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
Is he the best player in the league? No, he's not. But he's the most important player on any team in the league. When Allan Ray is hurt, Villanova wins. If one or two guys from Connecticut have bad games, they still win. If Gerry doesn't play for us, we can't be in the game.
Roy was a great motivator, a guy with great energy, ... He was a very good practice coach. He had a way of keeping everybody enthusiastic and fired up every day, and that's important when you are dealing with a long season like you do in basketball.
Those guys have to be ready to step up and play. This is the opportunity for them. We'll see how they handle that.
I think the thing fans admire and I admire is the way Gerry plays hard all the time. He knows no other speed than full speed. When he makes a mistake, it's an effort-mistake. Most guys make mistakes because they don't give enough effort. That's never been the case with Gerry.
I'd like to show it to some of these guys (at the head table), ... It's as close as they'll ever get to one.
Let the assistant coach come up to me and say, 'Gerry McNamara is overrated.' I'd like to see one of those guys come up to me and say that. He's been double-teamed all year, and the coaches voted him first team all-conference. The head coaches, they don't know (expletive), I guess.
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.
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.
We keep playing all these teams, we're going to find that assistant coach who thinks he's overrated. Or that guy is already home.
Connecticut is a team that can beat anybody, anytime, anyplace. They're the best team in our league, in the country. They've been there. They know what they're doing. They've got veteran guys who know how to play, know how to win.
We had better balance and that was the key to winning. The other guys just scored more and played better. If we can continue with that kind of balance we'll play well here.
When they caught us, and they caught us three or four times, we kept going. Usually, when that happens, you let it go away a little bit. But these guys (Syracuse player) wouldn't let it go away.
When Gerry got the ball coming down, I set something up. I told him (to) drive and give it to one of three guys at the end of regulation. He looked at me and said, 'Can I shoot it?' I said, 'They're not going to let you shoot it. But if they do, shoot it. As soon as he released it, there was never a doubt that ball was nothing but net.
Defensively, we did a good job, as well as you could expect at this stage of the year. We really helped each other. Our inside guys did a nice job. We really didn't give them too many open looks. We were very good.