On the heels of a memorable tirade and ejection in Syracuse’s narrow loss to Duke this past weekend, coach Jim Boeheim kept it relatively calm in Monday night’s news conference following the Orange’s bounce-back win against Maryland.
That doesn’t mean the hall of fame coach had nothing to say.
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Boeheim criticized the officiating and took a jab at Maryland coach Mark Turgeon following a down-to-the-wire, 57-55 victory that included a controversial no-call on Nick Faust’s potential game-winner with 8 seconds left.
“I thought Nick (Faust) got fouled, and the replay showed that,” said a frustrated Turgeon after the game. “It’s been that type of year for us. (The officials) didn’t call it and they won the game.”
Boeheim saw things much differently than Turgeon, firing off when asked about the play by a reporter.
“Well, first off, let me tell you this: They shot 27 free throws. If anyone is going to complain about the officiating, I’m going to complain,” Boeheim said bluntly. “I think I did enough of that Saturday.
“There were five times when we were going to the basket that there was no foul. If you wanna clap about one play, I’ll talk about five times. If (Maryland) didn’t turn it over 18 times, they wouldn’t have had to worry about that. You wanna complain about that foul?”
Boeheim later closed the news conference in his typical sarcastic demeanor, saying: “Sorry I wasn’t funny tonight.”
Scott Gleeson, a national college basketball writer/digital producer for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @ScottMGleeson.
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