Talk Like No One's Watching: The Blunt Tao Of Syracuse's Jim Boeheim

This feature is part of VICE Sports' March Madness coverage.

After Syracuse lost to Pitt on February 20, Orange coach Jim Boeheim was asked what he thought his starting center, Tyler Roberson, needed to do to get back in form.

"If I had anyone else, he wouldn't play a minute," Boeheim said.

That's not something you would usually hear from a college basketball coach, at least not publicly. And definitely not to media. But that's what Boeheim thinks, so he said it, just like he always does.

"I didn't go out—in my mind I didn't go off—go out of bounds at all with Tyler Roberson, at all," Boeheim said Thursday, before a Friday night NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen matchup with Gonzaga. "I mean, my only statement was he's not—he wouldn't play if I had anybody, and that's just a true statement."

Of course, there are many true things that coaches, and people in general, choose not to say for the whole world to hear, largely out of respect for others. But Boeheim's not really about that, not when he has a pattern of aiming what sound like insults at his players. He previously has criticized Syracuse players who leave college early for the NBA, even saying he doesn't talk to some of them anymore.

Boeheim said that Roberson didn't mind his comments—"I'm not even sure he knew I said anything bad until everybody told him"—and Roberson seemed to agree.

"It didn't bother me any," Roberson said. "I think it was him just trying to find a way to get me to play better."

But that's where Roberson is wrong. Most coaches would use public comments like that as a motivational spur. But not Boeheim. He was just talking.

"I wasn't trying to motivate him," Boeheim said. "I was just really making a statement about him, that he should be playing at a different level effort-wise, not necessarily production-wise, but effort-wise, and that's the one thing I think in coaching that a coach cannot ever accept, ever."

Boeheim didn't like what he saw, so he decided to let people know about it. He's self-aware—he knows people will call him a curmudgeon or an asshole—but he doesn't see himself as a villain.

"Contrary to opinion, I listen to people," he said.

Here's what makes Boeheim different than most college coaches, and maybe even a bit refreshing: when he talks to the media, he doesn't even seem to see himself as a basketball coach. He's a motivator, for sure, but you never get the sense that he's using the media for tactical advantage. He's just out there dropping truth bombs.

For better or worse, Boeheim's favorite aspect of himself is the fact that he's a truth-teller. And during a routine 15-minute press conference on Thursday, he told a lot of truths, good and bad, that few other coaches in the NCAA Tournament would say in front of a camera. Among them:

● "My sister lives in Washington, and she sent me a message once, what did you recruit Jerami Grant for? What's wrong with you? He didn't make All-Met in Washington, D.C."

● "I mean, I threw something at a player once, but I wasn't aiming at him. And that was a long time ago. That was 30 years ago. Probably couldn't do that anymore."

● "I knew we had more [good wins] than Vanderbilt and a couple teams who were put in early, so I knew with the two wins—nobody had two wins in the bubbles area against two top-20 teams away from home."

The typical coach usually won't admit their recruiting decisions could be questionable. They also probably aren't going to volunteer that they threw something at a player. And they will usually praise opponents, regardless of their strength, rather than say "we're better."

It should come as no surprise that when he coaches, Boeheim is the exact same way.

"I knew he was that kind of coach when I came here, and you expect things like that," Roberson said. "And when it's said, you just keep playing and use it for motivation and that's what I'm trying to do."

Boeheim remembers—fondly—that Roberson is hardly the first player he's pushed with blunt talk. That's his way: push players for their first couple years, and if they don't get it, go after them even harder. Boeheim says that former star Derrick Coleman was so mad at the coach's prodding that he vowed to never come back to Syracuse, but now comes back to campus more than Boeheim's son.

Boeheim doesn't so much have a strategy for how he talks—just some vague guidelines.

"Well, mostly it's just verbal stuff, yelling and screaming and not necessarily negative, not—I don't try to verbal abuse, it's just like pushing," Boeheim said. "'We need you to do better.' I never curse at a player. I never have."

Some could, understandably, call that being a jerk. There might not be another coach in the country who would nonchalantly explain how they navigate the line between coaching and verbal abuse. But Boeheim will, because that's what he does. "Pushing players, we all do it," he said. "Trust me. Some guys don't hide it and stuff. I'm just not afraid to tell you." That much is true.