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
Our biggest problem has been defending people. Offensively we played pretty well but it's pretty disappointing at this time of the year that we can't stop people on defense. We're fortunate we've won as many games in our conference as we have playing the defense we have all year.
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.
John Chaney and John Thompson made it possible for the black coach to get in the college game. Administrators need to win to keep their jobs. So when Chaney and Thompson won games, that's how black coaches got hired.
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'm glad we won a couple of games because I would have said this anyway. But people would have thought I was just upset because we lost three games, which we could have. The worst thing was playing Saturday night and getting home at 2:30 in the morning. At least play an afternoon game in Cincinnati or something. The way that we're scheduling is just not going to work.
He's won more games with last-second shots, free throws and play-making than any player we've ever had. It's not even close.
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.
I think we should expand. I think we're ready for this. The game needs an expansion of the tournament.
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.
He cemented his legacy long before this. But people will remember this four-day performance forever.
He couldn't get a breath, but he was the guy making plays for us. If he had been out one minute, we would have lost the game.
He couldn't play those last two games. I had to take him out. He played like himself in the first half and we needed that. Our offense has been terrible and we need him to get it going and we did today for the first time in a while.
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.