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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: ST. LOUISMarch 19, 2016Jim BoeheimSt. Louis, Missouri THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the head coach of Syracuse, Jim Boeheim. Coach, an opening statement. JIM BOEHEIM: Well, I'm tremendously pleased the way we played the second half. We did a tremendous job on the boards, which obviously has been a weakness of ours this year. I thought that was a huge key in terms of winning the game and I just thought offensively we settled down the second half and got some good looks. Dayton's a very good basketball team. They've had a good year, a really good year. And they played in a very, very tough conference, and they won it. So it was a really good win, and we're thrilled to move on. Q. Coach, what are some of the challenges with playing not only a team that you're relatively unfamiliar with, but also with a short turnaround? JIM BOEHEIM: We know them. It doesn't matter their name. We know as much about them as we would know about any team in the country. We've seen 10, 15 different game tapes on them prior to this. We already had one assistant looking at those and breaking those down. So we've had their entire season, especially their zone offensive work, which is what we're concerned about, on tape before last night. So we're as familiar with them as we are any team we'll play in terms of what they do. Obviously watching them in person, I think the biggest thing was you were just impressed with the talent level of their players. I think Michigan State is a great team. I think they played a tremendous game offensively yesterday. I've seen Michigan State a few times this year. I thought they were sharp on offense. I thought they shot the ball well. Costello was 9-for-10 in the post. I thought offensively they played a great game. But Middle Tennessee, every time Michigan answered -- and they answered about five different times during the game where it was at eight, down to two, back to eight, down to four, back to eight -- they answered every single time. And that's not easy to do against a team like Michigan State. I just thought they played a fabulous game. It was as well played a game as I've watched all the games the last two days, and it was as well played a game as I've seen in the tournament. And when you came away from the game, there was no doubt that you felt, on that particular game, the best team won. It was from beginning to end the best they played. Q. Eighteen rebounds coming from Tyler Roberson. What you can say about how he can be a difference maker in those games this year especially when you needed him to do the most? JIM BOEHEIM: We need him to do it. That's why I was so disappointed with him at a couple of different stages in this season. And it's why -- and he knows this -- that's why what I said was right. And he deserved it, because he's letting himself down and the team down when he doesn't play like that. I mean, he's not going to get 18 rebounds every game, but he can't get two or four. We're not going to be successful with that. We don't expect him to get 18. Just things went that way. But we need him to be active and to be effective on defense, on offense and especially rebounding the basketball. And that's why the cause for me to have to get some message through to him. And we need him to perform at that level. I love the kid, but we need him to perform at that level. And when he doesn't, it makes it hard for us to win. Q. With all due respect to them, I think it's safe to say most people did not see Middle Tennessee State advancing past yesterday's game. All credit to them they did and they fully deserved that. I wanted to go back, you mentioned you had an assistant looking at Middle Tennessee State even before that game. Could you take me through the process; you get your bid, you see Michigan State is playing in the game that dictates your next opponent but you still put an assistant on Middle Tennessee State? JIM BOEHEIM: I put an assistant on Michigan State and on Middle Tennessee. Q. Who was it? JIM BOEHEIM: Adrian Autry was responsible for them and Gerry McNamara was responsible for Michigan State. I didn't even think about the game, to be honest with you, I didn't think about it the whole week. I didn't even give it a thought. I obviously have seen Michigan State. So I knew what they were. But I didn't think about it until the end of the game. I watched the game. So that was -- but those games don't help us that much, because it just doesn't help us. Scouting, we don't look at most games that people play. We only look at certain games. And we only need to know certain things. But I guess to get to what your question is, we come in and both guys prepare like we're going to play that team, up until the game's over. And then we all focus on what Middle Tennessee does. But it was clear to me -- I had talked to a pro scout, and he had told me, and some people had told him, that this was a very, very good team. And when you watch them play, it's pretty obvious that they're a very, very good team. My assistant told me the one stretch -- and I'm not positive on this, but I think that they lost three out of four games when the shooter didn't play. When he didn't play, I think they lost three games. And it would be like if Mike didn't play for us, we'd lose three out of four. We'd probably lose all four. But they're a very good team. I'm not -- if they were bad I'd be