University of Louisville Selection Show Sunday Press Conference
March 16, 2003 | Men's Basketball
March 16, 2003
Head Coach Rick Pitino
"The only thing we know about Austin Peay is that we were thinking about scheduling them next year. When we do that Scottie will research all of them and bring it back. And he said coach they are going to have a hell of a basketball team next year. They get all their players back and they really compete. So we know a little bit about them as far as future scheduling.'
"The seed was a little bit of a surprise but that just showed me I always go by the RPI because that is suppose to be the true gage the unbiased gage. But when you look at a Brigham Young that was very high in the RPI and they got a 12 seed or you look at Florida who is a 15, got a two seed. So you sort of have to throw it out. This committee is a little stronger in how they were swayed. And it is very interesting to see how they would place an Arizona and Kentucky in the semifinal game according to the season if things work out that way. There are a lot of things that you are curious about but there is no exact science."
"We are very excited, if you would have told me at the beginning of the year that we were going to be a four seed playing in the NCAA I would have said you people are really getting carried away, drinking too much. We are very excited and thrilled to be representing the city, representing the university and certainly our players right now needed three games. We needed to win that tournament because we were so out of whack a little bit because of the turbulence in our practice. So we needed that, it was a great confidence booster and now we just need to focus in on practice. It's all about focus in the NCAA Tournament. Our team, if we lack one thing we don't lack heart and desire, we are very weak in the focus area. So the in the next three games we are going to have to get better at that."
Senior Guard Reece Gaines
"I don't know too much about Austin Peay from what I hear they play a fast up and down style. Right now I just excited to have a chance to play in the tournament. I am looking forward to the opportunity."
"There is a lot of emotion right now, its just exciting to get back and have a chance to play in the tournament. Coming off a Conference USA Championship, hopefully we can carry over the intensity and the focus we had to win the championship into the tournament."
Junior Forward Luke Whitehead
"I don't know too much about Austin Peay but I know we are just going to go out there and give it everything we got and just focus on what coach tells us. We are going to try to take this thing all the way."
"It's great because everybody wants to grow up and play in the big dance. Now we are finally getting our chance. All the players on this team have worked tremendously hard and tried to listen to coach and do everything he wants us to. He's been here a lot of times before and so we're just going to listen to him and hopefully follow his blueprint all the way to the end."
"We've had a lot of ups and downs throughout the season, we ended the conference on a high note and kinda positive. We got Marvin Stone back and we are happy with that and we lost Ellis and right now we've got to use Ellis as our inspiration. We know he wants to be out there with us so we have to just leave everything we have out there on the court."
