NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

April 7, 2003

Carmelo Anthony

Jim Boeheim

Kueth Duany

Gerry McNamara

COACH BOEHEIM: I thought, you know, Gerry and Carmelo started out -- you know, they just free-wheeled it. They looked for their shots, they were loose. You know, they just got us off to a great start. I thought Kansas shows just how great a program they have, how great a team they have, and how great a coach they have because I think anybody else would have been done, the way we shot the ball in the first half. When they came back right away in the second half, I thought our kids showed what they're made of because they came right back right away and got it to four, three. Whenever that's happened this year, these guys have made plays. I thought we just kind of hung on at the end. I was getting some flashbacks about missed free-throws there a couple times. I guess maybe this building owed us one game. But Kansas played -- made an unbelievable effort to get back at us. I thought both teams were running out of gas there. That can contribute to some missed shots and some just, you know, mistakes. Both teams gave it everything they had for 40 minutes. We were fortunate that we still had the lead at the end of the game.

CARMELO ANTHONY: I mean, all my hard work, everything I did in the gym from pre-season, all of it just paid off tonight. Winning the national championship, it ain't sunk in yet now. I haven't felt it now. Probably tonight.

COACH BOEHEIM: Gerry, if he makes one, he thinks he's going to make them all. Of course, if he misses one, he thinks he's going to make them all. I guess it doesn't really matter (smiling). He's going to look for his shots. I could see he had it tonight. He was shooting past NBA for a couple of them. When he gets it going, players have a lot of confidence in him. They look for him. You know, he had it going. He ran out a gas a little bit. Carmelo I think got banged a little bit, ran out of gas. I thought really the key of the basketball game was Carmelo is hard to guard. He got Langford in foul trouble. Langford was killing us on offense. It's hard to kill you when you're in foul trouble. Everybody that's played him has got in foul trouble. There's no way to guard him unless you do. I thought that was a big key in the game.

GERRY McNAMARA: Absolutely. You know, I've had some tough games this year, you know, shooting the ball. You know, the hardest thing is to keep your confidence. You know, last game I shot the ball pretty well. So, you know, our confidence as a team was sky high, especially me, you know, shooting the ball I felt really good. Coming in, I tried to look for the shot early.

GERRY McNAMARA: Well, the first thing on my mind was, you know, hit the sixth. That's the way you have to look at things. They're a tough team. We knew whatever we did, they were going to fight back. You know, it was just a matter of holding on to our lead in the second half. I thought every open shot that I would get, I would have to make.

CARMELO ANTHONY: Well, I paid a physical toll the whole tournament, the whole season this year. Everybody was beating me up. I kind of hurt my back early in the first half after I made probably my second three. I probably hurt my back. It's been hurting all day. Coach told me to tough it out, so that's what I kind of did.

GERRY McNAMARA: No. As Carmelo said, it hasn't sunk in yet. You know, it's unbelievable, you know, to think around this time last year I'm playing in high school for a state championship. Now, you know, we're national champs. You know, that's hard to believe. You know, I'm sure when we go back to the hotel tonight, thousands of people are tipping over our bus, I think it will kind of sink in (smiling).

KUETH DUANY: Yeah, like coach said, I don't think we deserved anything last year. We played awful the second half of the season. We're national champs. There's nothing to describe. You know, we the champs. I'm sorry, I'm speechless. I don't even know what to say. I'm sorry.

COACH BOEHEIM: Coach should have played you more tonight. I didn't realize you were playing so well.

KUETH DUANY: Yeah, he made a mistake. (Smiling).

COACH BOEHEIM: Another one (smiling).

KUETH DUANY: I guess he has a supposed monkey on his back. I guess you can take that off now. He's a national championship coach. There's nothing you can tell him now. He's a great coach. It's been an honor playing for him. And thank you for everything.

CARMELO ANTHONY: Where you at (smiling)?

CARMELO ANTHONY: Aaron Miles shoot the three, I came, just ran out of nowhere, like he had Twizzler arms or something. Just blocked the ball. Once he blocked that, I kind of knew the game was over because we were double teaming Hinrich at the end. He shot a fade away three. It was an air ball.

