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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SALT LAKE CITYMarch 21, 2019Jim BoeheimElijah HughesTyus BattleSalt Lake City, Utah Baylor - 78, Syracuse - 69 THE MODERATOR: We welcome Syracuse representatives to the stage along with Coach Boeheim. We have Tyus Battle and Elijah Hughes. We will ask Coach to give a brief opening statement, then we will turn it over to student-athletes and then once they have left the stage, we'll turn it over to questions for Coach Boeheim. JIM BOEHEIM: Both teams shot the ball extremely well. They made a couple at the end and we missed a couple at the end. We couldn't stop their offense and they really couldn't stop ours. And it ended up when they got a couple open threes at the end and we got a couple, we missed ours and they made them, and they deserved the win. THE MODERATOR: Let's take questions for Tyus Battle and Elijah Hughes, please. Q. This question is for Tyus. Now the season is officially in the books, what can you tell us about your future in Syracuse? TYUS BATTLE: I'm not making any decisions. I'm not worrying about that right now. I mean, this was a tough loss for us. I thought we did a pretty good job offensively. We have to do a better job defensively. They got way too many threes. It was just a tough loss. Q. You had a great first half and then went a long time without scoring in the second half. Were you not feeling well? You went to the bench at one point because you got a bloody nose. Did they change their defense on you? What was going on? ELIJAH HUGHES: Nothing necessarily. Tyus got going a little bit so he took over and did his thing and I started getting in the rhythm a little bit as the half went on. Q. Tyus, how much did you guys miss Frank's defense out there? Mason had a big game for them. Was that a factor? TYUS BATTLE: No. I'm not going to leave it on one person. We have to do a better job as a team finding shooters and keeping the guys in front of us. I'm not going to keep it on one person like that. Q. It's not the end you want, but your first season in Syracuse, what will you remember from your first year? ELIJAH HUGHES: How resilient this team is. We never put our heads down really all year. A lot of times people counted us out certain games. We knew we had a chance and we went out and competed. Probably how resilient this team is. THE MODERATOR: We will dismiss the student-athletes and when they have left the stage, we will direct questions to Coach Boeheim. Thank you, guys. Questions for Coach, please. Q. Jim, do you agree with Tyus's assessment that, you know, you guys didn't miss Frank as much as the rest of us thought? JIM BOEHEIM: Obviously, we missed him. He is our point guard. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses. He isn't here. Would we have liked to have had him? Yeah. THE MODERATOR: More questions for Coach. Q. Jim, what did you see from your defense? Your two-three usually creates problems for teams this time of year, especially for teams that don't see it. JIM BOEHEIM: They are a smart team. They are good against zones. They play zone. They got the ball in the middle and used the guys as passers, and we didn't cover it as well as we needed to. Both guards have to key it, which way they go. And that's where our inexperience probably hurt the most because we didn't really make the right rotations, and that's a little bit of the inexperience of having a freshman out there. Q. Jim, how do you have to change what you do without Frank on the floor? JIM BOEHEIM: Well, Tyus had played some points, so offensively, I thought we handled everything pretty well. We attacked their zone well when they changed to the zone, we attacked their man-to-man pretty well. It puts a huge strain on Tyus. He gets no chance to rest a little bit. I think he got tired a little bit at the end because he's got to do so much with the ball. But I thought offensively we were fine. We played as well offensively as we played for the most part. Defensively, that's where it hurt us. It hurt us on the defensive end. We rebounded pretty well. We handled the ball pretty well. We moved the ball well. You know, we shot the ball extremely well. It's, you know -- we wanted to get to the foul line and we did that. But we needed to make a couple of threes in there when the run went on. The advantage of trying to get to the basket is to get to the free-throw line, which we did, but we just didn't get there enough, really. Q. Jim, considering what you brought back, the pieces you added, how would you describe this season? Are you disappointed with the year you guys have had? JIM BOEHEIM: I think you are always disappointed when you lose in a tournament, if you think you had a chance to win. We obviously had a chance to win the game tonight. You know, it's been an up-and-down year. We started out really poorly, and even though we lost to some pretty good teams early, Oregon is a good team especially with Bol Bol. And obviously Buffalo is and Old Dominion, they're tough teams. We played pretty consistently in the league, we beat the teams we were supposed to. We upset Duke obviously, and upset with Ohio State at Ohio State. Those were good ones. It was a solid year. It just wasn't the year I think we would have liked to have had. I thought these kids, I thought everybody played well. I think with Buddy coming in, Elijah coming in their first years, Marek and Oshae are sophomores. But I think we didn't have the consistency from the beginning, missing Frank for a long time and then obviously at the end. So, it wasn't the year I think it could have been. But all in all, considering everything, I would say it's been a solid year. Q. Coach, you have enjoyed great success, particularly in the first round of the NCAA tournament. You are dealing with a disappointed locker room. How would you summarize the message you gave to your team a few minutes ago? JIM BOEHEIM: It's what I have said right here. I thought we got off to a really bad start from this game and dug ourselves back into it. Really played well 30-some minutes, we had the lead and we had two defensive breakdowns, we gave two wide-open threes and we couldn't get back from that. We come back the whole game from the beginning, you know, in the half, even the second half came back. But we just couldn't get enough done in the defensive end tonight. And again, when a team shoots like that, obviously they're going to make -- they are a pretty good shooting team. But guys that don't shoot a lot go three-for-three and they bank the three in the first half, they banked the foul line shot that hit the top of the backboard and went in. Those things sometimes happen and those are sometimes, those are sometimes hard to overcome. We played well offensively for a long time tonight. Then we missed two key free throws when it was obviously still close and then we missed the lay-up. And we are still right there. But they made a couple of big threes at the end. That was the difference in the game. But considering the circumstances, we played really well. And nobody's happy when you lose. But Baylor's a really difficult team for us to play against. They pass it well and they shoot it well. And Mason is a really accomplished veteran point guard and he knows where the ball should be. And he can shoot it, too. So, it was difficult for us. Probably of any team other than the one-seeds in the tournament, or two, Baylor is a harder team for us to play than anybody else that was three, four, five, six, seven. I would almost rather have played anybody. But they just really -- I mean, they might not make 16 if we played them, but they'd make 12 I think. They are good, they are a really good shooting team. And we knew that coming in. We tried to adjust our defense outward. But that's where the inexperience at the guard spot hurt us the most in the defensive end. Okay? THE MODERATOR: Last question. Q. I was wondering what your thoughts are on Buddy's performance tonight. JIM BOEHEIM: He struggled offensively, but I'd expect that from a freshman. I'm not sure -- where are you from? Q. Citrus TV. JIM BOEHEIM: Where? Q. Syracuse. JIM BOEHEIM: I should have known that. The first question, I should have known that. Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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