Greensboro cracks on Boeheim’s ACC Tourney talk

Xavier had a late-season six-game losing streak that followed the loss to a knee injury of point guard Edmond Sumner.

The ACC holding its tournament in NY has been a sensitive issue for a conference with southern-region roots.

Brooklyn has rolled out the red carpet here as 15 schools from arguably one of the best conferences in college basketball are competing for the ACC title.

In March 2014, though, the most recent year it was in Greensboro, N.C., Boeheim made nice, saying he was “fine with the tournament wherever it is”.

Still, Boeheim couldn’t exit stage left without slandering Greensboro, something he does as habitually as Luke Kennard fiddles with his hair.

When pressed for his opinion, Boeheim deflected, “Obviously, I’ve answered that twice already”. There’s no value in playing Greensboro, none. It doesn’t matter in terms of who wins.

And I’m saying all that because I don’t give a sh*t.

“Now I got to go down to Clemson, South Carolina”, he said.

“People keep talking about road losses, ” Boeheim said.

The ninth-seeded Hurricanes (21-10) advanced to play top-seeded and sixth-ranked North Carolina in the first quarterfinal today, seemingly solidifying their second consecutive trip to the NCAAs. But I think that’s where the value is. It was not only a chance to win a game against a tournament lock but just playing UNC would’ve raised the Orange’s RPI and SOS. “I think we’ve come a long way”.

When he was asked if Wednesday summoned memories of many heady, frenzied Big East tournaments in Manhattan, Boeheim said, “It’s a little different”.

“We’re looking forward to the challenge of the tournament”, he said today. The conference has already pulled some events – including its championship football game a year ago – out of North Carolina in protest of a state law its schools believe promotes discrimination. After those eight teams, Syracuse and Wake Forest are considered to be on the bubble.

Miami and Syracuse played once in the ACC Regular Season, with Syracuse emerging with a 70-55 win.

After a John Gillon 3-pointer narrowed the gap to two for Syracuse, the teams traded a Newton layup and a Tyler Lydon dunk in the final minute. They all say it’s a business.

But the tournament is often associated with Greensboro, also the home of the ACC. We have better wins than we had past year. “Earlier in the season, lack of experience led to us not being able to pull out some of those closer games”. “I’m sure there’s a couple Denny’s down there”.

How much will SU’s wins over Duke, Virginia and Florida State resonate with the NCAA committee? Washington and Atlanta are possibilities to bid for those tournaments should they become available. “I just wish we could have kept the family together”. I don’t know what the game plan is going to be, but whatever defense we’re going to be in, we’re going to compete and fight hard. That shouldn’t mean anything.

“I look at (Abdul)-Malik (Abu), a lot of these young guys on this team”, he continued.