Immediately after Jim Boeheim emerged from the locker room Monday, he began to address his critics. Those who went into panic mode during an eight-game stretch when Syracuse won just twice were met with a rebuttal from the Hall of Fame coach.

‘We’ve got four games left and have won 21 games, but the season is over in some people’s minds,’ Boeheim said. ‘It never ceases to amaze me.

‘People think the season’s over. The season is over when we’ve played 18 games in the league.’

Clearly bothered by what has been written and said about the coach and his squad during a rough patch through the Big East gantlet, Boeheim took issue with what he read about Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, a former Boeheim assistant, having won six consecutive games in head-to-head matchups.

Syracuse lost to Louisville 73-69 on the road Saturday.

During the middle of his press conference, he reminded everybody that he had beaten Pitino’s squad six times in a row earlier in Pitino’s career.

‘So now we’re all of a sudden going to put in the paper that I lost six straight to Rick Pitino?’ Boeheim said. ‘Why don’t we put that I’ve beat him six straight? Go ahead, why don’t you keep doing that? I really appreciate that. Want to talk about personal? Yeah, it’s personal. When people write and say things about me, it’s personal to me. It always will be. It always will be.

‘It doesn’t mean I have to like it. It doesn’t mean I’m just going to stand up here and let it go. When I let things go like that, it will be time for me to leave.’

Boeheim went on to discuss his team’s recent stretch, reminding reporters that four of SU’s loses have come against upper-echelon teams.

And Boeheim took some time to address what he considered to be personal attacks.

‘People write and say, ‘He’s lost it, he’s too old,” Boeheim said. ‘I’ve heard that. It’s been written, been said. Jeez, I’m 10 months older than when I won Coach of the Year in the country. I must have really got hit with something the last 10 months.’

And although the Orange currently sits eighth in the conference, Boeheim said his squad is probably ahead of schedule in terms of its progression heading into the final stretch of the season.

‘To keep things in perspective, we’re probably a little ahead of where we might have been or people thought we’d be at this stage of the season,’ Boeheim said. ‘We’ve still got a lot of work to do, it’s going to be very difficult.’

SU guards rebound better

Eight to 10 rebounds from three guys might not mean all that much to most. But to Jim Boeheim, it means everything.

It could mean the difference between a win and a loss. And in some cases this season, he swears it has. He felt it did after the trio grabbed just two rebounds in the Georgetown loss. Same for the first loss of the season to Pittsburgh.

But with their eight rebounds Monday, Brandon Triche, Dion Waiters and Scoop Jardine bucked that trend.

I think it was the last game or the game before where our guards got two rebounds,’ Boeheim said. ‘Tonight we got eight. Eight to 10, at least, we really need 10 from the guards to help us.’

In the Georgetown and Pittsburgh games, like most of Syracuse’s losses this year, Boeheim’s guards failed to contribute almost anything in the rebounding department. Against Pitt on Jan. 17, Jardine, Triche and Waiters combined for six rebounds — all by Waiters. Then came the dismal performance against Georgetown. The game Boeheim referred to after Syracuse’s 63-52 win over West Virginia on Monday.

Against the Hoyas last Wednesday, Jardine was the only one of the three to register a rebound. He tallied the two, as Waiters and Triche failed to snag a single board.

But the will to crash the boards changed Monday against West Virginia. Against a Mountaineer team led by rebound-magnet Kevin Jones and big men Deniz Kilicli and John Flowers. Overall, the Orange outrebounded WVU 35-28.

After the game, SU forward Kris Joseph put his name in with the three guards as well. The 6-foot-7 junior said he should be hauling in more boards each game — he is averaging 4.8 on the season.

He grabbed five Monday after following the three guards’ lead. A contrived plan to attack the boards with more ferocity.

‘I’m 6-foot-7, I should definitely be one of the top rebounders on the team,’ Joseph said. ‘It is just a matter of will. You have to want to do certain things on the defensive end, and even on the offensive end, and we definitely made a conscious effort tonight of making sure we did those things.’

aljohn@syr.edu

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on February 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm