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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: BOSTONMarch 22, 2012Jim BoeheimScoop JardineKris JosephBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Syracuse – 64 COACH BOEHEIM: This is one of the best games I've been involved with in a long time. I think the best game anybody has ever played against us and didn't beat us. They made 14 threes, and usually that's enough. But really proud of our players. Every time they came back and went ahead, we had an answer for it. We made something happen. But I give Wisconsin an unbelievable amount of credit. They really‑‑ for a little bit there, we had them. Our defense had them going just for a little bit when they made that run, but after that they were really patient. They made us play defense the whole time, and (Jordan) Taylor made some really hard threes, really hard threes. I thought they were long and mostly contested. But offensively we played very, very well, and we had to play very, very well. Q. Kris, during that stretch in the second half there where they made I think it was seven straight threes, how were you guys able to contain your composure? KRIS JOSEPH: Just stick to our principles defensively. Our teams were going to make shots like coach said. Some of them were real tough shots that you can't really do much about, but you can't hang your head because there was still a lot of basketball to play. We had to go down and make plays on the offensive end and come down and try to stop them on defense. Q. Scoop, defensively on the last possession for them, what were you guys trying to prevent or to do? SCOOP JARDINE: Stop them. We wanted to get a stop. We knew it was going to be something with Jordan (Taylor) trying to penetrate or pick out to one of his shooters, and me and Dion (Waiters) just pressed up on him. We've been in that situation before throughout the year, and we knew if they get an open shot we had to come back and get a rebound because it was going to be a long miss. I think we done a great job doing it. We believed in our defense. We didn't panic, we stayed with them, and we believed in it and got the stop to win the game. Q. Scoop, you talked about how‑‑ you remember 2010 when you lost in this round and what that feeling was like. Did you think about that at all in this game? SCOOP JARDINE: No. No, not really. It's a different team, different games. I know the focus that we had to have. Me and Kris talked about it, the focus you have to have going into this game. It's hard to be the team who's making 14 threes, but I'll tell you what, I give my teammates a lot of credit because every time they scored, we scored, and we stayed within ourselves, and we believed in what we had to do. We knew they couldn't stop us on the offensive end. We knew if you live by the three, you're going down by it some day. And today they died by it because we stayed within ourselves and we made their shots harder. Q. For both players, on Jordan's last three, Dion, who thinks defense is a second language, jumped him. What did you guys think when you saw him pop out like that? KRIS JOSEPH: I was just hoping that he didn't foul, you know, because there's been a lot of times this year where we fouled three‑point shooters, and I just wanted him to play honest D, get behind him in his face, and make the most difficult shot that he's ever taken in his life, and I think he did a great job of doing that. SCOOP JARDINE: I think Dion was‑‑ that's the best D he played throughout the game, and we needed it right there. Because I remember last year, Marquette made a shot against us, something like that, to win a game. So I was happy Dion was able to contest the shot. He almost blocked it and made it tough, so I was happy with the contest. Q. In the second half when Wisconsin is going through the stretch where it seems every three they put up is going in, what's going through your mind as they're just burying three after three? SCOOP JARDINE: We were scoring, too. Every time they scored, I think we scored right back. That's what you've got to do when a team is scoring on you. You've still got to go down and play offense and never get rattled, and I think we done a great job of getting in our sets and making shots. They was playing from behind, too, so we knew we had the lead and we had to stay within ourselves and continue to execute, and I think we done a great job because it's really hard not to‑‑ it's easy to get rattled in a situation like that, but we had great senior leadership where we stayed within ourselves and we made baskets that we needed to make, not just me, everybody. Q. Scoop, C. J. Has been struggling the last three or four games. Did you have any sense that he had a game like this in him tonight? SCOOP JARDINE: Yeah, I'm going to say what coach said. Coach said we believed in him. We knew what he was capable of doing. I don't think he really played bad in other games, he just wasn't there offensively. If C.J.(Fair) ‑‑ with this type of team, we just need players to give effort and we're going to figure it out, and that's what we've done all year. Today he was able to give us some scoring, and when he's giving us scoring, we're hard to beat. He's that offensive weapon that you don't have to call a play for, but you look up and he's got 15 points. That's something special with a kid like that. So I am happy he got his powers back and we can go into the Elite 8. Q. Scoop, can you talk about the resilience you guys had to show tonight and you've had to show all through the season when you've battled through some ups and downs? SCOOP JARDINE: Yeah, we really haven't never had no downs. We've been right there with each other throughout the whole year, and like coach said, there haven't been too many lows. And that's one thing about this team, we don't get too high, we don't get too. We stay right there level headed. We believe in each other. When you've got a team like that, no matter what, we're capable of winning games no matter who we're playing against or what the circumstances are in every game. I don't think we had too many lows, but I'll tell you one