Jim Boeheim Spent Part Of His Press Conference Eviscerating The Big 10 For 'Sucking' In The NCAA Tournament

[Source] - "At the end of the day, you play for the [NCAA] tournament," Boeheim said Friday at his team's media day. "You can say what you want about the Big Ten. They sucked in the tournament. To me, that's what they did. All of their wins were in their league. If you can't play in the [NCAA] tournament, then you're not good."

"Kansas was the best team [last year]," Boeheim said. "But the best league? What league won 14 games and only lost five [in the NCAA tournament]? The ACC. To me, that's the best league."

Oh we got a little hot take Boeheim to start the season here? I mean, I get it. He's backing his league but he went full Twitter reply guy status by strictly using the NCAA Tournament to judge an entire season. I always say it's the best way to determine a champion and the worst way to determine the best team. It happened to work out that Kansas - who was arguably the best team in the country last season - also won the Tournament. But it doesn't happen as often as that. It's the beauty of the NCAA Tournament. The best team tends to lose because it's fucking hard to win 6 in a row in March and early April. 

But I love the shot at the Big 10. It's low-hanging fruit and Boeheim went there. The only thing he really missed was throwing in that a school out west hasn't won since Arizona in 1997. Lean all the way into stereotypes. Although I do argue that the Big 10 struggles in Tournament play because of league makeup. Not saying their teams aren't good, but rather the way they play. It's a ton of big guys and guards win in March. You need elite guards in order to win 6 and history will tell you that. Big guys are great to have, but that's how the Big 10 is. They don't tend to have the elite guards in the country vs the elite big guys. 

I'd argue that no one is better at being mediocre until the Tournament than Boeheim. It doesn't make a ton of sense but somehow they get up for the NCAA Tournament and make runs as like a 10 seed. That's after the argument of whether or not Syracuse even deserves to be in the Tournament. It's not like they've spent the last few years having awesome regular seasons. Starting in 16 they made a Final Four as a 10 seed, a Sweet 16 as a 10 seed and a Sweet 16 as an 11 seed. That  helps set off the fact that they've missed the Tournament 3 other years and lost in the first round as an 8 seed. People (fans) care about banners. 

Boeheim is always good for these cracks throughout the year. Nothing will top his Greensboro one but this is a good start.