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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: BUFFALOMarch 22, 2014Jim BoeheimC.J. FairBaye Moussa KeitaBUFFALO, NEW YORK Dayton – 55 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Syracuse University head coach Jim Boeheim and student‑athletes C.J. Fair and Baye Moussa Keita. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach. COACH BOEHEIM: I thought we had a tremendous defensive effort. When we were down late, I thought we made a tremendous effort to get back in it. We had a couple of good shots. They didn't go in. This is a tough loss, as they all are this time of the year. But that's what happens. Somebody gets beat on the last play, and tonight it was us. Q. C.J., question for you, with 13 seconds left, you come out of the huddle‑‑ COACH BOEHEIM: We didn't come out of the huddle. Q. With 13 seconds left, can you walk us through what the play was going to be? COACH BOEHEIM: We did not have a time‑out. C.J. FAIR: When we got possession of the ball, we just wanted to space the floor and try to penetrate and get a good opportunity, and we missed. So we had to foul. Q. C.J., Dayton seemed to be playing really physical on defense. Could you talk a little bit about how they were playing you guys, especially in the first half. C.J. FAIR: They're a small team, but they're scrappy, and they're quick to the ball and rotations. Every time we put the ball down, they got a hand in there. So they kind of set the tone early, where we was playing catch‑up, we were trying to catch up the whole game. Q. Baye, you didn't play a lot tonight, but after every timeout, after every huddle, it seemed like you were gathering the guys and talking to them. What were you telling them? BAYE MOUSSA KEITA: Every time, it doesn't matter if I'm on the floor or not, I'm just trying to motivate them and trying to get them to make the right play. Just motivation every single time. Q. C.J., talk about the defense they threw at you early and kind of threw you off a little bit. Was it different than any defense you've seen this season? Was it because of their size? Was there anything different about what they did as opposed to what you've seen all season? C.J. FAIR: No, it's not anything different. It's just we didn't react good to start the game off. We didn't come out aggressive on the offensive end. We kind of got ourself together, but it was kind of too late. One or two possessions too late. THE MODERATOR: C.J., Baye, appreciate your time. Questions for Coach Boeheim at this time. Q. Jim, just talk about the night offensively, if you could. I guess under 40 percent shooting and 0 for 10 from beyond the arc. COACH BOEHEIM: Well, in our games, we haven't started particularly well. Tonight was no exception. I thought, after the slow start, and particularly in the second half, I thought we were getting the shots you've got to get. We got good shots. The only thing we could make was a layup, and it's not easy to get layups against a good defensive team, and we did. We broke through. C.J. got to the basket for two or three, and then the next possession, we settled for a jump shot. If you're shooting the ball, it's okay. But after 30 minutes, if you figured out you're not making jump shots, I think we needed to keep driving the ball, even though it's hard to do. But we took two or three jump shots when we had the lead, and you've got to keep driving at that stage. With 13 seconds to go, we wanted to get it to Tyler and drive the ball. We'd just driven the ball for three baskets, and I don't know why he settled for the jump shot. There was plenty of time. He had space. I'm not sure why. The last shot was a great shot. That was the right play, a chance to win the game. You don't have enough time to get to the basket. Q. Coach, looking at the last four losses, 3 of the 4 were very close games. It seemed like towards the end of your season, the last month or so, it seemed like the close games, early in the year, you were able to turn them around. Now they're kind of biting you a little bit. COACH BOEHEIM: Yeah, that's right. Q. Could you comment on what changed from the early part of the season as opposed to the last month or so. COACH BOEHEIM: Well, when you make shots, you win. When you don't make shots, you lose in close games. Early in the year, we made shots. Obviously, Tyler made a 40‑footer at Pittsburgh. But in the other games, we won seven straight close games early in the year, we made shots. It was different people. Tyler made some. C.J. made some. Jerami Grant made a couple. But we made shots. In tonight's game, we had shots. We got stops when we had to. Made a couple of great defensive plays down there to get stops. Made a great play on our press to get them to step out of bounds. So we made the defensive plays that we needed to make plus, but we didn't make a shot when we had to. Q. And did you feel that Tyler's shot at the end, that you were due to get that one? You were 0 for 9 at that point from the three‑point. It seems like you were overdue for that. COACH BOEHEIM: There's a lot of guys in Vegas that think that too. They go home with nothing. That was a good shot. I have no problem with that shot. Some of his other jump shots were not good decisions. Q. There's going to be a lot of focus maybe on what your team did not do, but can you talk about Dayton beating Ohio State down the stretch, beating you guys down the stretch? Talk about what they did so well these last couple of games. COACH BOEHEIM: I'm not going to talk about Dayton. Why would I do that? I'm going to talk about Syracuse. I'm not going to talk about Dayton. Ask their coach. He should be very proud of their team. Q. Jim, seasons always end and seniors graduate, but could you talk a little bit about C.J. Fair and his struggle tonight in his last game. COACH BOEHEIM: He struggled a little, and he's had some games where he's struggled. In the second half, he got it back and got it going to the basket. But it's very hard to get to the basket against good defensive teams, and Dayton certainly is. Like Pittsburgh in our league and Clemson, teams that are really good defensively, it's hard to get to the basket. We had some good looks from the perimeter. C.J. had a couple of good foul line jump shots that he usually makes. Tyler usually makes some of those. I think he missed 14 jump shots tonight. I think he went 7 for 7, or 7 for 8 going to the basket, and he just couldn't get the jump shot to go. They made a few. They made some threes and some jump shots, a couple of tough ones. I thought we did an unbelievable job fighting to hang in there when you're not making anything. When you're not making anything from the perimeter, it's hard. It's a hard game. I thought we finally got to the basket. Mike got there. Tyler got there. C.J. got there. But sooner or later, to win, usually, you've got to make something from the perimeter. You can give Dayton credit, and that's good. But we had some open looks, and we didn't make them. That's really, pretty much, basically, what happened. Once we got off to a slow start, we were fine. We fought the rest of the game. But sooner or later, I think you've got to make a shot out there to win. Q. Your feelings on frustrations with your team not being able to make shots on one side versus admiration for Dayton's defense on the other. Where would the needle be? COACH BOEHEIM: I don't talk about the other team. I mean, everybody in this tournament plays good defense. You can't get here without playing good defense, and they play good defense, as did Ohio State yesterday. But we've got to be better on offense. You can give them credit, and I think you should. But I look at the shots that we get. If we don't get shots, and that's happened to us with some teams defensively. I thought we got good shots. I really did. A couple of Tyler's jump shots, really, all of his jump shots were pretty good. He was open. He got on them. He just wasn't making them, and that happens. But you look at the quality of shots, and I thought, once we started driving it, I thought we got shots we really needed to get. I mean, we missed a couple of layups, Rak missed one. We missed a couple of easy shots around the basket. That happens. But overall, it's very hard to win making layups, and that's all you're making against a good defensive team, that's very difficult to do. At some point in time, you need to knock something down from the perimeter, and we didn't. It was just not a good offensive game for us. You give credit to the defense in that case too. Our defense was good. Q. How much does coaching become psychological on nights when the shots aren't falling as opposed to Xs and Os? COACH BOEHEIM: You just try to drive the ball. That's all you can do in those situations. We try to just drive the ball, and we finally did. We got eight, nine, ten layups in the second half because we did drive the ball. But it's hard to get enough to do that. If the other team makes five or six threes and you make five or six layups, you're six points down. So that really was what I saw out there tonight pretty much. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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