thing, we got a tough game and we won it, and we've been doing that all year. Q. You've been through so many of these close games over the year. Do they get easier or harder at this level? COACH BOEHEIM: They're never easy. They're hard. It's part of it. We've had some tough games this year. We haven't had a game like this where we played this well. Wisconsin is a tremendous defensive team. I don't think many teams shoot 50 percent against them, and we were 14 for 22 in the first half. I knew we were in trouble. At halftime we were 14 for 22 and we had a six‑point lead. We really screwed the end of the first half up unbelievably bad. We fouled a three‑point shooter and then we turned it over. That's why sometimes I don't take a time‑out in that situation, just should have let them play. We certainly wouldn't have done worse than what we did with that time‑out. That's why sometimes it's better to just go ahead and let them play. But we hadn't used a time‑out, so I didn't want to just give it up. I thought we would be able to go out and do something, but we really messed up the end of half. And then Taylor started out and made that three right away from standstill, deep. He's a tremendous player. I knew he was a really good player, but he's even a better player than I thought he was. He made some unbelievable tough shots tonight. But you get in these games‑‑ this was a great game. It was a great game to be a part of it. I thought both teams just played well. When they scored and made those threes, we came down and we scored. You have to keep scoring. When the other team is making threes like that, you have to keep scoring. C.J. made the big play when we were three down. He got that rebound and made the three‑point play. That was a huge play. But I thought, again, Wisconsin played unbelievable. We needed C.J. tonight. If we hadn't had him tonight‑‑ the last four games he played before he went into his slump, he averaged 15 points a game, four straight games in our league which is a tough league. So we knew he was perfectly capable of it, and tonight he was there for us. He was huge. But Baye (Keita) was tremendous inside, his defense, and a couple plays he made. We all played‑‑ they all played good. Everybody played good. Kris struggled a little bit, but everybody else played great tonight, and we needed to. Q. You said earlier I think this was the best the team has ever played against you and not won. I've never heard a coach describe it like that‑‑ COACH BOEHEIM: I'm probably wrong, but I'm just‑‑ Q. Can you think of any other contenders for that? COACH BOEHEIM: I'm sure there's contenders, but 14 threes, I don't think anybody has ever made 14 threes against us and we beat them. The only game I can think of was when (Chris) Hill made ten threes against us in Michigan State in '03 when we beat them at their place by a point. He made ten, but I don't think anybody else on their team made one. But 14 threes, that's a lot of threes to overcome. They're such a good defense. Just the way we moved the ball and the plays we made, and we added up, Kris missed an easy lay‑up, two lay‑ups really that we needed, to keep that cushion. But other than that, I can't fault much with our offense, really. They're a very, very good defensive team, and we really got a lot of good shots against them. But they made some hard shots. That's all I can tell you. Q. You just touched on Baye. Can you expand what you got from him in the 28 minutes today, especially on the glass? COACH BOEHEIM: Well, he got one rebound out of a traffic when I think we were down, too. He got it out of there and got it back in the basket, and then he made a great catch on that bounce pass from Scoop, which is ‑‑ that's a 50/50 play. Not that you'll make it; 50/50 that you'll catch it. And defensively I thought he was real good. He was active. He overcame and did a good job for us in there. Brandon Triche was spectacular today. I probably needed to keep him in there longer, but it's hard to ‑‑ we have three really good guards, and it's hard sometimes to take one of them out. But he was really good tonight. He was probably the best of the guards when you look at the stat sheet. Q. You've been consistent this year about saying that Dion is a great offensive player. What did you think when you saw him step out on Jordan, and does it speak to the moment that an offensive player goes defense at that time? COACH BOEHEIM: Well, he's been playing better defense this year, and I forget which game it was, he blocked a shot at the end of the game, a three. I think it was at Connecticut, that won the game. He was leading the country in steals this year at one stage. I think his defense has been good, really, this year. I got mad at him in the first half when Taylor hit that three and didn't get over the screen. I was trying to get him out of there and he made two buckets before I could get him out of there. Q. In the last seven minutes of that game after they had been so hot from outside, they didn't make another three. Did you make any change or did you make sure your guards were out there deeper? COACH BOEHEIM: Well, I think we naturally tried to move out. We left a lot on Baye inside to make plays in there. But you've got to get them off their spots. We didn't do that for a stretch out there. But they have terrific ball movement, and they have five guys that can shoot. When you're playing against a team‑‑ there aren't that many teams like that. They remind me a little bit of Louisville a couple years ago when they had four guys out there that could shoot. Their big guy shoots it better than their little guys do. He missed one shot tonight. We saw (Rob) Wilson when he made seven threes in the Big Ten Tournament, I think it was. So we knew how good a shooter he was coming off the bench. And (Ben) Brust, we knew was a good shooter; (Jordan) Taylor obviously. You know, I didn't like the way the game started. (Ryan) Evans had no time on the shot clock and he threw a three against us. When you have four guys on the court that can shoot the ball from the perimeter, really five, it's a difficult team to play, it really is. Probably we should