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
These guys wouldn't let it get away. Gerry wouldn't let it get away. He amazes me. He's got more guts that anyone I've ever coached.
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.
These guys have grown, stepped it up and grown up. That should help us a lot this next week. Gerry made the big plays, but these other guys stepped it up. I think that's why we're going forward, and it's given us a little better opportunity now.
Some guys win one game once in a while, in a year or two. I don't think anybody's ever won four games in a row by making 'the' play of the game. That's pretty special.
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.
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.
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.
I had to laugh when our student newspaper called him overrated. Without Gerry McNamara, we wouldn't have won 10 games this year. The other guys just aren't ready. They needed him. We wouldn't even have a chance to play this game without him.
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.
If the other guys had played better all year, I'm sure (McNamara being called overrated) never would have come up.
He made some bad choices and got in some bad situations but we need him to make plays. We don't have other guys to make plays.
The last two games we've played as well as we have all year. We just want to keep playing well. We've been there (in the NCAA tournament) before. We've got veteran guys that know what to do. I think our league is making everybody a dangerous team it's so deep.
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.
I don't want a doubling-type thing. I think there should be some teams added. I'm not looking at it like one or two. I'm not looking at 20 either. I think there should be an expansion of the tournament. Whatever seems to fit.