BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 13, 2003

Jim Boeheim

Kueth Duany

JIM BOEHEIM: First of all just didn't do a good job -- so concerned with Sweetney they were giving up other guys some easy shots. Second half defensively I thought we did a much better job of keeping the other guys from hurting us offensively and we never really could get anything going consistently but like we have all year coming down the stretch we made big plays made a couple of big defensive plays; made a couple big offensive plays down the stretch and just the way we played all year long, nothing new. Pretty typical of our season.

JIM BOEHEIM: Tremendous tonight, he stuck a couple of jumpers. I thought he was really key in the first half keeping us in there and then you know, he's been there all year for us, and nice to see him come up big tonight. I can't give him credit for the steal on that play, though. Everybody would have to be listening to the radio to get away with that.

JIM BOEHEIM: I think it's tough here. I thought. Gerry struggled a little bit. Left his feet a little bit, and was -- didn't play his game, but I thought Billy had a much better second half. I thought he got in the lane better second half; made some plays. Carmelo, considering the defensive pressure they put on him, he had another tremendous game again but I just didn't think as a team that we played the way we play. We didn't rebound like we did the last time we played Georgetown. I just didn't think we were sharp tonight, but you know, they'd given it everything they have got. They are going to go all out. We have had two tough times with them this year. You know it's going to be another one, and we just hung in there at the end.

JIM BOEHEIM: They did outrebound us.

JIM BOEHEIM: Well, I mean, that's obvious, we did a little bit better job in our zone the second half, keeping them from getting as many layups as they got in the first half. First half they got 13 layups, the second half they only scored 28 points. So we obviously did a much better job defensively. I thought Craig was active tonight. I thought he really did his best job that I could remember defensively and getting on the boards. I just thought he was very good tonight, and -- but we shot the ball a little better than they did. He did a tremendous job to get it inside against us. We were able to stop them just enough.

JIM BOEHEIM: Yeah, I like to talk to those guys. They like to listen, I like to talk.

JIM BOEHEIM: You put him back in, see what happens: Got to go back sometime.

KUETH DUANY: Well, just during warm-ups we just try to work out and be as active as possible so that you did go into the game being warm and ready to play. That was the mindset I was trying to get the rest of the guys to be.

KUETH DUANY: I just think we got players that step up at key times during the game Carmelo, Gerry and Billy who make plays when we need it. They have done it all year long like coach said.

JIM BOEHEIM: Billy hit two huge free throws there after Gerry missing those two was kind of a shocker again must be just he can't shoot against Georgetown. I think against everybody else he's shooting 100 percent from the free-throw line. They are a good defensive team, I guess.

JIM BOEHEIM: We tried to get back in on them. But they were going short corner and in. We just tried to stay back in and make somebody else do something, and they were looking for him pretty hard for a long time there and we just kept back putting more pressure back in. We didn't want to -- Villanova played him probably the right way, they just let him shoot any shot he wanted from the outside and stayed back in. I didn't want to get to that extreme. We played too many teams that you know, are going to make shots the rest of the year as well as these guys, and we didn't want to go to that extreme but we tried to get back in a little bit more, I thought Craig was a little bit more active in keeping it out of there. We took away the short corner entry by getting back, bumping the guards down. That helped us a little bit. Keep the ball in the perimeter a little longer; used a lot of clock and we got one lucky break when the big guy lost the ball that one time. We didn't give much up in the last three or four minutes. We were pretty good defensively.

JIM BOEHEIM: Well, I mean, whoever you play it doesn't matter. Whoever wins this next game they are both good teams, and --

KUETH DUANY: We just continue to work hard everyday in practice, guys are just working and continuing to work and just over time we just improve, and we just started playing together sacrificing for one another, and just gelled over the course of the year. I think we're playing pretty good basketball now.