CARMELO ANTHONY: Yeah. We enjoy it. We the national champs. I enjoy every moment. I don't regret coming to college. I had a fun year. I had a great year on the court, and off the court at school. Just being around my teammates, being with my coaching staff, they just made me so proud.

KUETH DUANY: Yeah, I thought I was going to knock both of them down. The first one was on line, but I guess I didn't use enough legs. The second one, it just felt good, it felt right. You know, when I got the rebound, I don't know, I guess just tried to run out with the time. When I heard the horn buzz, everybody running around, I was just like, somebody said earlier, just elated. Just glad we the champs, just glad the game is over.

COACH BOEHEIM: Maybe I would have gotten self-satisfied or something. I don't know. We had Derrick Coleman; he just didn't get there (laughter). You know, he made a great play because he was at the five spot. In that situation, we're going to all the 3-point shooters. He saw it. That was a pretty good read to see that. I was having flashbacks a few times tonight. These kids, I don't think you can say enough about these kids. To win a national championship, you know, with these freshmen, the way Gerry played tonight in the first half. That's what I told some people, quite a few times I've said this, that he has kind of been playing under wraps this year. First half he let it out, he let it go. I think you have to talk about Kansas. I coached Nick Collison three different times. He was a monster tonight. We just couldn't do anything with him. We tried to foul as much as we could anything inside, any time they got inside, we just tried to foul. We intentionally fouled Graves that last time. We were trying to get him again, but we just couldn't get him. We felt we had to keep using our fouls in those situations. That was a big key. Then Carmelo getting Langford in foul trouble was another big thing in the game.

COACH BOEHEIM: Josh Pace was just unbelievable. I told the team in there that he almost is the MVP of this tournament for us. I mean, what he's done, the plays he's made. He had to get eight rebounds. He was the only guy getting defensive rebounds. Hakim just wasn't in it tonight. He got muffled a little bit. Josh was unbelievable on the backboard, and then just making plays on the offensive end. He almost made a couple plays that would have clinched the game. He made great plays, got in the lane, was just in and out on a couple plays. But Billy and Josh have just been great in this tournament. Those two guys have been huge. And Jeremy started out great, and slowed down a little bit. But Craig came back tonight. Craig made some big defensive plays, got his hands up big, played big inside, finished a couple good plays around the basket. But, you know, all year long, we've had different guys. When we face adversity, you think freshmen, you know, would have a problem. As well as we played, for Kansas to get right back in it the second half, be at three, you would think any group of young players would just like go, "Well, you know, we made every shot, we're only three points ahead." They don't think that way. They just get back down and make plays. They made a couple great plays. Made a couple great defensive plays right at that time, you know, got back in control of the game. You have to give Kansas tremendous amount of credit. They're trapping. They don't have a trapping-type team. They're still trapping, pressing, going after every ball. I thought we took care of the ball down the stretch pretty good, forced them to foul. We just missed a bunch of free-throws. We haven't done that this year. We made our free-throws late this year. They were smart. They didn't foul Gerry. You know, they got the guys that they wanted to get there.

COACH BOEHEIM: Well, I don't feel any smarter yet. Maybe tomorrow. As I said before the tournament, I want to win this thing. I'm tremendously happy. I'm really more happy for the players, really our fans. Our fans have been unbelievable every place we've been. We had the building in Boston. We had the building in Albany. We had a lot of people here today, I mean, a lot of people came here from Syracuse. Of course, it's snowing there. They probably just wanted to get out. For those people, I've had an unbelievable career. If I didn't get here this year, if I never got here again, I was a walk-on at Syracuse, I didn't have a scholarship. I got one because a guy got thrown out of school my second year. Somehow Dave Bing liked me. I was smart, I roomed with Dave. That's how I got to play. I started out as a volunteer assistant coaching the golf team for about five years, then I became an assistant. By default when head coach left, I got the job because, you know, they didn't know what else to do. I've had just an unbelievable time coaching basketball. The people I've met, the Roy Williams, John Thompson even said, "Good game" over there. 20 years ago that wouldn't have happened. The experiences I've had in this game, to me, that's what it's all about. Am I happy that I won? Yeah, I'm happy, sure. I mean, I'm not stupid. But, no, I don't think anything about validation or anything like that. You know, I'm the same coach I was just a few minutes ago. If Hinrich had made that jump shot, I probably would be worse. But that's the game. We missed, what, five free-throws coming down the stretch. If we would have lost the game, it would have been, "Why didn't you do something?"

