With March Madness getting ready to kick into high gear, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim took some time to sit down with Post columnist Steve Serby.

Q: With accusations that surrounded assistant coach Bernie Fine and the issues with drug testing, how trying has this year been for you emotionally?

A: I think you have to put your emotions aside and you have to coach your basketball team. People deal with emotional issues outside their job all the time. They can’t let that affect their job. We ask our players, when they have things going on in their life, whether it’s girlfriends … we’ve had players who’ve had friends shot and killed … we’ve had players who’ve had parents and grandparents die … and we ask them to concentrate on their schoolwork and the basketball. So I don’t think you can do any less yourself. As far as all that’s happened, I can’t control what might or might not have happened 26 years ago. I have to control what goes on today.

Q: Is that easier said than done?

A: I’m not saying things don’t creep into your mind. You can’t let that affect what you’re doing.

Q: Do you think you can do better job dealing with these things now than you would have when you were younger?

A: I don’t know. … As you get older, you do some things better and you probably do some things worse (chuckle). But hopefully overall, you get better at something you do. … That probably doesn’t apply to sportswriters … to most people (laugh).

Q: How come you never wanted to be a sportswriter?

A: (Laugh) Because I learned how to write at a very early age, and I don’t need to keep doing that. I think I was 5 when I learned how to write. That’s a Bobby Knight steal there. His quote was, “Then I went on to do something that requires some intelligence.” (Laugh).

Q: Do you think the Bernie Fine firestorm toughened you?

A: At 67, you are what you are. I think it’s too late to change much.

Q: What role did your wife Juli play in helping you?

A: You can’t cope with anything without strong support from your wife and family, with the basketball season itself and with whatever else happens. You can’t cope with all that without unbelievable support at home. No coach can really survive very well in this business without support from his family and friends.

Q: You’ll register your 900th win next season. … What does 900 wins mean to you?

A: It means I’m old and I’ve had a lot of good players (laugh).

Q: Describe your first win.

A: We beat Harvard. I was trying all these fancy things in the first half, and we were up by one at halftime. The second half, we just let them play and we won by 20. I learned to let ’em play a little bit.

Q: Most meaningful win other than the national championship?

A: Probably [a 79-75 win over] North Carolina, the finals of the Regional in ’87 to get to the first Final Four.

Q: Could you have imagined a career in which you’ll have more wins than Knight sometime next season?

A; No. I never would have thought I could get to Adolph Rupp. I remember most of the first couple of years I didn’t think I’d get to 100 (laugh). … My record pales in comparison to yours. With your limited talent, being able to hold a sportswriting job in New York City for this many years? You kidding me? I at least have some talent with me to help me along. You have to do it alone! (Laugh)

Q: Will you have mixed emotions when it’s time to leave the Big East for the ACC?

A: I don’t know. … I’m really trying to block it out. I try not to think about it. I’ve been in this league since the beginning. The ACC is a tremendous league, and right now, the way it’s constituted, it’s more compact on the east coast than what the Big East is going to be. I believe the ACC is a tremendous basketball league. It’s always been. Over 30 years, it’s been the best league, probably. The Big East is, I think, a pretty close second.

Q: How long do you want to do this?

A; I never really decide that. I feel good. I don’t have thoughts of retiring. I like doing this. But obviously, we’re getting closer. I don’t know when.

Q: You’ve been 50 years in one place.

A: I enjoy what I’m doing. I enjoy college basketball very much. It would be interesting to coach in the NBA. You just have to worry about coaching your team. But it’s not something I’m thinking about.

Q: What do you like best about this Syracuse team?

A: They’re really an unselfish group. They work hard. They play together. They play for each other. What they’ve done, nobody’s ever done in our league and nobody in Syracuse has ever done. It’s sort of amazing what they’ve done.

Q: Can this be a dangerous team at The Dance?

A; We are a dangerous team. Not can be. We are. We’re one of the best teams in the country.

Q: You don’t mind having a bull’s-eye on you?

A; No, we’ve had it all year. [We] don’t mind.

Q: Are you’re expecting to be a No. 1 seed in Pittsburgh this week?

A: I don’t pay that much attention to it. I don’t try to predict where they send you (chuckle). The tournament today, there are no easy games. There’s just too much balance in the country. Used to be if you were a No. 1 seed, you might get a couple of easy games.

Q: Sleeper teams in the NCAA tournament?

A: I really think college basketball is so even that I think there’ll be more upsets this year than ever before … which doesn’t bode well for some of us who are going to be favorites. And I think the upsets will come once you see the brackets and you see where people are matched up.

Q: You’ve seen a couple of clips of LIU-Brooklyn?

