Syracuse Basketball: Jim Boeheim on Malachi Richardson, Short Bench & ACC Stuff

Jim Boeheim stopped by the ACC Coaches Teleconference to chat about the Syracuse Orange. Here's some of the highlights...

On SU's next opponent, the Virginia Tech Hokies:

"(Buzz Williams) has done a great job against our teams when we played them. We went to the last play last year against them here. He’s got a better team this year. They’ve got multiple guys that can score. They jumped off to a great start in the league. They’ve been in every game they’ve played just about. This is a very good Virginia Tech team with a lot of offensive weapons...We’re playing better. We’ve got to continue to play well, and actually still get better. So yeah, that’s important."

On rising freshman star Malachi Richardson:

"He’s a very confident kid. He just goes out and plays. He’s got a lot of confidence in what he can do. He started out the year really well and played great early. And then he had a little shooting spell. Now, since the league started, he’s been our most consistent outside shooter. For a freshman, he’s been really, really solid and stable in every game. He’s really stepped it up in the league...He can become a really really good guard in the future."

On the effect his notoriously-short bench rotation has on players:

"I think it’s overstated. Duke won last year playing six or seven guys and won the whole thing. You’d like to have another guy or two. But if you look at the tradition and the history in this game, the championship games and the Final Fours and the last 16 teams, most coaches play six or seven guys. There might be a couple guys out there for two or three minutes. But for the most part, it’’s six or seven guys. And if you don’t have anyone hurt it isn’t a problem. It really isn’t.

"We’d like to have an eighth guy. We’ve been playing seven. We would like to have that eighth guy, that would be ideal. But we do have guys that can play a couple different positions so they can have a little bit more flexibility."