Syracuse announced a replacement for Boeheim, the longtime men’s basketball coach. Check out Jim Boeheim Retirement speech here.
Jim Boeheim : Coaching history | Retirement speech
The Jim Boeheim era at Syracuse University is coming to an end after 47 seasons.
The longtime head coach of the men’s basketball team will not return next season, the university announced Wednesday shortly after Syracuse lost 77-74 to Wake Forest on a buzzer beater in the ACC Tournament.
It marked the final time that Boeheim coached Syracuse on the court that bears his name.
The 78-year-old Boeheim has gone 1,015-441 with Syracuse, not including 101 wins vacated by the NCAA for rules violations.
He has the second-most victories in Division I behind Duke’s Mike Kryzyzewski, who retired with 1,202 wins.
Jim Boeheim Coaching history
In 1969, Boeheim decided to coach basketball and was hired as a graduate assistant at Syracuse under Roy Danforth.
Soon thereafter he was promoted to a full-time assistant coach and was a member of the coaching staff that helped guide the Orangemen to the 1975 NCAA tournament, where Syracuse University made its first Final Four appearance.
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
|---|---|
| 1969–1976 | Syracuse (assistant) |
| 1976–2023 | Syracuse |
On March 6, 2015, the NCAA suspended Boeheim for the first nine games of 2015–16 ACC conference play and took away 12 scholarships over a four-year period, as a result of a multi-year investigation into the university’s athletic programs.
The program was forced to vacate a total of 101 wins from the 2004–2005, 2005–2006, 2006–2007, 2010–2011, and 2011–2012 seasons, which included any game during those years where one or more players deemed to have been ineligible played.
This constitutes the third-most wins ever permanently vacated by one program, behind the 113 wins vacated by Michigan and 123 wins by Louisville.
Ten of the vacated wins were NCAA Tournament games.
However, the NCAA confirmed that sanctions did not include the removal of any trophies or banners.
Therefore, Syracuse displays banners for all of its NCAA appearances and conference titles from those years.
After two appeals, Boeheim’s nine-game suspension was upheld, though he was permitted to begin the suspension prior to ACC conference play as dictated in the original penalty. Additionally, the permanent vacation and erasure of 101 wins was upheld.
However, the number of scholarships lost by Syracuse was reduced to 8 over a four-year period, down from 12 over the same period.
Boeheim had previously stated that he would retire in April 2018.
Boeheim was replaced following the 2022–23 season by former Syracuse point guard and assistant coach Adrian Autry.
Retirement speech
Boeheim says his future is ultimately in the hands of the university after the Orange finished 17-15, their second-straight season with 15+ losses.
“The university hired me, and it’s their choice what they want to do,” Boeheim said. “I always have the choice of retirement, but it’s their decision as to whether I coach or not. It always has been. The university hasn’t offered me anything, whether to work or do anything at the university. That’s their choice. It’s up to the university. They have to make their decision, and it’s up to them. I hope we can come to a good agreement. That remains to be seen.”
Boeheim said he mulled retirement last season but returned to coach Joe Girard, Benny Williams and Jesse Edwards. Girard and Edwards are seniors.
“I knew Jesse and Benny and Joe were coming back,” Boeheim said. “I wanted to come back and coach these guys, and that’s what I was able to do, I don’t know if I wasn’t going to come back or not prior to that and I hadn’t really decided.”
“Ninety-five percent of Syracuse people want me to coach,” Boeheim said following Syracuse’s 77-68 win at Boston College on Feb. 4. “Why wouldn’t they? As bad as we’ve been the last two years, we were fun to watch last year, and we’re still fun to watch, and we’re still competing. We just played three of the top teams in the country to a standstill. If you’re getting beat by 20 by those teams, then you say, ‘OK, we’ll see.’ I know it’s my choice. I can do whatever I want. I just don’t know for sure.”
Boeheim’s current mood seemingly contradicts his previous statements regarding retirement.
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