Jim Boeheim

Jim Boeheim
James Arthur "Jim" Boeheimis the head coach of the men's basketball team at Syracuse University. Boeheim has guided the Orange to nine Big East regular season championships, five Big East Tournament championships, and 28 NCAA Tournament appearances, including three appearances in the national title game. In those games, the Orange lost to Indiana in 1987, on a last-second jump shot by Keith Smart, and to Kentucky in 1996, before defeating Kansas in 2003 with All-American Carmelo Anthony...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth17 November 1944
CityLyons, NY
None of these games are really upsets, like Wichita State or George Mason winning, because if you watch them they are really good teams. There's so much equity it's scary. Remember back in November when we said how good Drexel was and couldn't believe that was the sixth or seventh place team in the Colonial? Well, that's where they finished.
I have a number in mind, I think it should probably be about four to six, somewhere in there. This year, more than ever, has proven that there are teams that might not get in, or might just barely get in, that can win games.
You have to have tough, physical guys to get away with that. That's what Villanova has. The advantage is you get a big advantage on offense but a disadvantage on defense. But I think it balances out. But you have to have tough kids to do that. They have tough kids and veterans so they can get away with it.
This year has proven that teams that just got in, or maybe didn't get in, can win games.
When you lose your best player without any practice time or anything (to prepare), that's a huge mountain to overcome. I think this is a great lesson for the other guys, that they can win without Gerry. That'll help make them stronger, give us a chance to rest Gerry. Other guys know they can step up and make plays.
When you lose three straight games, you lose a little confidence. And we've lost a lot of confidence.
This was a heck of a comeback from that kind of deficit against a team that controls the game. You just can't give anybody that kind of lead and expect to come back, but we just keep plugging away and as long as we get Gerry some looks he's going to make his share.
This was a heart-and-soul type of game. I've questioned the toughness of our players a couple times. When you lose four in a row and you do what we had to do to win, that's a tremendous tribute to the toughness of these kids.
We made a couple bad mistakes at the end of the game. And fortunately Gerry corrected them.
Without Gerry McNamara, we wouldn't have won 10 games this year.
We all know that it's more open now than it's ever been.
Tonight was his first bad game of the year. You're going to have a bad game once in awhile. We're not used to him having a bad night. Usually if he's not shooting well, he's doing something well. He's making plays or doing something. But tonight he just had a bad game.
We had to give it a lot tonight. We've played a lot of basketball. We're just going to have to get ready and be ready to play Monday night. West Virginia's playing as good as anybody. It's a tremendous test, a tremendous game for us.
Those two helped us to get off to such a great start, ... They laid the foundation for the success we've had.