Men's Basketball

Jim Boeheim on Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament chances: ‘It’s up to them’

Logan Reidsma | Senior Staff Photographer

Jim Boeheim and Syracuse played it close to the vest about whether Syracuse could make the NCAA Tournament.

By Sam Blum

WASHINGTON — Jim Boehiem has made a habit of not talking about his team’s NCAA Tournament chances. After all, as he says “It’s up to them. I don’t know what they’re going to do. You don’t know.”

But in typical Boehiem fashion, he still found a workaround way to campaign for his team’s NCAA Tournament chances despite its 72-71 loss to Pittsburgh in SU’s first game of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. The loss pushed the Orange to 19-13 and SU lost its 10th conference game in 19 tries.

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

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The NCAA Tournament was a prevalent, yet touchy subject in Syracuse’s postgame press conference and locker room. Before Malachi Richardson was even asked a question, he asked the reporters to please not ask him anything about the NCAA Tournament.



“It’s not up to us. It’s not up to any of us,” Syracuse guard Frank Howard said. “I believe we have a good shot. I know we could definitely make something happen.”

When Michael Gbinije was asked if he thought the team should be in, he smiled and said, “I’m not going to say no.”

Dajuan Coleman shrugged off addressing the topic.

“I have no idea about any of that,” He said. “We’re just taking it day by day.”

Still, the Orange must sit and wait for another four days. Selection Sunday on CBS starts exactly 100 hours after the Orange lost to the Panthers. And for Syracuse, it will be a very long 100 hours.

“It’s going to be tough,” Trevor Cooney said before repeating himself. Just got to get through it.”





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