Bryant Head Coach Jared Grasso Rips Syracuse, Boeheim
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said both during halftime and after his team's season opener against Bryant, which the Orange narrowly won 85-84, that the game should not have been played. He stated that the lack of practice (the program paused all activities after coach Boeheim tested positive for COVID-19) put his players at a disadvantage, but took responsibility for playing anyway.
"You cannot play basketball when you don't practice," Boeheim said after the game. "That's a fundamental thing that everybody knows. We were playing really well two weeks ago. Go on 14 days, the players kept themselves in OK shape. We practiced yesterday and some guys were dying. Then we get into a game against a really good team, a smart team, a well coached team, we couldn't run, we couldn't shoot...
"But this is my fault. We should never have played this game. We should've come back, practiced, played next week. Bryant couldn't really reschedule it. So, 100% my fault."
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Bryant head coach Jared Grasso did not seem to take too kindly to those remarks during his postgame press conference.
"Am I supposed to give an honest reaction?" Grasso said via Bill Koch of the Providence Journal. "Let me give an honest reaction -- we gave them five opportunities to cancel the game. They wanted to play it. We asked to move the date five times. We felt the same way. They were coming off quarantine. They asked to play it. They wanted to play us. We should have beat them at their place. If that's going to be their excuse, so be it. Now I got angry because we had this conversation with them a dozen times about moving the date.
"They decided not to move it. I know I'm not supposed to say that. He's a Hall of Fame coach. I'm a nobody. But the reality is we tried to change the date and give them the opportunity to change the date. They decided not to. Is that the reason we should have beat them? If they want to use that as an excuse, they can. But we came up here and we should have beat Syracuse at Syracuse. It's hard for me not to be blunt. I apologize. I would have wanted to cancel the game if I was in their shoes. They didn't want to cancel the game. They made that decision. We came up here to play and came up here to win and deserved to win. We didn't make enough plays to.
"They're a very good team. He's a Hall of Fame coach. I have nothing but respect for him. But for them to say they wanted to cancel the game is just completely false."
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To be fair, Boeheim was not saying they wanted to cancel it but Bryant refused. He was saying it was not fair to his players to expect them to play well given the circumstances, and even said responsibility for playing the game was completely on him. Grasso's response may have also been dictated on how Boeheim's comments were relayed to him. Either way, those are certainly some strong words from the Bulldogs' head coach.
