In the press conference following the game, Jim Boylen didn’t hold back any emotions when talking about what this season meant to his seniors.
Shaun Green and Lawrence Borha were on the cusp of becoming two of three players to finish their careers at Utah with losing records. To go out with their names on a banner, hanging from the rafters of the Huntsman Center, was a mere fantasy two years ago.
“We just didn’t have the guidance that we needed to make this program great,” Luke Nevill said about the Utah program before Boylen signed.
Chris Hill took a chance hiring an the former NBA and Michigan State assistant to run a struggling college basketball team, Boylen mentioned during the season. It doesn’t seem like that was a big risk, seeing as how Boylen has already turned the program back around in just two years.
His biggest impact was the one he made on this year’s seniors.
Borha went from a “punk” with an afro, who focused mostly on his individual talent than his teams. He contemplated leaving the team because of where he thought it was going, but it only took one sentence for him to stay.
“I remember in the press conference first day, (Boylen) was like, yeah, those are my guys back there,” Borha said. “That’s when I noticed like, I got to stay.”
None of the seniors knew what it was like to be on a winning program at the Division-I level. Even Nevill, who was a part of the Sweet 16 team in 2004-05 admits that season didn’t feel as good as this year. Boylen came in here with a plan to shape these guys into better people on and off the floor, which is exactly what he has done.
In the press conference, Boylen went through the three seniors that were here with him from day one. He talked about how he told Borha to cut his hair so he can look like a human being and not a cartoon character and that he needed to become a teammate instead of player who thought he was good and “wasn’t worth a shit,” as Boylen so lightly put it.
He explained that there were days Nevill and he hated each other, which he admitted were the hardest on him. Nevill was the same as Borha in the fact that he only cared about his individual talent and not the teams. Boylen changed that right away.
The player that choked him up the most was Green, with who he talked about as if he were talking about his best friend.
“Shaun Green is the leader of this team,” Boylen said. “He’s the guy that tells me to shut up, we got it coach. We’re good. He gives me the tap or the wink. He calms the huddles down.”
Following that speech Boylen talked about Green being one of the three players in 101 years to have a losing record, then without hesitation, the tears started flowing and he gasped a remark between breaths saying “he’s a winner now.”
All of these guys are winners, not only on the court. They have the titles, but Boylen has shaped his team into student-athletes and men, which is just as important to him. So when he said that Green is a winner, not only was he talking about leaving with a winning record, but also a winner in life.
Tyler CobbUtah coach Jim Boylen was emotional when he spoke of the work the senior players had put in to become winners and leave Utah that way.