A: They look good. We played Iona last year and Iona could have beaten us. They were even better this year. … We would beat those teams by a lot. We don’t beat ’em by a lot [anymore]. There’s just not that big a gap anymore between these teams.

Q: When do you think Carmelo Anthony will fit in on the Knicks?

A: I think people are really off base on this whole thing because there’s been such a monumental change there. … They’ve got so many moving parts. In the NBA, it’s about continuity. The Spurs are good because they’ve been together. To just think you can throw this thing together is hard to believe. Jeremy Lin was in the D-League last year and he was almost out of basketball, and now they’re expecting them to just win like that! I know this is New York, but come on! The most important position on the basketball court is point guard. Mike D’Antoni is one of the best offensive coaches in the whole game of basketball, by far. To just put this thing together in a couple of weeks — it’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd. If they had this group together from the beginning off the year, it would have been a lot easier. I think they can scare some people because they’ve got some pretty good players, but long-range, nobody likes to think about this but you have to think about next year — being a good team next year.

Q: You’ve met Peyton Manning.

A: I met him twice. I met him when we recruited Rodney Livingston.

Q: The basketball coach introduced you to him.

A: I met him two years ago and he remembered meeting me when he was a freshman in high school. I had about a 20-minute conversation with him. I don’t think I’d be more impressed with anybody than I’ve been with him.

Q: What’s your funniest recruiting story?

A: I was in the Carrier Dome working a summer camp, and a guy tapped me on the shoulder. I saw a 6-10 guy with a beard. He said, “Coach Boeheim?” I said, “Yeah …” He said, “I think I would like to come to your school.” He looked 25. I said, “How old are you?” He said, “18.” I said, “What’s your name?” He said, “Rony Seikaly.” I said, “Well, if you can play, we’ll be interested in you.”

Q: How good can St. John’s be next season?

A: It’s really hard to tell. I thought they achieved an awful lot — more than I would have thought that a team that young could. And it really depends what they can add to those guys. You can’t win with six guys, and they’re gonna be young guys, too. That’s the kind of thing if you come back with another good class, and you get them together for a year, then the third year, you should have a really, really good team.

Q: Who does Moe Harkless remind you of?

A: He’s a really good player. He needs to stay in school and get better. The developmental league’s littered with guys — 6-7 or 6-8 guys gotta really be good in the NBA. He’s a really talented player, but he needs another year. He really could be an all-league player and really benefit from coming back and playing at St. John’s.

Q: What are your thought about Lou Carnesecca?

A: He’s my favorite coach. He competed as hard as anybody, but he shook hands and never made any excuses, never said anything about the referees, never said anything about bad calls — even if it was a bad call. Just straightforward guy. I’m glad I had an opportunity to coach against him, played against him. … There’s nobody I have more respect for — ever — in coaching than Lou Carnesecca.

Q: Jim Calhoun?

A: I think he’s if not the best coach in the last 30 years, he’s very, very close to it. People I don’t think give him the credit because of his personality (chuckle) and that’s bad. When you have a bad personality, it takes away from what you’ve done. He built a program where there was no program. Mike Krzyzewski’s a great friend of mine, he’s a great coach — he built a program where they had a great program. Roy Williams built a great program where they had a great program. Bill Self has done a great job where they had a great program. Jim Calhoun built a program where they didn’t have a program.

Q: John Thompson Sr.?

A: Well I think John Thompson is similar to Jim Calhoun, he built a program where there was no program, and that’s the hardest thing to do, I think. It’s fairly easy to take over Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina (chuckle). You’re probably gonna win. But you build a program where there wasn’t a program, I think that’s very difficult to do.

Q: Rollie Massimino?

A: He’s back in the days when coaches were characters. Now they’re … business guys in business suits or something, I don’t know (chuckle).

Q: Except for you, of course.

A: Yeah, I’m still a character, I’m one of the last ones, with John and Rollie and Looie and those guys. … You know, we’re gone, it’s a different era today. He was a great coach, and he’s still coaching because he doesn’t want to do anything but coach, that’s what he is.

Q: What made Gerry McNamara one of your all-time favorite players?

A: Biggest heart I ever saw.

Q: What drives you?

A: I’m a competitor. I like to win games. I like basketball and I like to win games.

Q: Your legacy.

A: All I want is to have done what I’ve done. I don’t care what legacy is there. I never have, and I never will.

Q: Why is that?

A: ’Cause I just don’t care. It’s other people’s opinions, and everybody’s entitled to them.

Q: How strange will it be with Bernie Fine not on the bench in the tournament?

A: We’re past everything, we’re just going forward with what we do.

steve.serby@nypost.com