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Louisville vs. Tennessee State - Freedom Hall - Post-Game Quotes
January 02, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 2, 2005
Recap | Box Score | Notes
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"At this point we are really happy with our record. We wanted to be undefeated, but we knew we couldn't do that, but realistically we knew that if we could be 11-2, we would be in a good situation. We've had some games we were supposed to win; we've had some games we had to battle in. As we get ready for conference play, it's anybody's ballgame. This conference is wide open. We have to get healthy and get ready before traveling to Houston."
"He [Taquan Dean] has back spasms, but he should be ready to play Houston."
"Otis [George] will have x-rays tomorrow. The earliest we can hope for his return to the lineup is Texas Christian."
"I think Perrin Johnson is ready to contribute. Brandon is not really a great 1-3-1 zone offensive basketball player. As soon as Brandon learns to do the high percentage things, he can be effective. He just makes low percentage decisions and once he learns to make high percentage decisions he will look better. If there's a silver lining in this cloud that keeps changing direction, it's the development of Perrin Johnson because we need frontcourt help."
"I think where Brandon doesn't fit versus a 1-3-1, Lorenzo does fit. He knows how to step into the line. One of the weaknesses that we have is to step into that line. The college line is a chippy and we're not stepping into it. We are catching it and staying too deep behind the line. In the second half we were much better because we stepped in and got high percentage shots."
"Obviously there are four of five teams that we've faced that are as good as our conference and there are others that are not. Our conference will be big on the glass, that's why I've been harping on that so much. Houston's a killer offensive rebounding team. They're very athletic; they trap a great deal and we have to be ready for that."
Tennessee State Head Coach Cy Alexander
"First of all, let me commend Louisville because I think they have a great team and a great program. I think our morale was really busted at around the 14- or 15-minute mark (of the second half) when Bruce Price went down (with a knee injury) because we had made a significant run and cut their lead down to six points. When he went down, you could see some of our confidence go down because he is our leader. That run of a couple of minutes after the injury where we weren't very sure our ourselves with all of the unknowns with his injury was the difference because Louisville took advantage of our mistakes at that point. At that point, the score was 36-30 and they missed a free throw, we didn't block out on it, they get the rebound, scored a basket and we fouled them for a three-point play. That play made it 39-30 and it all ballooned from there. In essence, that was the game for us."
"Louisville is very well-conditioned and they play tremendously hard. They try to wear you down mentally and physically and then in here, they have great crowd support which makes it even tougher. They believe that you will wear down and they keep the pressure on you. That's been Coach Pitino's coaching style his entire coaching career and he's obviously been very successful at it. They shoot a lot of three's and that's who they are. They've got very good three-point shooters and they have the freedom to shoot it anywhere which can really break your back."
"It really can't be put into words how losing Bruce for those few minutes impacted our psyche and Louisville really took advantage of that. I think when he went down, our energy and our confidence shut down and it was only shut down for two or three minutes, but when you're already down and on the road against a good team, the lead can jump from six points to 20 points and that's what happened."
