Jim Boeheim: 'I Should Have Taken Frank Howard Out of the Game'

Jim Boeheim met with the media following the Syracuse Orange's 72-71 loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers on Wednesday in on day two of the ACC Tournament. He shared some thoughts on what went down and what what wrong.

On what he would have done differently:

I should have taken Frank Howard out of the game, but I just thought that he had been playing well. I should have taken him out and put Trevor back in. It was my mistake. I let Mike have the ball when we had the tied game.

Just one of those things. Sometimes you think you can get by with it. I thought he played so well and had gotten us into good position, but I should have made that change right then.

On Trevor Cooney's final shot:

I thought Trevor made the best of that situation. I would have liked to have seen him go all the way. I don't think he thought he had quite enough time.

On what Pitt was doing well before Syracuse started pressing:

They're a good team. I thought our defense was not bad. I thought our offense, we didn't drive the ball enough. We really didn't drive the ball until we got behind. We wanted to drive it more.

Malachi finally started to get to the basket. Frank got in the lane. I thought that's when we got it going. We wanted to do that earlier, but we just never got into that.

On why he kept Frank Howard in the game over Cooney:

I thought Frank did an unbelievable job. He got penetration. He got in the lane. He had five assists, got to the basket. He opened up their defense for other guys. They had to help. He hit people. They were able to drive.

He did a tremendous job. But I should have taken him out when we got to the tied spot there.

On whether or not he kept Cooney out for an extended period because he was hurt:

No, he was not hurt.

On whether or not the NCAA committee will put SU in the tournament:

It's up to them. I don't know what they're going to do. You don't know. I've heard you say it many times. You don't know what they're going to do and I don't either.

I don't know. I'm not on the committee. Every coach in the country that's got any kind of record thinks they should get in the tournament. What do you want me to say? They're going to have to evaluate what we've done based on all the circumstances and make a decision.

On the NCAA committe and whether or not his suspension should be taken into account:

I thought, and I'm not talking about me, I've always thought the NCAA committee was not the infractions committee, I thought it was the NCAA basketball committee. I thought it's their job to pick the best teams for the tournament.

I have read where some people think we should be punished by the basketball committee as well. I think we've had our punishment. I don't think we should now be punished by the basketball committee. We've gotten pretty heavy punishments.

The players on this team didn't do anything wrong, were not involved in anything. They should be evaluated on how well they played when they played their best. That's the only thing that I think should happen. We should be evaluated on what kind of team we are.

I think everybody has their own opinions. The chairman of the committee said a coach not being there can be taken like a player not being there. How much is that important? I don't know. How much is that taken into consideration? I don't know.

I know we've beaten four teams in the top 30 or 35 in the country. We've beaten eight teams in the top 100. If there's teams better than that, so be it. We'll see what happens.