Coach Jim Boeheim Quotes
Syracuse vs. Notre Dame
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Carrier Dome/Syracuse, NY
Opening statement:
“With [Luke] Harangody, we just wanted to not let him get easy shots and I thought Ricky [Jackson] and Arinze [Onuaku] did a tremendous job of making him take tough shots and not letting him get in close and where he had to take a hook shot over them. He’s a tremendous offensive player but if he has to take 28 shots in order for him to get his points then that’s a good statistic for us.
“For the most part, we did a good job with [Ryan] Ayers and [Kyle] McAlarney. McAlarney is an unbelievable three point shooter; he’s as good as anybody I’ve ever seen in this league. He just makes hard threes, you think he’s going to make every one and never miss.
“Notre Dame is a tremendous offensive team and the last three years, we just haven’t guarded them and they’ve beaten us. We just played a little better defense tonight.
“Offensively, Jonny [Flynn] got us going early and Arinze [Onuaku] was tremendous-he had as good a game inside as he’s ever had. Same thing with Ricky [Jackson]. We knew we had to hurt them a little bit inside and we got some tremendous production inside offensively.
“It was a tremendous win. You have to bounce back in this league. We had a very poor, poor first half against Georgetown on Wednesday and they capitalized on that by shooting the ball very well. But, you have to bounce back and Notre Dame has been very difficult for us so it was a tremendous win for our guys and everybody contributed. We had tremendous balance and that was the difference in the game.”
On Arinze [Onuaku]’s play against Luke Harangody:
“He didn’t try to foul him or block his shots. He might’ve got one of them but he just wanted him to take hard shots over him. Both Ricky [Jackson] and Arinze did a tremendous job by making him take that hard shot. He [Harangody] is a tremendous offensive player. Offensively, he’s the best post player that I’ve seen in this league.”
On playing man defense:
“We’re going to play what we need to play and that’s what we’re going to do. Both have been good. We won two games with nothing but zone, tonight we played nothing but man. So, you just don’t know what it’s going to be. We have to see who we’re playing, see which defense is the best. Our zone has been our best defense over the last few games but today we did a good enough job with man.”
On Eric Devendorf’s play:
“Well Eric’s a front line player and I look at him as a starter, he’s as good as anybody in the league. To have him coming off the bench is a huge plus. He missed in and out three or four times and he was really upset with himself. When it got to six and we went back out, I knew he was going to make that shot. He’s got tremendous confidence in himself.”
On the crowd:
“The crowd was great. Fans have been great here and always have been. They were really tremendous today, really tremendous.”
On Andy Rautins’ play:
“Andy is a tremendous player. He committed a few bad fouls, but he made a couple of great steals, he’s getting better all the time. I think his defense was tremendous tonight and he did a tremendous job on [Kyle] McAlarney, most of the time. He really played tremendous.”
On keeping the lead towards the end of the game:
“Well they cut it[the lead] once, and we took it back up and then they cut it again that last time. When they cut it to ten, we made some real good plays and got some separation. Then they cut it again to six, we made two bad offensive plays and they ended up with open court threes because of it. We needed a good possession and Eric [Devendorf] hit the big shot.”
On the difference on defense from Wednesday compared to today:
“It was a different team and a different game. You really can’t compare games, they’re all different.”
On Rick Jackson’s play:
“Ricky is getting better, he’s really getting better. He is still going to get a lot better. Last year, he couldn’t make the hook shot and today, he made two of them right over [Luke] Harangody. He’s getting better all the time. He was good defensively, he was good rebounding. [Zach] Hillesland usually kills us because we don’t play him smart. Today, we played him smart and we shut him out.”
On where they stand in the league:
“We have so far to go in this league. Every game turns you in a different direction and it’s just the way it is. Every game is going to be a battle and it’s going to be that way all year. We just have to focus on the next game and get ready to play. Every game will be tough for us in this league.”