TO THE VICTOR… A happy Michael Carter-Williams cuts down the net after Syracuse advnaced to the Final Four with a 55-39 victory over Marquette yesterday.
WASHINGTON — Chuckles the Clown is coming to Atlanta. He’ll be wearing a Jim Boeheim mask, but feel free to walk right up to him and squeeze his nose. It might honk, shoot water, who knows.
A fan sitting right behind the Syracuse bench had a great Boeheim mask, one with him wearing sunglasses.
If James Arthur Boeheim, 68, is in the twilight of his career, he sure is having a blast.
Minutes before the tip-off of yesterday’s East Region final against Marquette, there he was smiling, pointing to a friend in the crowd, and, brace yourself, sharing a laugh with Golden Eagles coach Buzz Williams.
“The biggest change I’ve seen is how much fun he’s having,’’ longtime assistant coach Mike Hopkins told The Post. “He’s so much more involved with the players. He’ll go over to someone in the locker room and have a conversation.
“That never happened when I played. You’d walk past him. You would nod. He would nod. That was a conversation.’’
There will be a lot of talk about Boeheim this week. He is taking Syracuse to the school’s fifth Final Four (four under his watch) after yesterday’s 55-39 win over Marquette at Verizon Center.
It is the Orange’s first Final Four since 2003, the year Boeheim won his first and only title. Don’t think for a second that one is enough.
When you’ve been doing this for as long as Boeheim — 37 years in the first chair, 44 years overall — when you’ve made it your life and lifeblood, winning it all is the end all. He acknowledged this week he didn’t get over the 1987 championship game loss to Indiana until his Orange beat Kansas in ’03.
“[Indiana] coach [Bob] Knight was good after the game,’’ Boeheim quipped. “He told me we would get back and win it, he just didn’t tell me it would take 26 years.’’
Here we are, 10 years later and fourth-seeded Syracuse is making one more run — an unexpected run at that — at cutting down the nets. It could be Boeheim’s last run.
He was coy earlier this week when asked about his future. First he said he was coaching next year, looking forward to the challenge. Then he said he’ll see how he feels in September.
It will be a different autumn than any other for Boeheim. The Orange are headed to the ACC — no more Big East Tournaments in the Garden, no more battles with Georgetown.
One more title would put Boeheim in a select group of 13 other coaches with more than one ring.
“There is nothing like winning the national championship,’’ Boeheim said earlier this week. “You can talk about it all you like and say you don’t need it or you don’t have to have it, but it’s the”‘ biggest thing that can happen to a college coach, and if you’re in this game for”‘”‘ whether it’s a short period of time or long period of time, it’s the single biggest thing that can happen to you or for you and for your program and for all the players and the fans of a program.
“There is nothing like this.’’
Actually, there is. There is winning a title and having fun — enjoying the journey as coaches like to say.
With 1:59 left on the halftime clock yesterday, Boeheim finally made his way back into the arena. He nodded and pointed to a couple of fans. With 1:48 left, guard Michael Carter Williams came over to the bench after just having lost his dribble.
He grinned. Boeheim laughed.
Hopkins does a great impression of Boeheim scrolling on his smartphone. Gerry McNamara, a 3-point sniper on that 2003 championship team turned assistant coach, said the man he works for now is markedly different than the one that coached him.
“He’s laughing a lot more than he used to,’’ McNamara said. “Then again, the only time I remember him laughing was after we won it all.’’
It brings out the clown in all of us.