A long time voice in Central New York gave a blunt take on the current Orange Coach
On Friday, our own Brady Farkas wrote that Syracuse basketball head coach Adrian Autry deserves respect in his final home game of the 2025-26 season on Saturday against Pitt.
After all, Autry could be fired soon. It could be his final home game ever with the Orange after more than 35 years as a steward of the program.
However, one Syracuse sports legend doesn't seem to think of Autry in the same light.
Since 1984, Bud Poliquin has offered his takes on Syracuse football and basketball for fans. For four decades, Poliquin served as The Post-Standard's sports columnist, and in the early 2000's, co-host of the popular Bud and The Man Child radio show that aired on WHEN and WSKO. On a recent episode (Feb. 27) of The ManChild Show with BoyGreen, Poliquin offered this blunt take on the hiring of Autry, who is set to finish his third season as SU head coach on Saturday.
"The hire of Adrian Autry on the day he was hired was an indefensible hire. Indefensible. You could not stand in front of the basketball world, the college basketball world, and make a compelling case that as to why this was the best guy for the job. "
The Orange are 15-15 and 6-11 inside Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) play. They are going to receive one of the lowest seeds in the league tournament, which begins next week in Charlotte, N.C.
Poliquin vs. Boeheim in legendary back-and-forths
Although Poliquin has moved into retirement, or as he has phrased, it "reimaging," the columnist was known for interactions in press conferences with Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim.
2011: "It's always personal"
Boeheim was asked if he feels like he is being mistreated by the media and engaged into this rant.
“You want to talk about personal? Yeah, it’s personal. When people write and say things about me it’s personal to me. Always will be.
“You write, what, 100 articles a year for the paper? 150. 200. Someone looks at six or seven of them and says, this is bad.”
“One of (Rick Pitino’s) teams went to the Final Four, we beat them three times. So now we’re all the sudden going to put in the paper that I’ve lost six straight to Rick Pitino? Why don’t we put that I beat him six straight? Go ahead. That’s really good. Why don’t you keep doing that? That’s really good. I appreciate that."
2012: Michael Carter-Williams rant
Boehiem was not happy with the local coverage of the arrest of guard Michael Carter-Williams and the details in the local newspaper.
2017: The Numbers Rant
My personal favorite. An entire press conference stopped for Boeheim and Poliquin to have a back-and-forth about his 2017 article laying out the last three years of Syracuse basketball's record
"When you go to the Final Four, you could lose 20 games. It doesn’t matter. Those are just numbers that you put in the paper. They don’t mean anything.”
“We lost 14 games last year; one of the five best years we’ve ever had since I’ve been coaching here. And all that matters -- you know this — is what you do in the NCAA Tournament. That’s all that matters.”
“This is a press conference — you can say whatever you want."
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