BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2001

Jim Calhoun

COACH JIM CALHOUN: We came here against a very experienced, very good Syracuse team. They jumped on us early, and they did a terrific job. We came back with a miss at about 32 seconds, down two, and had a chance to get the ball. They get the ball, and we eventually follow them. They beat us by five up there. Tonight that was not the case. We never did get into a rhythm. They used their superior ball handling ability by putting five ball handlers on the court, made us play small. And we didn't get the kind of performances we thought - except for Taliek and Caron - I thought our team would have, and Johnny Selvie. Three young kids, three new kids, played terrific. The rest of us really got mismatched tonight by a team that truly showed what an experienced team could do with post-season play, and I thought played exceptionally well. Nineteen assists. Really, quite frankly, played terrific. We had no problem solving the zone up there. It was a different kind of game. Tonight we had more problems than we should have. Only guy who wanted to split it was Taliek, that made it unfortunate. Our big guys were catching the ball in the post and passing within two feet to each other. That's not exactly what we like to do. Bottom line: They came in, did the job we needed to. We came in, didn't do the job we needed to. Now we'll wait to see what happens on Sunday as far as where we play, what we want to do. I suppose we put ourselves in a position like a lot of other teams.

COACH JIM CALHOUN: We should have jumped on him earlier, decided to stay with the same matchup, didn't really work well for us. Preston is a first team All-League veteran player. He acted like a veteran player, made good plays, took good shots. We knew we weren't going to be able to hold Griffin and Williams down like we did last time, but we never thought Shumpert would almost duplicate exactly -- that's our fault. But he was terrific, I mean our fault -- you can't play in the zone. The guys said, "Well, he seemed like he was too deep." He's putting so many threes against us, we should probably know that.

COACH JIM CALHOUN: I think that you have to look at the whole season. That's what the committee does. I heard the chairperson of the committee talk about the fact that a December win, that's the only time you can play out-of-league games. So an Arizona win comes, we have wins over Top 30 teams. I look around the country and feel we can play very well in the NCA tournament. I didn't think we played well tonight but we've beaten Providence, certainly a good Notre Dame team, beaten a very good Boston College team, a very Arizona team and won six of our last nine games. Do I think we're in the state tournament? I don't make those choices. Do I think we're good enough to be? I think our league should get seven out of 14. Everybody's talking about the six out of nines in the ACC or six out of twelve from the seventh-rated conference in the country, the Big Twelve. Six out of nine is a lot. It's a high percentage. I think seven out of 14 teams are more than good enough to go. So I don't do all the numbers, but I do know this is one of those given years - major conferences we'll be sending a lot of folks, probably get seven out of the Big 10. Six, looks like six or seven out of the Southeast Conference. We do have a full team. Jim Boeheim and I talked about that years ago, the fact that when the Big East -- they said we only got five. Yeah, we only had nine teams. We have 14 teams now. I think the teams beat each other all season. We didn't have really a soft out in the entire league. I think that I don't feel all that much different. If we had won tonight, I would have felt better. Once again, I'm not making those decisions. Quality wins, we have them. Closed well, didn't play particularly well tonight. I don't think one game is going to hopefully model what we've done, but that's really up to the committee. They're going to make, I'm sure, great judgments regardless. Whatever they make, decisions, we'll obviously live with that.

COACH JIM CALHOUN: I'll just make a quick comment. The official said I said something to him which I never did. Then -- I won't -- bottom line is that I was -- I thought it was a key turning point of the game. That's the question. I wasn't misidentified. I said, "Call them both ways." I'll say it 1,000 times over, call them both ways. What was said back to me was entirely different. I know I have a tough Boston accent and slur my words occasionally, I know I yell occasionally. Trust me, what he said back to me had nothing to do with what I said. Some of the stands may have heard, but what he said to me back, apparently he heard something from someone else. I never heard what he said back behind me even. So it was a tough situation. Bottom line is the Syracuse team beat us with or without the officials.