Syracuse Men’s Basketball
Syracuse vs. Saint Joseph’s
Syracuse, NY - Carrier Dome
“I have tremendous respect for Saint Joe’s, their players, their coach. They got off to a great start, and they really put us in a big hole. I would think normally, a young team would have a lot of trouble, and we scored a few points, but then they took it up to ten again, and we really made some really good plays on both ends of the court. I thought for an early season game, this was a really, really terrific basketball game. I think Saint Joe’s is going to win a lot of games this year; they’re a really good basketball team.
We had to make some big plays. Jonny must have thought it was last night when he took that shot, but they gave him the shot. We wanted him to try and penetrate, but there really wasn’t much there, and he knocked it down. Every time they had us down, we came back. We got them down 12 in the second half, they came back. We got them down six, they came back. We got them down again, they came back. That’s a terrific basketball game.
We’re still making some bad turnovers, and that’s going to happen. We make some unbelievable plays, and we make some unbelievably horrendous plays. We’re going to have to play through it, it’s going to take awhile. I think our defense and rebounding were good tonight – we worked really hard on defense. It was one of those games where they were going with their five best players, and we were going with our five best players, and that’s the way it was going to be. It was a terrific game.”
On Jonny Flynn’s last shot:
“We thought we would get a penetration, a couple guys were a little out of position. He couldn’t get in the lane, and you have to have a lot of confidence to play this game. He struggled tonight, but his defense was good, and his ball-handling was good. He’s not going to get 28 points every night – not many can – but he made the big one at the end of the game. It’s hard for a freshman to do that. The only guy I can remember doing that after missing all of that is Gerry McNamara against Notre Dame, when he made one from the corner after he missed everything the whole game.”
On how the young team is playing:
"Well, we got our defense in order, got some stops, and we finally found a couple things that worked on offense. I thought Eric made a couple good shots. They did a good job on Eric. He had to work to get everything tonight, and they’re a good defensive team. We weren’t quite in sync. When somebody changes their defense a little, we have a lot of work to do to get into the right places on offense, and get cohesion down. We still have a lot of work to do there. We kept playing defense and this is a good team against the zone. They can shoot, they’re smart, they move the ball, and they have a lot of options. I thought we did a good job on Nivins inside. He’s a good player – I saw him this summer. I think Arinze and Ricky did a good job on him in there, when the ball did come in there. But, their guards played really well. Govens was really good, and Carr was good, and Calathes is a really good player. They have a really good team."
On the team coming back from a bad start:
"I certainly wasn’t unhappy about it. I don’t smile and jump up and down. And Bud [Poliquin] thinks I’m unhappy, but I’m happy."
On Jonny Flynn’s late foul on Tasheed Carr:
"I’ve changed my philosophy. Less than two or three, even less than five, I’d rather just go foul a guy, and if he can’t make it, we’re going to get the rebound. I’ve seen too many games the last couple years where the guy will throw it down and get an open shot, and you’re going into overtime. I mean, they can miss, they can get that rebound and put it in, but we’ve got a pretty good rebounding team, and I think we can get that rebound."
On Paul Harris’ late foul shots:
"Paul usually misses free throws and I told him to miss that one. He said he was trying to miss. It’s pretty hard to swish it when you’re trying to miss. He’ll have to explain that one to somebody else."
On the rest of the week and looking forward to the NIT semifinals:
"This is a tough week. We have Fordham coming in, and they’re picked to be very good in their league, and we just have nothing but tough games. They’re a really good team. It’s important to get to New York, and get more important games for these young players to see how they react in those kinds of games, and there will be very good teams there. It’ll be a great experience for us, but it’ll be a really, really tough game for us, especially after the two games we’ve had here. I don’t know if the NIT wanted to make it quite this tough for us to get to New York, but they certainly did. We’re glad to win these two games, and we’re looking forward to New York."