You think you know everything about Jim Boeheim? Think again.
Jack McCallum wrote the book on Jim Boeheim. Mostly. He co-wrote Boeheim's autobiography Bleeding Orange and spent an inordinate amount of time around the Hall of Fame coach, learning the ins and outs of who he is off the court as well as on it.
McCallum and Boeheim reconnected recently as the Syracuse Orange have made their march through the NCAA Tournament. His piece on whether or not Boeheim is in the midst of his best coaching job ever is up on SI's Campus Rush and worth a requisite read.
There were a few interesting nuggets in there that deserved to get called out just in case you need some enticement.
1. Boeheim explains why he doesn't get on shooters the same way he gets on other players:
"You don't always know how far to push a player," Boeheim says. "But my default position is that you have to push. You have to get a player to perform. Many times players think they're playing hard and they're not. It's up to you to show them what playing hard means.
"On the other hand, I never go hard at a shooter. You never say anything to a shooter because they're going to do what they're going to do whether you're in their ear or not. Shooting is not about effort."
2. Tyler Roberson and Boeheim have moved on from his harsh assessment after the Pitt loss but there's still friction.
Gbinije and Boeheim exchanged angry words during at least one game this year. And even in the tournament Roberson wrenched himself away from Boeheim during a timeout in the Gonzaga game when the coach grabbed his arm.
"Don't touch me!" he said to Boeheim.
"Hey, I'm not hurting you," said Boeheim, who went on talking.
3. Boeheim had a very specific motivator for players to stop London Perrantes from shooting more threes.
When Boeheim has a particular alert on a shooter, he's liable to say something like this: "If Perrantes shoots even one shot over you, you're coming out of the game."
4. Boeheim really had to work with Michael Gbinije to turn him into a leader.
"We've talked to Mike mostly about how he has to be The Guy," says Boeheim. "Mike is talented but has the type of personality where he wants to be the secondary, maybe even the ... what is it? ... the tertiary guy. We have to get him out of that."
5. Boeheim fully expects Hopkins to ditch the 2-3 zone when he takes over, and he's fine with it.
The first thing Hopkins will probably do when he (presumably) takes over after the 2018–19 season is install a man-to-man even if the zone continues as the primary defense. And Boeheim will be the first one to say that's exactly what he should do.
Read the rest of the piece here.
