Doyel and Boeheim

This is buried in the NCAA Tournament thread where other stuff will be discussed, so I pulled it out and put it on this board because it is, frankly, a journalism discussion.

Here's Doyel's account of what happened:

http://www.cbssports.com/general/blog/gregg-doyel/22022511/defiant-boeheim-not-backing-down-anytime-soon

Here's some video:

Here are my questions:

1. Is Doyel right in that Boeheim "had" to be asked if he'd retire? That it was a must? Clearly, this was Doyel's angle. Was it a good one? At the end of the game, is that what every casual viewer/reader wanted to know?

2. Is there some rule in NCAA Tourneys where it is one question per reporter? Didn't Doyel get another question later in the session?

3. Has anyone seen a coach ever give an honest job status answer in a "my season just ended 12 seconds ago" press conference?

4. How good or bad are Doyel's responses to Boeheim? Are they professional?

5. Why does Doyel leave out that he left the room after the initial exchange, and Boeheim called after him for doing it?

6. If Doyel has the ability to wait for Boeheim at the end, why didn't he simply do that? He's an online writer. There's no clearly no magical deadline, because he stayed until the end and afterward.

 

1. the coach is 67 years old, and had a bit of scandal recently. Plus this is his first Final Four in a decade. It's a fair question. No question sports jockeys ask MUST be asked.

2. That would be dumb.

3. Nope. Question not worth asking if you expect an actual answer.

4. The point about 19-year-olds is a fair rebuttal.

5. Because he did? Who knows?

6. Because he didn't? Who knows?

Ultimately, this really wasn't anything special. I hoped for more entertainment.

 

I like Doyel, which puts me in the minority on this site, and I'm biased because I think Boeheim is a sniveling snotty asshole.

Boeheim held on to the "retire" angle when Doyel never said that. I think that's where Boeheim gets sidetracked. Had he just led with "I've never given any indication I won't be back next year" like an adult, it all goes away.

As soon as Boeheim went personal ("I expect it from you, I know you") there was no way Doyel was going to let it drop.

 

In this case there is very little difference between "retired" and "be back." That's a neener-neener on Doyel's part because when he asks if Boeheim will be back, he is asking if Boeheim is going to retire.

As I noted on the other thread, Doyel later tweeted that he apologized to Boeheim for a column of nearly two years ago in which he wrote that Boeheim should be fired immediately for his comments related to the Bernie Fine case. Doyel blamed the fog of Sandusky.

So despite Boeheim's later claims, it's pretty clear this was personal and a long time coming.

 

There's no difference, unless Doyel's gonna cop to actually believing there a third option after "coach Syracuse" or "retire." Doyel shouldn't suggest "be back" is a definition broader than "retire" unless it is.

Boeheim indeed made it personal and was unprofessional in doing so.

 

Once Doyel threw the example of a 19-year-old in Boeheim's face, Doyel was punching uphill. And he outsniveled and outsnotted the master. So I agree with the YouTube commenter who said Doyel handled it terribly. ... And why did he go on the defensive anyway? Stand behind your question.

If Doyel thought it was bad timing – and it was – to ask that as the leadoff question for Boeheim, why didn't he regroup, ask a better leadoff question, then come back to it later in the session?

Doyel wanted to be the guy who asked it on TV. He got what he came for.

 

Hey, maybe he's going to take the Rutgers job...

 

Boeheim's been lamenting that college basketball won't be the same. He's known nothing but the Big East all his coaching career at Syracuse. Of course it's fair game.

 

I don't really care for either the writer or the coach but I was more bothered by the question than Boeheim's response.

I don't know if anyone seriously thought this would be Boeheim's last season, even with all the whining about the Big East breaking up. I don't recall Boeheim hinting at it. But if any of that did happen, you couldn't get the answer you needed before the game and then, if needed, follow up later in the post-game presser?

The one answer I wanted to hear from Boeheim at that moment was whether the play they ran in that possession was what he wanted coming out of the timeout. (Noah Coslov finally asked that question)

After that I wanted to get his thoughts on the officiating down the stretch.

I'm sure the columnist was on a deadline. So were dozens of other reporters covering the game who needed to know about that last possession.

And I agree about the whole coming back/retiring angle. Of course he was asking him if he was retiring. I hate it when coaches get pissy and act like children and I hate it when we do it, even if it is in response to something.

 

The article is awful.

Sigh.

If his intended column idea was to talk about whether Boeheim was leaving, why did he wait until the the bottom third of the story to explain how he eventually answered the question?

He just couldn't help himself getting that interaction between himself and Boeheim in first – the part that essentially has no news value other than a soundbite of Boeheim being a dick again.

Never read this guy before and probably won't again now.

 

I have no problem with the question. It's not like you get a lot of access to many college coaches these days and if pre-game and post-game pressers are going to be it you get what you get.

I would try not to engage in a back and forth in that setting, but Boeheim set Doyel up to respond by asking if he would ask Michigan's coach that question.

I'm more surprised that Doyel seems to be sorry about his role in the exchange. If Boeheim didn't want him to come back at him he just should have said, "That's a stupid question, next."

 

Doyel did nothing wrong. He got a little snippy, but that's easy to do when Boeheim made it personal.

It's a legitimate question. It's been asked and answered before, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be asked in this context.

As far as waiting for the press conference to end and then ask him privately, that's very tough to do at the Final Four, especially in postgame. Also, these press conferences can sometimes be pretty long and if he wanted to get comments from someone in either locker room, he probably had to get there pretty quickly.

It's really not that big of a deal. Boeheim was a dick and Doyel got a little snippy/defensive.