Jim Boeheim: "It Was an Offensive Game"
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim met with the media following the Orange's 89-82 win versus NC State Wednesday night.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Boeheim’s press conference.
Opening Statement
We felt with their small lineup that they would do what they did, drive in and throw it out and play for the three. We started off and let the one guy shoot that we didn’t want to shoot (on) the first play and then we had to dig ourselves out. We changed our defense halfway through the first half to try and keep the ball out of the middle, it helped a little bit. But they had a great attack, penetrate and kick it back out. That’s always hard to defend. Every once in a while they would slip it down low and they finished that. But it was an offensive game, our offense was really good, it can’t be better than that. Earlier in the year we would have lost this game by six or eight points because Cole [Swider] wasn’t getting into the spots that he needs to get into. He made the foul line with an and-one which we needed, but he made the three to put us in the lead, and the throwback coming out of the timeout, that wasn’t an easy shot, the guy came right at him. But when he shoots it like that we’re a different team. Again, Joe [Girard, III] played really well, he’s aggressive. Jimmy [Boeheim] and Jesse [Edwards] were good. I’d like to get something more out of our guys on the bench, but there’s a struggle there, a real struggle there. We’ll see how it goes. We’re losing too much when we do go to those guys and we can’t lose when we go to those guys. They’ve got to be able to hold us in there. This was an offensive win. Shoot almost 60 percent from the field and 67 [percent] from the three, and you win by a couple buckets, it’s not good. It’s not good. But we’ll take the win and try to get better.
On what Syracuse did to limit NC State’s three-point efficiency...
The whole idea in the scouting report and game plan was that we were going to play an outside zone, and we didn’t. So, we did a little better job of that. They’re difficult because if [Dereon] Seabron gets into the lane and you don’t help on him he gets a layup, and if you help he gets it to the shooter. It’s a hard play, it’s hard to stop. I thought one of the differences in the game was Jesse [Edwards] kept out of foul trouble, Frank [Anselem] is still reaching and Jesse reached again. This is the end of the year, you’re not supposed to be reaching and putting your hands on people, you have to learn that at some point in time. But the key at the end, Jesse was in there and he blocked two shots and gets two big rebounds down there. That was really the difference, those stops.
On the difference in Cole Swider’s game...
I just think the difference is he’s getting a lot of minutes and a lot of opportunities. Even though he wasn’t doing this his numbers were not bad. He was shooting 36% from three, he was getting six or seven rebounds, he’s our leading rebounder I think. But we felt he could make more of those threes and he’s doing it. We feel like he’s going to make it, he was 4-for-4 tonight, Jimmy was 1-for-1. Jimmy’s was big because it was a one-point lead and then he got a good drive. It’s tough when you’ve got to score 89 points to win, but we’ll take it.
On how important it was to get Jesse Edwards and Jimmy Boeheim going inside early...
You want to get it there, but they’re funny and they’re pressuring to make it hard to get it there. It’s difficult. But Joe did a good job of finding Jesse and looking for him. We got him a bucket right away and early. They were looking for him. In the second half it really opened up. He got the roll down. They’re conscious of Cole and they’re conscious of Buddy, so if you help off those guys, he’s going to get buckets down there and we get a three. It’s a difficult play. But when Cole shoots it like that we should win, we’re supposed to win. They’re short-handed but the competed their tails off, they moved the ball just about perfectly. Two or three of the threes they made were at the shot clock and [Terquavion] Smith made one one-handed over there. They made some really hard shots and they pressured the heck out of us. We were good with the ball considering the pressure. We don’t have great speed so Joe got it up and Buddy made that one turnover, I think Joe made one and Symir [Torrence] made one. But they played as good as you could play offensively against us and we played a little bit better offensively that’s all. That’s all it was.
On if as Jesse Edwards gets more confident, do other players get more confident giving him the ball...
We have confidence with him but if he’s pushed outside he can’t score from out there. But if he can get the ball in the lane, he’s getting better. A couple times when he got the ball outside the lane, he just can’t quite get there yet. We don’t just throw him the ball, we try and get it to him off a screen and get him rolling so they have to respect our shooters so that we can try and get him the ball in that situation. Again, we should have been able to do more offensive rebounding when Benny [Williams] and Jimmy were in there. We had two or three really good penetration shots when they had one guy in there and we had Jimmy and Benny in there and we didn’t get the ball. We threw Benny a really good pass right in his hands and he didn’t get it. He’s gotta get it and that’s a basket. He’s got to be more physical. These are physical games. You have got to be physical and play physically or you can’t play in these games. It’s really simple. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talented or not, you have to be physical in these games. Jesse couldn’t do it before now and now he’s doing it, he’s being physical. We still have got to be able to stop somebody.”
On the 12-0 Syracuse run to open the second half...
We got Jesse rolling and then he got a layup, and the next time they came off a bit. Buddy got a three and then Joe got one. It’s hard when you’ve got Jesse rolling and Joe’s got an advantage, he gets in there. When Joe plays like this we’re a different team. Against Pittsburgh he was nowhere in the game. He plays like this, we can win. If he plays in this game like he did at Pittsburgh we have no chance to win, we need him to play and when he plays like that he helps our team.