Jim Boeheim broke away from the television cameras and into the orange masses at half-court. Without respite, his family, players and assistant coaches mobbed him and presented him with a uniform stitched with No. 800 to commemorate a milestone victory.

As video tributes streamed on the scoreboard commemorating his career at Syracuse, the man of few words gripped a microphone and mulled over what he would say to the 15,707 in attendance at the Carrier Dome wielding signs that read ‘800 wins,’ while chanting: ‘Thank you, Boeheim.’

‘Thank you so much,’ Boeheim said. ‘I appreciate you staying up so late – it’s way past my bedtime. I just want to thank all the players that’d been here over the years and all the coaches.’

By then, the game details of the Orange’s 75-43 thrashing of Albany (0-1) were hazy. No one remembered Arinze Onuaku’s 14 points to lead the team, or a 10-point, five-rebound performance from Rick Jackson that rounded out the frontcourt’s dominant night. Wes Johnson’s put-back slam to open the second half would headline the highlight reel – after any other game.

But tonight was about Boeheim, who joined the ranks of just two other active coaches in Division I – Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun — in the 800-win club. Just eight coaches in total – Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp, Krzyzewski, Jim Phelan, Calhoun, Eddie Sutton and Boeheim – hold the honor.

‘Obviously, it’s a big milestone for any coach to get, and I’m proud of all the players that we’ve had,’ Boeheim said. ‘The coaches and players that have been here and have been consistently good for a long time.’

Over the course of Monday’s game, it was easy to see a metaphoric timeline of how the coach became an institution. There was the live-wired, 100-and-200 win Boeheim of his younger years on display, who kicked the scorer’s table and threw a player’s warm-up jersey to the floor after a botched alley-oop early in the first half.

There was the 700-win Boeheim, who had been patrolling the same sidelines for so long, that he could sub a player out of the game just by looking at him – just like he did after a sloppy Brandon Triche pass led to one of the team’s 21 turnovers.

After the play, the freshman point guard looked to the sidelines and immediately began jogging off the court.

‘He knows exactly what he’s doing,’ Triche said. ‘A lot of us try and go against what he says, and it doesn’t work. At the end of the day, he knows exactly what he’s doing. That’s why he’s won so much.’

And then there was the 800-win Boeheim, who, after 33 years, 1,088 games and a national championship, knew exactly how to manage a team coming off a shocking loss, without the crutch of its three leading scorers from a year ago to lean on.

In the opening minutes, the Orange (1-0) sprinted out to an 8-0 lead over the Great Danes with the coach orchestrating it all. With Albany sitting back in a defensive zone, Boeheim unloaded a speedy arsenal unlike any other familiar to Syracuse fans in recent years.

The cushion from the opening five-minute push was plenty to coast to a game-one victory.

‘You see a guy that’s been here for so long and has been doing a great job ever since he’s been here – it’s great to see,’ Onuaku said. ‘I remember seeing No. 700 on TV when he was recruiting me and I figured I’d be here for No. 800.’

But mostly, there was the Boeheim that had been there all along. After reaching the career milestone, the coach hustled into the post-game press conference like he always does, and began firing off what he did, and didn’t, like about the way SU had played.

It was a 1:30 statement about hustle plays his team didn’t make, his weariness in attempting high-risk, low-reward plays and his plans to move seamlessly into preparing for Wednesday’s opponent, Robert Morris. He prides himself on not getting caught up in the hype.

And when the question about his 800th victory finally came, he brought it to the same, predictably underwhelming, conclusion.

‘Well,’ Boeheim said, ‘it would have been a whole lot nicer if we’d gotten it out of the way last year.’

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Published on November 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm