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Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
January 31, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2004
Louisville Coach Rick Pitino
"Give Marquette a lot of credit. They came in here and hit some difficult shots."
(on the team's passing) "We have been doing a poor job the last 10 days. Tennessee was not a good passing game and Marquette taught us a valuable lesson. We lost the game tonight the way we lost to Butler (in the NCAA Tournament) last year. Not guarding the three-point line."
(on Taquan Dean) He told me he could go, but to be honest, I didn't think Francisco (Garcia) looked that good either. We would have lost by 25 without them. We had to try and get the best out of both of them. They haven't practiced all week and their sharpness is off."
"The shooting of one player was the difference. When they make 11 threes and you only make five, that's tough. We let one guy get off. He's one of the best shooters in college basketball. He was extremely hot but it was a poor job on our defense. There is no rhyme or reason that he had several looks."
"I am not pleased with Luke (Whitehead) and haven't been for the past week and a half. I don't want to single him out. We have been out of sync in practice. We have to get healthy. I won't let Taquan come back until he's healthy."
(on Travis Deiner) Not against the pressure, he didn't. The half court is where he hurt us. He reminds me a lot Danny Ainge. His guts and the way he talks to the officials."
Marquette Coach Tom Crean
"As usual when we play Louisville, it's been a great game. We have tremendous respect for them. Always have and always will. For us, this is a great win. Our players prepared well and got better during the week. I'm proud of our players and coaching staff. We didn't flinch and we look forward to the rest of our schedule."
(on Steve Novak) "The great thing about his performance is how committed he was to defense and rebounding. He's been getting better in all those other areas. He deserves it and he works very hard. They are all products of hard work. What you saw today was two teams with great work ethics. We don't have a problem with him shooting as long as he's in rhythm. We didn't do anything special for him today.
"They can intimidate you. They have the coaching and we had to believe we could beat Louisville. I didn't think our team thought we could beat Cincinnati and we lost and then followed that with a loss to Southern Miss. You have to find ways to win and that's important this time of year."
(on when Louisville made a 10-0 run early in the second half) "At that point, we weren't playing very well. The number one key is transition defense. We wanted to make sure to get back defensively. There is no way to defend a bad shot. They are so good at creating the turnover. We just needed to settle back down a little bit."