COACH BOEHEIM: There was a reason for that. We fouled those guys. We fouled the guys we wanted to foul. Graves shoots 38%. Actually, he shot right on his -- actually -- I can't figure that out. What's two for seven? Somebody better at math than I am.

COACH BOEHEIM: He shot a little below his average. You know, we could see right away they didn't have a good rhythm. Any time they got close to the basket, we wanted to foul them. We missed five I think coming down the stretch. Somebody wants to write they lost the game because they missed free-throws, I don't think they'd be writing the true story of the game. I'm sure there will be somebody that does that.

COACH BOEHEIM: I was tired. I get tired of these games, I guess. I don't have the stamina I used to. I think that's for the players. I was ready to go after we won the game. I was ready to go. I think all that stuff's great for the players. In fact, I was thinking about what we're going to do next year right about that time actually.

COACH BOEHEIM: I think any coach that can get a Carmelo Anthony will take them. I don't care what they say. All these years, I've said -- I'm probably the biggest one saying this, we wouldn't take a guy that just came right out and said, "I'm going to go to the NBA." We don't recruit those guys. If the kid is interested in going to college, we're going to recruit him. Like I said all along, we thought Carmelo would be at least a couple years in college, minimum. I even thought it would be longer. I mean, he was skinny. If he still weighed 190 pounds, he wouldn't be going anywhere. Of course, I wouldn't be talking to you right now either. But, you know, we planned on recruiting. We have other guys. We recruited guys. You know, I think there's not a coach in the country that wouldn't take a guy like that. Not a coach. I mean, Duke takes three or four guys every year that could go in one year. That's the college basketball right now, until they establish an age or something, if they do, you just have to adjust to it. What we've tried to do for seven or eight years is just get good players. We've had pretty good players. We haven't had maybe quite enough the last six or seven years to make a real good run, although we did when Michigan State won. We had a chance that year. But we'll try to get a guy that we think will be in college for a couple years. A lot of those guys end up staying three or four years. You never know when you recruit a Nick Collison. You know, he stayed four years. You hope that's what will happen.

COACH BOEHEIM: I said Coach Knight told me 16 years ago that I would be back. He didn't tell me it would be that long, but he told me I'd be back here. I told Roy that I firmly believe he will win a national championship, without any doubt. There is no doubt in my mind that he will win a national championship. He's got a lot of coaching left in him. He's absolutely a great, great basketball coach. If Simien doesn't get hurt, he probably wins the national championship this year. I just told him that. What he told me was very special. He's a guy -- you know, we're not close friends. You know, we don't go out to dinner and all that. We always play golf every summer. I just think he's a first-class guy. I believe there's a lot of coaches that might say something like that, and you probably wouldn't believe it, but I believe it coming from Roy. And I believe that he knows, just as I said before, and I think he said this before, he's a great basketball coach. If you can play the Big-12 conference, which we won this year, and win nine championships in 15 years, win 80% of your games, playing that schedule, you're beyond a great basketball coach in my estimation, period. If somebody thinks you've got to win one game on top of all that to be a great basketball coach, we're just living in the wrong place.

COACH BOEHEIM: Well, '87, it's hard to say. '87 was a great team. I think they kind of snuck up on people. We beat a No. 1 seed. This year's team had to beat a couple No. 1's and a No. 2 playing like a No. 1. That team was a little young like this team, but that was a great team. I thought we played better in that game overall than we played tonight. We didn't make a shot or something like we did tonight. But '96, it was unbelievable for that team to get anywhere near the Final Four, anywhere near it. To get in the Sweet-16 would have been something. And the Kansas team we beat then to me was one of the biggest wins, best wins we've ever had. I mean, they had Pierce and LaFrentz and Vaughn. That was one of the great games we've ever played. They lost to probably the best team we'll see again in college basketball.

