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Louisville vs. East Carolina Post-Game Quotes
February 19, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 19, 2002
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"That was one of our best defensive games of the season. One of our goals was to prevent a team from getting 10 in the "arc" and we hadn't done that all season until tonight. We dug tough and did a good job passing the ball in the second half indicative of our 19 assists."
(on Simeon Naydenov) "He never had a lot of minutes to get warm earlier in the season. I've always had confidence in his shooting but it's only been recently his defense came along where he wouldn't hurt us. He just has to keep working on his defense."
"Where we get in trouble is that we get beat off the perimeter. Ellis (Myles) has had to step up too much and gets in foul trouble and we only have one substitute."
(on making the NCAA Tournament) "I think I'm going to play each game as it if it's our last. I thought if we won our last five that we would be a lock but that didn't happen."
(on if Reece Gaines is getting tired) "No more or less than any other ball player. If he has any hopes of playing in the NBA, he'd just be coming out of the All-Star break. He picked his defense back up and he played very good tonight."
East Carolina Head Coach Bill Herrion
"We knew they were going to come out and play with a lot of energy and urgency. We got off to a good start and I thought we handled the press pretty well but we couldn't get the ball in the basket. We just couldn't score and you have to give their defense credit."
(on preparing for Reece Gaines) "It doesn't matter because Naydenov killed us. He's a terrific player. We're a decent defensive team but the difference with them is #15 (Naydenov)."
"We're a program that we're not used to playing in this environment. To us to have any chance of winning this game, we need everybody to play well. Our margin for error in this league is very thin. I thought our team was ready and we won two in a row. We want to get to the conference tournament. We have a couple of games left and we have Houston on Saturday."
