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Syracuse got the win against Louisiana Tech on Sunday but head coach Jim Boeheim wasn't pleased with much else.

(Dennis Nett | syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. — It started out well enough.

"It's strange but we really played well except for the bad turnovers," Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim began on Sunday evening, starting a post-game press conference in which he'd go on to criticize two opponents and every player who played for a victorious Syracuse team.

• Box score

Syracuse beat Louisiana Tech 71-69 at the Carrier Dome but Boeheim made it clear he wasn't particularly impressed by the opponent, the effort or the results the Orange has put together during a 6-3 start.

"This team is not anywhere near a good basketball team," Boeheim said of the Orange. "Anywhere near. I've never said that since I've been here. Not that they couldn't be. But they're not."

He repeatedly responded that he didn't know why the team has struggled so much this season.

"I don't know," Boeheim said. "I don't know. I may have thought. … Whatever I thought, they're not."

Boeheim was visibly frustrated during the game, frequently hurling his arms into the air, although he didn't berate any players during the game.

Afterward, at the podium, Boeheim let it all out.

"We're learning," Boeheim said. "I hope. I don't see it, but I hope we will learn. There's not that much time left. Nothing is going to happen magically. But I know that I can not coach catching the basketball at this stage. If we have to do that and go get the ball, if we have to do those things, we can't possibly win. That's it."

Here's Boeheim on a handful of other topics:

On how this compares to other years: "This isn't like the last six years. We're going to struggle to win a game. We're going to struggle to win a game, any game that we play. This game is not going to beat anybody that's any good if they don't play better. That means all 18 games in the ACC. I don't care if somebody thinks, oh, they're not that good. They're good enough. Trust me. We have to play a lot better, we have to get better and we have to figure that out and we'll see. Again, I don't know, I wouldn't want to be overly-confident about that right now because we're not talking about the difficult things we'd like to try to do. We're trying to get the basic essentials down and that's not good at this stage."

On how confident he is the issues can be fixed: "Maybe they can't do it. I don't know. We'll see. We'll find out. The good thing about this is we'll find out. We don't have to ask these questions. They'll either get better and do these things or they won't and we'll see it. I don't have the answer for that. They haven't learned the things the things they have needed to learn at this stage, OK? They haven't. We lost to a Michigan team where we shot decently and I don't think they're a very good team. We made 19 turnovers and that's why we lost. We would have lost today if we made 17 turnovers. We can't win that way. Bottom line. That's the bottom line.

"We're not learning to guard the shooters, although we did a better job in the second half on No. 3. We didn't learn against St. John's. The two guys that can shoot we let shoot. Do they learn that tomorrow? Next week? When do they learn? I don't know. If they don't learn, we won't win."

On turnovers: "I'm not talking about turnovers that were caused by pressure, I'm talking about just turnovers in transition where Kaleb (Joseph) just throws the ball to the other team or just loses the ball. You can't play, when you get an eight or 10-point lead and you work through it and then just give back points. You can't do that."

On nearly blowing a 10-point lead with less than 5 minutes left: "With 4 minutes to go, even though that pass was there, Trevor (Cooney) should have kept the ball. We're up 10. Run 30 seconds off the clock and the game isn't an issue. He did throw it and Tyler (Roberson) tried to catch it with one hand, same as B.J. (Johnson) did on a long pass. They're young players but you learn in about ninth grade to catch the ball with two hands. If you haven't learned that by this time, you either can't learn it, which is a big problem, because we're not talking about running play X, Y into Z. We're talking about you have to catch the ball. If you can't catch the ball, we can't play, we can't win.

Those are just two examples but there's more. You can't play against a good team. We spent more time this week on scouting report because obviously we had a whole week. We identified Raheem Appleby as being the one guy we don't want to shoot, we identified two lob pass plays that they run. We worked on that for three days. The guy that we didn't want to shoot had 15 points at halftime. The lob play worked three times in a row that on for three days.

"Maybe we're young. Yeah, all right, maybe. But you work on something like that, you have to be prepared for the plays. You should be prepared for the plays."

On Kaleb Joseph's eight turnovers: "You can't make those plays. Kaleb did a lot of good things. He gave them, I'm saying 12 or 14 on turnovers. His turnovers are right in the elbow where they're scoring. He's not really a point guard yet, he's trying to learn how to play point guard. It's going to take a long time too."

On Syracuse's post players: "Chris McCullough has got to realize he's 6-foot-10. What can he do to help us? He has been, but not tonight. B.J. if he's going to play, he's on the weak side and doesn't get the rebound and then fouls the guy. Tyler (Roberson) is on the weak side, has position and pushes the guy. (Rakeem Christmas), two or three times he's in position he reaches instead of putting his hands up. You can't do those things and win. We played over our offensive head today, all right? We played over our head offensively and we were lucky to win. That tells you all the things that we're doing.

"Rak, the first play, turns it over and fouls the guy. He can't do that. He should have learned that at Michigan. Then he did it again. At some point in time you have to learn certain things and we're not. We're not learning. Catching the ball with two hands, I don't know, I think they teach you that in sixth grade. I'm not sure. Some place. I hope. Before now. Some place. When we're worried as a coaching staff about that how can we even think about what we're going to run this play. We have to get better at the fundamental things, they we can worry about the big step plays. It's not that this team can't make really good plays.They can make really good plays better than some of the teams we've had. They're not anywhere near as good. That's it.

On offensive improvements: "We had a lot of time last week except we didn't show much. Our offense is better but they give up (94 points points to Louisiana-Lafayette) so we've got to take that with a grain, we scored all of 71."

On the team adjusting to new roles: "Everybody is at a new position except for Trevor Cooney and he's being asked to do things he's never had to do. He did them today. That's good. But the point guard wasn't really a point guard in high school. He played all over. Rak is being asked to score which he never has been, Chris is being asked to rebound and play inside which he has not been. Mike is being asked to play small forward and point, he's really more of a 2 but I'm not sure he's even that, really, to be honest with you. We have a lot of issues to work thought and we've got to do the fundamental things right every game to be in the game. Not to win. To be in the game. And then we've got to get better to win those games. Right now we're not nowhere. Nowhere near. Not even close. Is that clear?"