Boeheim Criticizes Nate Oats, Defends Coach K
UPDATE: Per Charlie Potter of 247Sports, Oats said the following. “I want to publicly apologize to Coach K for what I said. ... I actually felt terrible about it after the press conference. I reached out to him. He was gracious enough to return my call. I have the utmost respect for him as a coach.”
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim defended Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, while criticizing Alabama coach Nate Oats, on Saturday after the Orange’s 101–63 win over Boston College.
Oats called out Krzyzewski after the Duke coach questioned whether they should be playing college basketball amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everybody knows Mike Krzyzewski is a friend of mine,” Boeheim said. “Mike said in the summer, and September and October, we should delay the season. For some young coach (Nate Oats), who should know better but didn’t, to suggest that Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t want to play because he lost a couple of games? He’s only won 1,100.”
Duke canceled the rest of its non-conference games earlier this week after Krzyzewski questioned whether college basketball should be playing during the pandemic. His comments, as Boeheim said, echoed similar concerns he’s voiced publicly since the summer.
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“You have 2,000 deaths a day,” Krzyzewski said Wednesday. “You have 200,000 cases. People are saying the next six weeks are going be the worst. To me, it’s already pretty bad.”
While defending Krzyzewski, Boeheim did admit that he disagrees with his friend, am opinion he has held for months as well.
“I think we need to play because the vaccine’s not going to be here for players and everybody until the summer,” Boeheim said. “To delay now a month or two or whatever isn’t going to change anything. It’s not going to be under control. And, the safest place for our players is proven: on campus.”
Boeheim contrasted the lower COVID-19 positivity rates for his program to the surging cases across the country.
Oates said this week that the only reason Krzyzewski called for the season to be delayed is because Duke lost two non-conference games.
“Do you think if Coach K hadn’t lost his two nonconference games at home that he would still be saying that?” Oats said. “We 100% should be playing basketball.”
“Mike Krzyzewski isn’t saying that because he doesn’t want to play or he doesn’t have a good team,” Boeheim said. “He said that consistently from the beginning of the year. It’s sad to see somebody say something like that. Really speaks to somebody’s character.”
