Top 50 Jim Boeheim Quotes

I’m not Joe Paterno. Somebody didn’t come and tell me Bernie Fine did something and I’m hiding it.

I hate losing more than I like winning.

I speak my mind on everything. I’m not reluctant.

Unfortunately, in our business, it’s all about the tournament when you’re a good team.

There are different psychologies that different coaches have.

Why did Donald Trump become president? I don’t know.

The NBA has never drafted a player for defense. At any position, even at center.

If you can get in trouble for supporting a friend you’ve known for almost 50 years, I don’t want to live in that country.

Great scorers tend to think they can score against anybody.

When you take over at Wisconsin, nobody’s ever won there, nobody expects you to win and that’s when it’s really hard to do. And Bo Ryan won there, consistently.

When you take over at Kansas, they’ve always won, so you’re expected to win.

It’s college basketball and there’s a certain amount of uncertainty. As an assistant coach, you do the best job you can to win.

I kind of like the idea of just coaching, nothing else. But I just think some coaches are better suited for college than the NBA. I believe I’m one of those guys. I think Tom Izzo is one of those guys. Mike Krzyzewski. I think they found the right jobs and they’ve stayed with them.

It’s a myth that I run things at Syracuse University.

College, our job is to get guys to get better. Work hard, get better and be in position so when your time comes you get to play in the NBA.

I loved Jud Heathcote.

As you get older, you should be better at coaching. You learn your lessons. You keep thinking and learning about it, you should be better than you.

It’s so much harder to make the NBA than people think it is.

The Final Four is what we play for. That’s what we’re trying to do. That’s what’s important.

The thing I hate about writers is they want to state their case and they use false information.

It’s one thing to play through injuries, quite another to play well through injuries.

I never really thought that I was going to get out of coaching ever. In my fifth year, I thought I might get out. You have those thoughts in any job. But I never really, really thought I was going to get out.

I’ve always felt like a guy where the grass is greener on my side of the fence.

I’d never switch to man-to-man unless we were able to play good man-to-man. Ever.

If you look at the terrorist attacks around the world, they’re in places where there is no security – a club or a movie theater or wherever.

The national championship for Syracuse in 2003 will always be the high-water mark for me. That was my alma mater, my team, my players, our fans. That remains the top experience of my basketball life.

I never have been in Bernie Fine’s hotel room in my life.

There should be some civility when it comes to being president of the United States.

A lot of coaches get involved in a lot of different things – car dealerships and restaurants and all kinds of things. I’ve never really done that.

I grew up in the Big East Conference for 30 years. We were a conference that was nothing. We were a bunch of schools thrown together and within five years we were one of the top two basketball conferences in the country.

You have to show high school players that fans care about your program, that they’re gonna be at the games. I think that’s a huge key to success in college basketball.

I love Charles Barkley, he’s a good friend of mine and he’s a funny guy. He knows nothing about college basketball. Less than nothing.

I don’t love playing zone all the time, because it does have an effect on your offense.

I’ve said some things that are a little bit off the wall, but I don’t run away and hide from them.

Klay Thompson stands out. He’s just a tough kid.

Against our zone, even really good offensive teams take longer than usual to get into their patterns, maybe 30 seconds. So we’re locked into playing defense for that long… it’s hard to run on offense after you’ve been hunkering down on D for that long.

A coach coaches. That’s what he does. That’s what he’s good at. He’s not managing people. He manages his players, but that’s different.

We want every guy to graduate, and we work very hard on that.

They don’t work with you to get better in the NBA. Either you’re ready or you’re out and you go to the G-League or Europe.

I mean, it’s very difficult up there in the NBA.

You can lose a coach every once in a while. You really need to keep an athletic director because you need a guy that’s there consistently for as long a time period as possible because he’s managing everybody. He affects everybody and when he leaves, he affects everybody.

I’ve always felt like I was a college coach and I was a college coach for Syracuse. It just felt like the right thing.

I’ve had good players in my time. I really have.

I didn’t work out from 30 to 68. I just started working out when I turned 68.

You can’t put pressure on yourself. You’ve just got to go out and play.

Katie Ledecky is the best swimmer in the world. You could say she’s impressive with what she can do in a pool.

Georgetown is still Georgetown. They have got a tremendous name and recognition. They are in a great area and have a great school.

At 67, you are what you are. I think it’s too late to change much.

Coaching people, people act differently, respond differently, hear things differently from different people.

The thing is 3,900 out of 4,000 college basketball players are very happy to have a scholarship. They’re happy. They’ve got a $70,000 scholarship and they’ve got money in their pocket. It’s the other hundred guys and they’re all going to make money playing basketball and the top guys are going to make a lot of money.