Lost amid the discussions during Jim Boeheim’s press conference was the fact of victory.

Boeheim spent a lot of breath talking about a Yahoo! Sports’ article criticizing USA Basketball and speaking about Syracuse’s upcoming season.

But sometime during his Wednesday afternoon press conference at the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center he was able to reflect on another successful venture overseas as an assistant coach with the USA Basketball program, which is coached by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. The U.S. defeated Serbia, 129-92, on Sunday night to capture gold in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in Madrid, Spain.

“These guys were so good they made it look easy,” Boeheim said on Wednesday. “We are the only country that can have our 10 best players not play and still be able to win. That’s how deep we are.

“… All that was written this past summer was about who wasn’t playing and we won by the biggest margin we’ve ever won by in the championship.”

LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and other NBA superstars who once donned the USA uniform were absent. It didn’t matter.

In the clinching victory, tournament MVP Kyrie Irving scored 26 points and James Harden chipped in 23 to bring more hardware home to the U.S. The team averaged a 33-point margin of victory throughout the nine games, the highest average for Team USA since 1994.

Boeheim’s involvement with the national team program dates back to 1990 and includes gold medals from the 2010 World Championships and the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. Now the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup can be added to that list.

“It was fun to do it with this team. They were good,” Boeheim said. “They worked hard and it was really a great — long time — but a great 30-something days.”

Published on September 17, 2014 at 7:25 pm

Contact Phil: pmdabbra@syr.edu | @PhilDAbb