Jim Boeheim Sickened That Not Enough Fans Showed Up to See His Mediocre Team Play Oakland

Syracuse beat up on Oakland University Wednesday night at the Carrier Dome, 74-62. The Orange led by only five points at one point and a desperate Jim Boeheim decided he'd take off his suit jacket and wave it over his head like a helicopter, as Petey Pablo instructed. The move was meant to fire up his team but also bring the sparse crowd to life.

After the game Boeheim was still focused on the possibly-inflated 16,394 fans and how they didn't make enough noise.

“I had to cheer to try to get somebody to make some noise. It’s sad, it’s sickening really, to see that we can’t get some help here,” he said. “We desperately need it and it picked up our defense just enough. We got a couple deflections, made a couple plays out of it. But we have to have some help there. That’s the whole purpose of playing at home. And I’m a little too old to try to be a cheerleader.”

It was just a few days ago Boeheim went out of his way to criticize a player transferring from Georgetown for being a ballhog. It's very possible he's a believer in Festivus and desperately needs to air all his grievances before getting to the feats of strength.

While it's understandable to want some support from the home crowd, there are plenty of mitigating factors for why such a paltry group of hearty fans shuffled through the gate. It's a few days before Christmas, all the students are on break, the weather wasn't great, yada yada yada. Also, and this is important: Syracuse hasn't exactly been playing inspiring basketball this year.

The win over lowly Oakland brought their season record to 6-5 and broke a stretch in which they lost four of five. There's no way to know for sure but an 10-1 team ranked in the top-10 would be a better draw. And Oakland ain't exactly Duke.

So anyway, Jim Boeheim is perturbed at someone who isn't named Jim Boeheim. Water is wet.