have played man to man. (Laughter). Q. Can you talk about showing the press in the first half, you only did it once but you forced Wisconsin to call their second time‑out and you went on that big run, and it seemed like Wisconsin didn't want to call the time‑out? COACH BOEHEIM: Yeah, we tried to press a couple more times. We did get that one time‑out, but we really didn't get anything else out of it. I was going to press a little bit more, probably should have a little bit more, but they're pretty smart against it. I wasn't really hopeful that we were going to get a lot out of it, but we did get the time‑out and then we trapped them and got another time‑out, so I thought that was good. When we went on that run, they had used two timeouts, so I thought that was good. We trapped them pretty good, but we really couldn't turn them over. We got them in tough situations, but C.J. made the three steals on a rotation play that we use, a defensive trap that we use. I mean, both teams were unbelievable. I think we had six ‑‑ they had six, we had five in the first half. We had one the second half. I think they had maybe two turnovers in the second half. That's pretty good. Against our zone, not many teams only turn it over six times. I think teams averaged 16 or 17 this year.  Again, it's extremely well coached. They're a very smart team. They really have patience and move the ball, and they've got multiple shooters, multiple shooters. I'm still thinking about that if I can think of another game, but I haven't thought of it yet. I'm sure there's one there someplace. Q. Scoop talked a lot yesterday and a little bit tonight about how you've kept the team even keel all year. Does it get tougher to do as the spotlight gets more intense as you go around and around? Does your message have to change for them a little bit? COACH BOEHEIM: No, not at all. I'm a coach and I coach my team, and you coach them just as hard the first game as you do the last game. The spotlight, that's irrelevant, it really is. I actually like coming to the tournaments better because you do your media thing compressed and that's it. It's the best‑‑ it's really better than during the year. It's all compressed and you do it and you go on. It's very well run and very well organized, and it's really for me easier than the regular season part. And as far as coaching the team, these guys want me to coach them. They don't want me to be concerned that I didn't get dinner at home or that my kids are driving me crazy, which they do continuously. And those are things that are there every day that you don't‑‑ that just can't factor into what you do. I think all people in all situations‑‑ I've got a great life, I've got a great job, I've got one of the best jobs you can have in the world, and my job is to coach these guys. I can't think of anything better than that. And I've got to make sure at the end of the‑‑ what I tell my players, at the end of the game, at the end of the year, if you've done the best job you can do, that's it; you've done great. If that kid made a shot at the end of that game and we'd lost, I couldn't fault much that happened tonight. We played well; they played well. We made a great stop at the end. They had plenty of time. One of the reasons I like playing zone at the end of the game, it's hard to get fouled. Usually we don't foul‑‑ we made a bad foul on one play, but we usually don't foul. We force somebody to make a shot. And it's hard to get in there in a limited amount of time. There's 35 seconds, you can get in there, but with 17, 18, it's more difficult to get in there and make something happen. But I mean, I'm supposed to get these guys ready, and they've had an unbelievable year. These guys have been so consistent. We got caught at Notre Dame when we went out there. We just didn't adjust quickly to losing our center. And the first game of this tournament, I don't think we adjusted very well, but I think we've made that adjustment. And the rest of the year‑‑ our league is difficult. I don't know where it got all of a sudden that our league isn't difficult, but I know that‑‑ I think we're 5 and 1 against teams in the Sweet 16, and three of those games were on the road that we won. So this team has done an awful lot this year. And Wisconsin to me‑‑ I've watched them all year, and I've always thought they were pretty good, but I've never seen them play‑‑ I didn't know that they could play like this, and they did. They really played a great game. We went after them and played perfectly in the first half there, that stretch we had, and they just came right back at the end of the half and started the second half strong. Q. The last time you went this far in the tournament, it was three Albany in '03. You obviously earned the right to be here. Just talk about tonight, and is it starting to feel a little bit like '03? COACH BOEHEIM: Well, the fans were great. The thing in the NCAA Tournament, high seeds are always going to get to play somewhere near home. We're 600 miles‑‑ I am probably off, 400 miles, we're not near home. Teams from Carolina and Duke have been playing in North Carolina for 40 years, since I've been in coaching. Forty years they've played in North Carolina every year that I've been coaching. So you know, that's what happens when you're a high seed. You get that advantage. You still have to play. This game, Wisconsin, they're a really good road team, we're a good road team. We've played on the road in this tournament over the years where we haven't had fans and we've played where we have, and it's always nice to have your fans. But they don't score. Lou Carnesecca told me a long time ago, those people don't score any points and they're not blowing any whistles. You've got to go out and win, and we went out and won tonight. Usually you're either playing near home or else the fans go for the underdog. It's one of those two things. They get behind somebody. That's the way it is. We're glad that the fans got behind us today, but we played as well as we can play, and that's why we won the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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