saying that, too. Or if they were lucky, I would be saying the same thing. But the truth is they're a really, really good offensive team. I didn't see any weaknesses on that team. They didn't turn it over. They made good plays when they had to. They made shots when they had to. And they did it multiple times. Michigan State came at them multiple times. It wasn't like they were ahead the whole game and Michigan State made a little run. They answered five or six times. And a different guy, different guy answering almost every time. It was really a great game to watch. I wouldn't have liked to have been coaching against them. But it was a great game to watch. Of all the games I've watched in the tournament -- and I've watched every one you can watch, it was the best game. Q. You said you watched Michigan State ten times, Dayton eight times. I'm curious at all this season you've seen Middle Tennessee, and what you know about their program and Kermit and just the benefit -- JIM BOEHEIM: I didn't watch Middle Tennessee on TV. They weren't on television. It's hard to watch somebody. I'm not going down there. But I watched them enough yesterday and in tapes last night to know as much about them as I need to know. Maybe I know too much about them, in fact. Q. Malachi Richardson committed to you really early. What did you like about him that young, and what's impressed you about him this season? JIM BOEHEIM: The good players do commit early usually. And he was a shooter. I mean, that was the thing. He could shoot the ball. He always has shot the ball. Like his mother says, Malachi can shoot the ball. If he was as tough as his mother he'd be really good, but that's another story. But he always could score. His weakness always was really putting the ball on the floor. And that's the one thing he's worked on this year with Gerry is the ability to put the ball on the floor and make plays. And that's where he's made a big growth jump, and next year he'll be playing guard all the time rather than small forward. And he'll have an opportunity to even get better. But he's a big-time shooter. He has a lot of confidence in himself on offense. And he's been good right from the jump, right from the first game. He's been probably -- you could say our most consistent player, shooter this year. I think the two freshmen have been tremendously consistent, Tyler Lydon and Malachi. Tyler Lydon the last 12, 14 games, probably averaged 14 points a game. Once he got over the fact that he's supposed to shoot, we want him to shoot. The two freshmen played great for us this year, there's no question about that. They've been tremendous. Q. Do you remember a team this year that threw as many defenses at you as Middle Tennessee did against Michigan State yesterday? JIM BOEHEIM: You know, they played a couple of different combination zones and very good man-to-man. They switch a lot. They hedge. They do different things in their defense. But we'll see -- we see some of that in the league, but not -- there's not as many teams, and teams haven't really played us much zone this year. We've seen a little bit. But we practice against a pretty good zone every day. So I think we'll be prepared for that. Q. If I did the math properly, this is the 100th NCAA Tournament game in the history of the program. And you've been around for almost all of those. It's Middle Tennessee's 11th. Do you have a reflection on what it was like back then when this wasn't routine? JIM BOEHEIM: Well, you know, the tournament in the beginning was completely different. It was a different animal. Going back to when I played, nobody even -- I don't think half the people at Syracuse knew we were in the tournament until we got to the regional finals. So it was a different world. And even early in coaching, you know, it just was different. And the tournament has become, unfortunately, become the season for especially the good teams, if you're a top 20 team, you think you should get to the Final Four. In fact, top 30 or something. Coaches are getting fired every day now because they don't get their team to the Sweet 16 or something. Especially for the good teams, everything hinges on what you do in the tournament. And it's just the way it is, really. There's nothing we're going to do to change it. I don't think it's right. But it's the way it is, because you get in a tournament and now more than ever you can be a really good team, have a great season and you run into a hot team and you're going home. I mean, I think 13 out of 24 or 11 out of 24 were upsets, I guess, so-called upsets yesterday or the worst team won, supposedly the worst team won. It's so even now. Two years ago we had a really good team. We played great the whole year. I think we won 25 straight games maybe, if I'm not mistaken. But we did lose to Boston College. So obviously we could lose. We played a very good Dayton team. We went 0-for-12 from the three-point line, and we made one shot outside of a layup in the game. We lost by two points, and you think it was the end of the world. It's just the way it is. That's just the way college basketball is. Not to take anything away from Dayton, they're a very good team. But when you miss shots, it's hard to win in this tournament, very hard. Q. You mentioned Middle Tennessee's zone offense which obviously you didn't get to see yesterday. From what you have seen how do they match up with what you do? JIM BOEHEIM: They've played against a lot of zone this year. A lot of teams zoned them