he's been here in a scrimmage. So I think he's prepared for that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|