Everything Boeheim Said After ACC Tournament Win Against NC State
Opening Statement
“We just couldn’t stop them, and they couldn’t stop us, everyone was looking for Buddy he got the hand early and just looking for him and he knocked them down. Robert did a great job in there, Quincy got in foul trouble early, Marek needed to come out for a few minutes, I though Jesse was really solid in the middle. Joe was really good the whole game, he hit a couple of big 3s in the second half. We started out the second half really moving the ball well we got four good looks from the 3-point line. I think we made all four, Buddy made the four-point play and Joe made one and Allen made one and then Quincy made one. So, they made none and we made four and that really was the difference in the game. We rebounded better our defense has been pretty good these last three games. Second half the first 15 minutes was really good, I thought that was a really big difference in the game. We got some stops and they couldn’t stop us. Really good offensive game, one of our best all year.”
When Buddy is Rolling like that, how does this help the offense space out the floor when they’re sending so many guys at him?
“You know, today he got a lot of open looks. His teammates did a really great job of setting him up, finding him. They pressed a little bit; they got an open look on one or two when they pressed us. Marek was really good; Joe was really good against the pressure. I thought they press a lot, we handled the press, there was maybe one turnover against it. Really good job of attacking the press and getting him open shots, he was hot, he got it going and it worked for him. It was just a really good balance in the second half, we came out and Buddy had one and Marek made a lot of those plays to people, I thought he was really good on defense you know keeping the big guys away. It was, again, a really good defensive effort.”
What do you feel like after getting this win today?
“You know I felt all along that, you know I don’t think it’s been taken into consideration. Most of the games we played were all on the road. You look at most teams who got two or three quadrant one wins, they won at home. We didn’t get opportunity to play a quadrant one game at home this year. The Big 10 records on the road and then all the games in the league were on the road. Now you look and quadrant two and there is a big difference 30/40 and a 60/70 quadrant 2 win. I mean Clemson, Virginia Tech, North Carolina they’re all 30’s to early 40’s, I mean those are quadrant two wins. I think today 11-2 in quadrant two and 3 and think now we move to 12-2 in quadrant two and three. Some of those are top 50 games so there’s a lot of wins in there and I think if you look at some teams, they’ve had like five wins in quadrant two and three and a lot of wins in quadrant 4. But I think if you look at the profile overall, I think we got a lot of wins against a lot of good teams. I think we beat a team today that could have been the tournament. They could have beaten us and had a chance to go to the tournament, but again I think we did what we needed to do this year, but we’ll see what happens."
You took out Buddy 2 shy of a career high, were either of you thinking about that?
"He looked a little tired, I wanted to get him out and put Kadary back in the game. I don’t think about how many points he’s got. He had enough."
What was the change you put there with rebounding?
"Not much, we were a little bit tighter than normal, and I thought Marek was really good down there and really battled, I thought Robert came in and battled. You know we just played better inside, really started in the second half. We scored obviously to get ahead, but our defense was just better in the second half. That was the difference in the game."
What did you see out of Robert and Jesse?
"Both Robert and Quincy were great. We were going to win when Robert had one play where I don’t know how he even got the ball to the rim. Jesse was good, he got a couple balls slip through his hands, but he’s getting better, he’s worked hard this year. I think he’s shown some really dramatic improvement and I think he still has got a huge upside. I think he can put on 15-20 pounds this summer; all he needs to do is get stronger. He understands the game, he’s moving well, he’s just got to get stronger, and I believe he’ll do that. But both those guys were really good today, Robert was really good today and I believe he’s on the verge. He’s had some really good practice days. Again, he’s been right on the verge of playing well."
How do you feel about how this team has gelled?
"You know I think we’ve played pretty well all year. I think when we had a struggle on the road, and we came home, and we beat Miami and Virginia Tech and we really played well in those games. I think we’ve done that. I think we’ve had times where we have done that and when you look at losing, you know in North Carolina, we played a great game down there. That’s a tough game, that’s a tough play and Virginia is pretty tough, Clemson is a hard place to play. The games we lost were all tough games, you know Rutgers, Clemson, Virginia, Duke, they’re tournament teams. You can lose those teams, but we won’t the games we’ve had to win at home, and we picked up a couple of good road wins. We beat a good team today this was a really good team, it’s a middle or tenth place, they’ve won five game in a row. They won at Virginia, they won at Notre Dame, they just beat Florida State at home. They came in with a lot of confidence, playing well and we played very well. We played very well against Clemson, we had them seven points down. North Carolina, we had down 10 we just made a couple of unforced errors. This teams played really well; they’ve come together pretty well. A lot of people gave up on them earlier in the year and they just kept plugging away and kept going. As everyone knows, it’s been a hard year, you know Buddy was out because he was sick, that hurt us. Losing Baraba for the year certainly hurt us, the last couple game Marek’s been playing with a bad finger. They’ve overcome all that and I’m very proud of this team and what they’ve done. I think it’s just incredible what they’ve done, I really do."
Can you expand on Girard’s steady performance today?
"I thought he was really good I have a lot of confidence in Joe. I know he struggled this year, but he proved himself last year, coming into a very tough situation where we had to have him play well and he did it. He got us to 18 wins last year and without him we would’ve never gotten there. I have a lot of loyalty to players in our program who have done stuff for us, but I believe he’s good, he’s a really good player. He made a couple big shots to start the second half. The 3-point shot is important in this game. He’s our best 3-point shooting point guard. He’s a very good 3-point shooter and I have a lot of confidence in him. Now, Virginia tomorrow they take away the 3, it might be a game where Kadary plays better and can get to the basket so, we’ll try to use him in that situation. This was definitely Joe’s night, he was confident, he got to the basket. He just looked very confident tonight and I thought he had a great game. But as I said all year, we all three guards to play well if we want to beat good teams in advance and nothing has changed my mind in that at all."
Do you think you solved some the issues that you had earlier this year?
I think we’re better, I think were playing better defense, I think our rebounding’s been better, but our offense has been there all year. We’re a very good offensive team, when we make shots, we’re really good; today we made shots. Our defense has gotten better, it will be tested tomorrow, we’re playing the best team in the league and a team a team that beat us up the first time we played. So, we got a great challenge tomorrow, Virginia’s really good and we’ll have our hands full tomorrow.
