Jim Boeheim offers strange defense of Jalen Johnson comments

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is trying to do some cleanup on his comments about Duke’s Jalen Johnson.

Johnson, a highly-regarded freshman, opted out of the remainder of the season last week, prompting Boeheim to say Johnson was “hurting” the Blue Devils and they would be better off without him. On Saturday, he seemingly walked back some of those remarks while simultaneously offering a strange defense of them.

“This is no dispersion, casting dispersion on Jalen Johnson,” Boeheim said, via Kyle Boone of CBS Sports. “I haven’t even seen Jalen Johnson play this year to be honest. He’s a tremendous player, will probably be a great pro.

“Just in those two games, game and a half, they were a better team than I’ve seen this year. Nothing against Jalen Johnson. Some people have said he shouldn’t have left school. I didn’t say that. Some people have said he’s not thinking about his team. I didn’t say that. I don’t even know Jalen Johnson, I haven’t seen him that much, I don’t even know how good he is.”

It doesn’t make a lot of sense for Boeheim to say what he originally said if he’s barely even seen Johnson play. The Syracuse coach made the original comments on his radio show, and it almost seemed as if he didn’t expect them to garner any widespread attention, hence the muddled attempt to clarify them.

Boeheim making harsh comments about players, even on other teams, isn’t really new or unique to this situation. In the future, he should probably be better-equipped to defend those remarks if he’s going to keep making them.