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NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 23, 2007

Jim Boeheim

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

JIM BOEHEIM: I thought we got off to a slow start, and then after a few minutes we went man-to-man, and I thought we did a good job defensively. Got our offense going. We got some fast break opportunities because our defense was good for about 10, 12 minutes. We probably played as well as we could.
We made some really bad turnovers, but Washington causes a lot of those, because they do a good job of pressuring. They're up in you the whole game, and they do a tremendous job pressuring.
I thought the second half, we just really couldn't establish anything consistently on offense. And they started to get inside. We've really rebounded kind of, I think it's a fault statistic, but we've been outrebounding everybody by 12 rebounds, and I think that's an area that we have a problem in. And today it was exposed.
If we had rebounded the ball at all on the defensive end, the game shouldn't have been close. They just kept getting second efforts and just really killed us on the boards. They really did it against our man-to-man, as well as our zone. The shots they got against our man-to-man were on the offensive boards, too. And this is really the first time.
I think that is a problem area for us. I think it's something we're going to have to do a lot better job in that area. But it's tough. You come back the second game and Washington is pressing for 40 minutes, and they're a very good pressure team. It wears you down.
I thought we held up pretty well. We made some mistakes, but you're going to make some mistakes in those situations. But the biggest concern would be our rebounding was not good.

Q. Could you talk about your transition game today. You shot 52%, and a lot of it was you got some pretty good looks there?
JIM BOEHEIM: Whenever anybody's pressuring you, there's going to be some opportunities. When they went full court early, there were some opportunities. Then it was our defense, our man-to-man defense. We got some turnovers, we made some good plays. That gets you into transition.
I don't think we converted a few that we should have. You know, I think it's hard. I'm being very hard right now on my team, but I think I have to step back and realize we're in November. We got a lot way to go. And we've had four, really five, but four really hard games. I think we've gotten through it. Obviously, we'd like to win them all, but I think we've got through it about as well as we could hope.
These guys are young. Even the free throw shooting at the end of the game, Jonny Flynn is a good free throw shooter, Donte' Greene is a good free throw shooter. It's different when you have to make them at the end of the games. It's a good experience for these guys to be in at the end of the games.
We made a couple tremendous plays when we were up late. Held the ball, ran the clock down, got it inside, got a lay-up. We just didn't make our free throws. But fortunately we had enough cushion. But the defensive rebounding is an area of concern, obviously.

Q. With such a young team, were you wondering how they would respond to Wednesday night's loss?
JIM BOEHEIM: Good teams are going to lose. It's how you come back. It's always that. That's always the case. How will your team respond? We did a very good job responding, and the defensive end, when we were down 7 there, we made a tremendous run with our defense and really turned the game around and got control of it. But Washington never gave up. They kept coming. They were going to keep coming, and pressuring and banging. They're physical. They're in on every play. They're banging and pushing on every play, and you have to be ready for that.

Q. On Wednesday you said sometimes mistakes are overshadowed by a win. Would you say this was a better or worse performance than against Ohio State?
JIM BOEHEIM: I think we were good in some areas, but I think both areas, both games there's lot of room for improvement in both games.
Ohio State just outplayed us. They were just a much, much better team Wednesday night.

Q. Can you talk about Devendorf's decision-making. He seems to make a lot better decisions now than he did when he was a freshman with the ball. Has his side spin on the ball always been that pronounced?
JIM BOEHEIM: Yeah, we tried to change that, that didn't work out too well. I would say you made a good point. His decision-making is better, I wouldn't say that means it's good yet. But it's better. That alley-oop pass up 8 was not a good decision. He's getting pushed on the way to the basket. He pushed back off, but he was getting held the whole way in. But still, the referee's going to see that push-off.
He had four offensive fouls. Second game he's had four offensive fouls, so he's got to be cognizant of that. First half, we're up nine, you have a chance to go in, and make it up 11, and he pushes off again there.
But I think his decision-making is better. He's better when he's away from the ball, then he doesn't have to make quite as many decisions. So that eliminates a few bad ones. But he's a real good player. He's a gamer, he can make plays. And with these freshmen out there, we need him to be able to make plays for us until they get better.
Donte' was really good tonight, especially in the first half. I think he'll keep growing. But we're still working and we still have a lot of work to do. We need some practice time. We need time in the gym.
I thought Ricky and Scoop really did a good job for us in this game. That really helped us. And Arinze was really good down low. When we played man-to-man, I was worried about Brockman. He's a really good player. And Arinze didn't let him get the ball down there, he did a tremendous job on him.

Q. I believe this is three straight games Donte' has gone over 20; is this going to be the pattern of the season that he's the focal point of the offense?
JIM BOEHEIM: Well, he's not the focal point of our offense at all. Eric's still getting the most possessions. Donte' is going to get possessions. But we have four guys averaging double figures. I think Jonny will in time. So he might be back close to that now. But I think we have good balance, and that is really the focal point for us. We need to have good balance to be successful.

Q. How does an early season tournament like this prepare a young team like yours for the rigors of Big East play?
JIM BOEHEIM: We've had games just as tough. If they're any tougher in the Big East, we won't win many. We've had tough games and I think Siena is a really good team. We played probably our best game against Siena. Or certainly our best offensive game by far.
We played pretty well against St. Joe's, too, and barely won. We played much better in those two games. Of course, they're at home, and young players are going to play better at home. Coming to The Garden the first time, our guys struggled a little bit down here, I think.
I think we're a better shooting team. I don't think we're that bad a free-throw shooting team. I don't think we're that bad a three-point shooting team, but it certainly looked like it tonight in both those areas. We weren't very good.

Q. You just mentioned barely Rick and Scoop. They got a lot more minutes tonight than they've had in the couple prior games?
JIM BOEHEIM: Well, they need more minutes. There's no question. They both need more minutes. They're not getting enough even now. But I thought Scoop was really good tonight. I think Ricky's been good. You know, he's a good rebounder, and he didn't do it tonight, but he's good around the basket. We've got to get those guys in. We've got to get Kristof some more time, get that extra guy back in there playing a little bit.

Q. Sort of an up-and-down weekend for Jonny Flynn; could you comment on his development so far?
JIM BOEHEIM: You expect a freshman point guard is going to come and try a little bit too hard. I think he tried a little bit too hard against Ohio State. Had some good shots, just didn't make it.
I think he handled the pressure today extremely well. They pressed him the whole game. He had the ball in his hand the whole game and he has two turnovers. So I think he held up tremendously well today. I thought he was very, very steady. I think overall, his first five games for a freshman point guard, I don't think you could ask for much better than what Jonny's given us.
Again, we have to get better, and we should get better. We should get better. We better get better.

Q. Your man defense was really good in the first half, do you think it's because the younger guys aren't used to playing zone and are kind of out of position a lot?
JIM BOEHEIM: Our man was better, our zone was terrible in the beginning. Awful. We started the second half and we're getting some bad fouls early. So we went back into the zone. The zone was really good there for a while. Then we finally broke down. They got inside a little bit. But we wanted to stay out of foul trouble as much as we could and have our guys in there at the end, which we were able to do.
But I think in spots, our man-to-man, I think has been good. We've worked hard on it. We've spent most of our time in practice on man-to-man. We anticipate playing man-to-man. But the zone is something that we need as well. We need both defenses, really.

End of FastScripts

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