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
I think John's place in Syracuse basketball history is underappreciated, ... We were facing some tough times and he easily could have turned his back on us and committed someplace else, but he stuck with us. During that 1996 tournament, he literally carried us on his shoulders to the title game.
It's a great win. I'd say it's one of the best we've ever had at Syracuse and I've only been here about 44 years.
No question, he's given us a foothold in Scranton, but Gerry's appeal goes way beyond there. I think he's revived interest among fans in the Syracuse and Rochester areas, too. People can identify with him. I think they appreciate the way he plays.
He got guys like Dave Bing to come to Syracuse at a time when the program was really down, ... He made me realize that the foundation for any good team is good players. There isn't a coach in the Hall of Fame who didn't have good players on his teams.
We just really couldn't stop them defensively enough to get to where we wanted to go. They shot the ball well. They played well, ... We made some uncharacteristically bad turnovers in this game that really hurt us.
We just played three teams I consider to be Top Ten teams and, right now, we're not a Top Ten team.
We just played three teams I consider to be Top 10 teams and, right now, we're not a Top 10 team. It's sad we have to play great teams back-to-back ... that's not the right way. Nobody else has to do that, play back-to-back Saturday and Monday games two weeks in a row with three of four on the road. That's too much to ask.
We just had a lack of patience in the first half. It caused us all kinds of problems.
We were pushing up on him, zoning him, double-teaming him, trying to do anything we could to get him to just miss a little bit. He was terrific.
We missed Terrence, ... He's a big key for us on the boards.
We had the worst defensive effort in the 30 years I've been coaching.
These (conference) tournaments are so underdog-oriented. Teams that have to win, they're playing their hearts out. . . . You're going to beat teams that maybe are better. The real truth is, the teams that are better maybe aren't that much better.
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.
They all want to play, so they'll listen, ... That's never been a problem.