COACH BOEHEIM: They're all exhausting to me (laughter). They're all tiring. No, I mean, this was -- they're all that way. I might be getting old or something. I didn't used to get this tired. As far as Carmelo, you know, that's his decision. I'm not going to make it for him up here. I'll talk to him. You know, he's got to do -- as I've said many, many times, he's got to make a simple decision: what do I want to do? Then make his choice. I knew he would help us. I knew he'd be a special player. When Troy and I talked in the beginning of the year, we were talking about him being the Player of the Year in college basketball, we weren't talking about being the freshman of the year. We thought he honestly had a chance to be the best player in college basketball after watching him early, you know, practices. As Kueth said the other day, he wasn't in great shape, because he put on 30 pounds in a short period of time. The year progressed, he got in shape, got used to the physical play, there's no better player in college basketball than that guy. There aren't too many better freshmen players in college basketball than Gerry McNamara either.

COACH BOEHEIM: Well, Josh Pace to me, I did not play him three straight games this year in a minute, in a minute, 90 % of good players would either leave right then or give up or go scream, cause problems. The next game, he came in, made two big plays for us. In this tournament, I mean, you can make a strong case for him being, you know, the guy that really won three or four games for us. Billy won the first two games for us in this tournament. We knew Billy was going to help us; we just had to fit him in. He's still not there. He's still rusty. He needs a lot of work. I think he's going to be a terrific player. But, you know, he's still rusty. But those two guys and Jeremy, I mean, we had an eight-man rotation, and that was the difference in this tournament.

COACH BOEHEIM: Derrick, as always, was the first. He called me on the floor. I couldn't hear him. There was static. I said, "You're off the hook finally." He tried to come down. Larry Brown said, "You'll fine him." He didn't get here. He's called every game. He's tremendous support for our kids, our program, always has been. I'm just happy for him. Rony Seikaly was here. A few other guys from that team. Not quite the same thing, but we'll give them a piece of this one. Those guys, the '96 guys, all the guys that helped make this program, Bernie Fine, who has been doing the work for all these years, Mike and Troy, who have been absolutely unbelievable assistant coaches, that whole staff, they earned this thing. I'm proud for all those people, all those people that have been part of the Syracuse basketball program for all these years, continue to support us. Sherman Douglas we honored this year at our banquet. He came into the banquet, watched us play Rutgers. Sherman is one of the smartest basketball players I ever coached. He said to me, told the kids, everybody at the banquet, "I'll tell you one thing, I think you guys cannot only get to New Orleans, but if you get there, I want you to finish the job." He said that at that last banquet. We finished that job.

COACH BOEHEIM: You know, he's pretty good, but I think that he will come out of his shell a little bit more next year. He can put the ball on the floor and make plays. He hasn't really done that a lot. He's an unbelievable kid. In fact, Mike Krzyzewski, who recruited him, told me when we got a commitment from him, that he's the first player I've ever had -- I don't know. I'm not saying that right. He said, "I've never had a player like Gerry," which we felt. He knows how to stay out of the way sometimes. He knows when he has to make plays. I knew tonight when he stepped up early that he was going to let it out. I knew he was going to let it go tonight. I mean, he's capable of going for 18 and coming back for 18 more -- I don't think quite yet. Miles and those guys really wore him down a little bit. He probably wore them down a little bit, too. You know, guys have to guard us so hard that I think it hurts some guys' offense a little bit because they have to be so aware where Gerry is, where Carmelo is. Every time they doubled in the first half, Carmelo found Kueth, found Craig on that first play. Everything they tried to do, our kids, for freshmen, were unbelievable. They doubled with their big guy, they doubled with their guard, they trapped up court, they trapped on the first pass. You know, they threw everything at this team. They played zone, and Gerry threw one in from just in front of our bench, so they got out of that. But they tried everything they had, and they're a veteran team, they're a veteran team with talent, they got a huge game out of Graves inside, and our kids were able to overcome all of that, which really says a lot about our team. We beat two good teams down here that played well. I think that says an awful lot. I think Oklahoma we caught a little off balance, but we beat two good teams down here that really played well. I thought we did an unbelievable job on Hinrich tonight, just finding him, not letting him get set the whole night. When you do that to a guy, when he finally does get an open shot, it's a tough shot because he hasn't had many. Our kids played smart. They left Miles open. They tried to get off Langford, make him shoot it from outside. He still got inside. A tremendous effort. I'm just proud of these kids. They really earned it this year. Thank you.