Hall of Famer and former long-time Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim joined two of my favorite guys earlier this week to chat about a variety of topics.
Boeheim, who has the second-most career wins in Division I men's basketball history, caught up with Jim Lerch and Paul Esden Jr. on their fabulous program, The Manchild Show with Boy Green, via The Score 1260. Full disclosure: I have the privilege of talking Syracuse basketball on a weekly basis with Jim and Paul during the 'Cuse seasons. They're the best.
The Manchild Show with Boy Green will soon move to being a digital product, as Lerch and Esden will conduct their last radio show this Friday. Appropriately, then, they had Boeheim on for more than 30 minutes this past Tuesday, and it was a lot of fun.
I'll share some of the highlights here. Also, please subscribe to The Manchild Show with Boy Green Digital via YouTube if you can!
Syracuse basketball icon Jim Boeheim dishes on a range of subjects.
First and foremost, while Boeheim retired as the Orange's head coach in March of 2023, he's surely keeping busy. He notes that he loves to play nine holes of golf at 7 pm, and he never hits a bad shot (wink, wink).
All kidding aside, Boeheim is a special assistant to SU's director of athletics. He said that he's up on the Hill every day, helping out with fund-raising. He talks to recruits, and he talks to coaches. Boeheim, as I've discussed in several columns, also works as a college basketball analyst for the ACC Network and ESPN.
This summer, Boeheim will serve as the head coach emeritus of Boeheim's Army, the team named after him that competes in the annual $1 million, winner-take-all The Basketball Tournament ("TBT"). Boeheim's Army won this event in 2021, and it has a roster that can absolutely make a deep run this summer.
In this role as head coach emeritus, Boeheim says he has helped out with getting players, and he will be in contact with the squad's head coach, Syracuse basketball assistant Allen Griffin, about personnel things while attending some practices.
His sons, shooting guard Buddy Boeheim and forward Jimmy Boeheim, are on the Boeheim's Army 2025 roster. "It's a really good, solid team," Jim Boeheim says, noting that his friend, businessman and philanthropist Adam Weitsman, returns as the Boeheim's Army chairman, a role he had four years ago when the group captured the $1 million grand prize.
Weitsman has been supporting Boeheim's Army in helping them obtain a strong roster. "He likes to win," Boeheim says of Weitsman.
When Boeheim retired in March of 2023, he acknowledged that the way it was communicated to the public didn't go as smoothly as he would have liked, but he never wanted a farewell tour, and he was ready to retire at that time, particularly as name, image and likeness deals were emerging, and college basketball was significantly changing due to numerous issues.
A lot of Orange fans, myself included, have lamented about the current state of the program, and the team's "decline" started basically in the second year that the 'Cuse resided in the Atlantic Coast Conference (SU bolted the Big East Conference for the ACC in the 2013-14 season).
Still, in the decade that Boeheim led Syracuse basketball while in the ACC before hanging up his whistle, the program made the NCAA Tournament five times and the NIT once. Of those five Big Dance appearances, the 'Cuse went to a Final Four and a pair of Sweet 16s. In the 2013 March Madness, its last term in the Big East, Syracuse basketball also journeyed to the national semifinals.
Sure, Boeheim wished that his squad performed better during the regular seasons over those 10 years, but "in the tournament, we won. ... The tournament is still the most important thing."
He added, "It was pretty good in terms of the overall results. ... Did I want to do better? Absolutely."
Boeheim knows as much about the sport of basketball as pretty much anyone on this planet. He was asked about the recent NBA playoffs, which culminated with the Oklahoma City Thunder winning its first-ever championship.
He praised Oklahoma City's dynamic point guard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, for the 2024-25 season that he put forth, noting that "SGA" can get off a shot against anyone he wants. He also praised the Indiana Pacers and their head coach, Rick Carlisle, for taking the league's top team to seven games in the NBA Finals.
Like everyone else, he also questioned why the New York Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau, who took the squad this past post-season to its first appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals in 25 years. I still don't get that move by the Knicks.
Perhaps most importantly, Boeheim talked about Syracuse basketball and the upcoming 2025-26 season. He said, "there's no doubt in my mind that (incoming freshman Kiyan Anthony) will be a great player," but he needs time to develop.
Boeheim lauded the job that head coach Adrian Autry and his staff did with their portal recruiting efforts this off-season, landing the ACC's best point guard and a supremely athletic center, among other transfers. A healthy Donnie Freeman will return, and J.J. Starling can play most of the time at shooting guard, where he's more comfortable.
"I just think they're gonna be a pretty solid, really good basketball team," Boeheim said, adding that the ACC will be better in 2025-26. The league only got four teams in the NCAA Tournament this past spring, and Boeheim believes that six or seven ACC squads will hear their name called on Selection Sunday in March of 2026.
Naturally, Boeheim says that he thinks Syracuse basketball will be one of those teams dancing next spring. Love you, Coach.