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Jim Boeheim’s postgame comments fuel retirement speculation

Syracuse v Georgetown

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 9: Head coach Jim Boeheim of the Syracuse Orange reacts to a call during a college basketball game against the Georgetown Hoyas on March 9, 2013 at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC. The Hoyas won 61-39. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Wednesday night, the Syracuse University twitter account sent out -- and then deleted -- a cryptic tweet linking a story written by a community college student that said that Jim Boeheim would be retiring after this season.

Most discredited the report, but it only helped to fuel speculation that this could end up being the final season that Boeheim coaches at Syracuse.

And after his team lost to Georgetown 61-39 on Saturday afternoon, the final installment of the Big East’s most intense rivalry, Boeheim certainly didn’t sound like a coach excited about leading the program that he helped build into the ACC.

“I’m pretty much ready to go play golf someplace,” he said. “If I was 40 years old, I would be real upset. I’m not 40 years old. That should be obvious.”

Whether that’s simply a coincidence or a bit of foreshadowing by one of the Big East’s forefathers is something that’s surely to be debated throughout the offseason, and not just on the Syracuse message boards.

Throughout his press conference after the game, Boeheim was quite reflective, telling stories from the Big East’s early days and talking wistfully about the times before football ruled all.

The notoriously surly Boeheim even got a chance to needle reporters in the room, saying “I’ll miss some of these press conferences with you people. Everybody’s mad at me for a couple weeks. ‘How can he say that?’ It’s easy. Real easy. I don’t care.”

We all had a chuckle at that.

Boeheim did as well. “I’m not very emotional, so I’m just gonna smile a little bit,” he said.

And then he left, a man clearly reflecting on the end of an era.

But whether the era in question is Syracuse’s time in the Big East and their rivalry with Georgetown or Boeheim’s tenure as the most popular man in Upstate New York is a question that only he can answer.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.