for good reason; they're hard to guard. But they're good against the zone. It's the one point I would make. There's a lot of times you'll see a team that's really good against the man-to-man. They drive a lot and that's what they can do. Then they're not good against the zone. This team is very good against the zone. They pass the ball well. They have multiple shooters. They rebound it well. They've got good post players offensively. So this is a difficult team. If I played both defenses, it would be a toss-up which one I would play. Luckily I don't have to make those decisions. Q. Back in 1991, you went through something that Coach Izzo went through yesterday. JIM BOEHEIM: Yeah. We were the first one. We lost to a good Richmond team in Washington D.C. And they had the building, obviously, the fans. We hadn't been playing great at the end of the year. We had a lot of issues and we just didn't play very well. It's not a good feeling. But there's not much you can say about it. It's very difficult when you lose that game. Q. What would you tell Coach Izzo, because he looked like he had been run over by a bus yesterday? JIM BOEHEIM: Tom is a good friend of mine, I'm proud to say that. He's one of the best coaches I've ever seen or coached against. And not just tournament. He's just a great coach. And he's been incredible in the tournament. He usually finds a way to win even when he's in a tough game like that. But that team just played great. Michigan State came back at them time and time again. And there's not much you can say. You live with that loss for a long time. That's what you do when you lose in this tournament. I've lost more than a few games. But I finally realize that everybody loses in this tournament. Every coach, every team, every program, somewhere along the line you're going to lose in one of those games. It's not easy. But it's not easy when you lose when you're an underdog either in this tournament. Because you're done. So it's very difficult. Q. Was there a particular player that stuck out to you on tape yesterday from Middle Tennessee? I know Giddy Potts is mentioned. JIM BOEHEIM: The shooters. For us, it's always the shooters that we worry about. And he's as good a shooter as I've seen. I mean, I watched him shoot it. You really think it's a mistake if he misses. Something happened. Because even the tough shots he takes almost go in. I think about him. But they don't have a spot that's a weak spot, because to me I look at teams and we try to look for a weak offensive spot that our zone can not worry about too much. They can score at all five positions. The five guys on that team can score 20 points. And they probably have. I don't even have to look at them. But they're all capable of scoring 20, 25 points. And those are the teams that from a defensive standpoint, no matter what defense you play, those are the teams you always worry about. I used to talk to Coach Al McGuire all the time. He says we just try to find one guy that can't play, we don't guard him and we guard the other four with five. But they don't have that. They've got everybody that can score. Q. Coach, just any thoughts in general why there's so many, quote/unquote, upsets this year? JIM BOEHEIM: I've said this for a while. There's so many good players. My sons play AAU basketball. So all summer all I do is go to AAU basketball games. I've been going since they were in seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grade, all that, and see all these kids playing. All over the country we would travel and there were just so many good players. When we go out recruiting, it's not unusual. I walked into a gym last year and I saw this guy and said, who is recruiting him? They said not many schools. I said, well, he's good enough to play for Syracuse and it wasn't like he was an unknown player. He ended up getting recruited. And he'll be an all-league player where he's going. But there's just a lot of guys that can play. It doesn't matter what league you're in or who you are, the top schools, they're going to get their players, they're going to get good players. But there's a lot of other guys that are going to go and get together, and especially when they stay four years, in recruiting, if you didn't get any of the top, say, 50 players, 75 players, but you got 10 guys in the next group and they all stayed four years, you'd probably be better off. We're not smart enough to do that. But you'd almost be able to have a better, more consistent program if you did that. The problem is we took a couple of guys who were ranked in the 60-rang and they both left after one year. They were too good. They got too good to fast. But one and two years. But there's just a lot of good players. That's good for college basketball. It's bad for coaches because it all looks like such an upset when you lose. The coach is always going to get the blame. That's just the way it is and it's okay. But I watched Yale play the other day. They didn't look like an upset to me. They played great. I obviously watched the game here but watching the last couple of days some of these teams, they're just really, really good teams out there, and there's going to be a lot of those games, a lot of those so-called upsets, I guess. But there's good players, a lot of good players and there's a lot of good coaches. There's a lot of good coaches. Really good coaches, I think. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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