BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2000

Jim Boeheim

COACH BOEHEIM: I thought Georgetown played -- just completely outplayed us right from the start. We had an opportunity to even start the second half, we probably got five or six inside layups. I think we started the second half one for fifteen. We can't do that. You can't dig that kind of hole. I thought we fought back about as well as we can. They made their free throws. You just can't put yourself in that kind of a hole. You know, right from the opening, we just didn't get after the thing like we're capable of. We started man-man. They scored four straight possessions. We just didn't have any intensity in the defensive end. There's no excuse for that at this stage of the year. That's what happened today. Questions?

COACH BOEHEIM: It's not going to help them. That's for sure.

COACH BOEHEIM: No idea. Just obviously going to drop. That's all. We lost to St. John's by one point down here and dropped five or six places in the polls. Duke lost by one point at home and dropped two places. It's obvious we haven't gotten much respect this year in the league. I'm sure we're going to drop. We put ourselves in this position. We're going to have to play our way out of it. Find our way out. If we play like we did today, it won't matter.

COACH BOEHEIM: He plays once in a while. You know, he starts the game like that, the game's not even a game.

COACH BOEHEIM: I mean he can score. There's no question he can score. First play he was in, he got picked. Kevin Braswell made a three. Tried for four games to teach him that he's got to not let that happen. It hasn't worked. He's a good offensive player so we're going to have to put up with his defensive shortcomings. He can't guard anybody.

COACH BOEHEIM: He had a great game. He hurt us in Syracuse. He had 22 in Syracuse and we beat them by 17. Problem with this game was Syracuse. It has nothing to do with Georgetown. If we're going to play like this, we wouldn't be, you know, we wouldn't be anywhere. If we're going to play basketball like this, there's, you know, this is the worst we've played the whole year. We've been a pretty consistent team, pretty good leadership. I didn't see any leadership. I didn't see any effort until about ten minutes to go in the game.

COACH BOEHEIM: That's what I told them.

COACH BOEHEIM: There you have to understand that you have to be ready to play, or the same thing's going to happen. I understand what they have to do. They have to understand.

COACH BOEHEIM: I'm sure they're back there having a party.

COACH BOEHEIM: First of all, a loss here is, you know, is not going to determine what happens next week. Villanova lost here by 20 points and won the National Championship. You know, what you do here, it's irrelevant. It's the same as what happened last week, same as when we won 24 games. That didn't help us today. What we did today, win or lose, isn't going to help us next week. We have to understand. Hopefully, they will learn that they can't come out and play like this, because they're going to lose to anybody they play in the first round if this is the effort we're going to have. If they learn from this, then, you know, we'll be thankful next week. Rather learn that lesson this week than try to learn it next week. But we've been coming here for as many years as the tournament's been here and we have never -- never -- played a game like this in New York. Why we did today, I don't have the answer.

COACH BOEHEIM: Yeah, I'd say I was surprised. Yeah. We've been consistent for the entire season. When we've had a bad game, it hasn't been because of the effort or the understanding of the game. Today we didn't have any understanding really of what we were doing on offense or really on defense. The effort was only there in the last ten minutes, twelve minutes of the game. You know, we knew that -- we knew missing layups, we started off the second half, that's just a matter of focus and energy and going up and putting the ball there. I mean, you know, if you can't make those shots, you obviously -- there's nothing you can do that's going to try to help change. You know, you do whatever you can. But it's hard to figure out why it would happen at this stage, when it hasn't happened at any stage during the season. Every game we've lost, we've had good purpose, good effort. We made passes today that -- I can think of three passes that we made that they, you know, there was no effort, no pressure, nothing. They scored six points off the three passes. There is no explanation for that. You know, but the bottom line is we're going to learn from this or -- and it will help us. If you can't learn from a game like this about what you have to do, you know, Damone's a perfect example. He played eight minutes the first half, 0 for 2, no rebounds, no assist, no effort, no nothing. Then he gets 15 points in a ten-minute stretch in the second half. We can't win if we're going to come out and play like that, put ourselves in that kind of a hole. Again, I think Georgetown is capable of playing well against us. Why they haven't played better this year, I don't know. But they're capable of playing. They played pretty well today. We can't allow them to do some of the things that we allowed them to do.

COACH BOEHEIM: Well, I don't think Braswell had a terrific game. Jay didn't have one of his better games. He made some bad turnovers and it's, you know, he did not have a good game.

COACH BOEHEIM: I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment.

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