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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
January 05, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 5, 2006
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"Villanova is certainly deserving of their ranking. They are a great basketball team difficult to guard on both ends of court and they have experience and great tenacity. They were probably a travel violation from being national champions last year. Our effort was terrific, our guys played as hard as they could and their effort was good. Villanova was just a better basketball team."
"We got them to take difficult shots. But when you do that you're going to give up dribble penetration. Early in the game we were never able to fully recover. We could have cut it to two or three points at halftime, we didn't block out and missed a layup. We did a lot of bad things, didn't finish strong enough inside."
"With seven new players, never going to have experienced lineup. This is who we are, we're a very young and inexperienced basketball team. But they're willing to play hard. Even our veterans David Padgett sat out Tello Pallacios coming off the injury. We only had two veterans, Taquan Dean and Brandon Jenkins. Our young guys did a good job. The key is six weeks from now, how good we can become. We'll always have inexperience out there."
"I knew we had to do 3 to 4 things to beat VU. We had to go backdoor, which we never did. We had to handle the full-court and half-court pressure which I though we did well. And we had to outrebound them or else we had no chance to win the game. We knew what we were up against. We watched the game last year and knew what type of team they are. We will get better and better and better. Providence on Saturday is going to be tougher than tonight because it's on the road. It's a very difficult conference."
"Villanova had great athleticism. Size doesn't make you a great rebounder. Some of the great rebounders in the game can't jump, others can. Villanova rebounds because they scramble so much, lack of size is similar to the way Arkansas used to play, they always get that athletic step when they rebound. They're very tenacious. They don't give open shot, they challenge every shot. They know how to play the game."
"I was kind of surprised at the way some of freshmen stepped up and played. A little disapp. In some of our veterans didn't step up. Chad Millard. He sprained his ankle or he would have dunked that ball at end of first half."
Villanova Head Coach Jay Wright
"Obviously this was an incredible BIG EAST battle. We just said to ourselves, this is BIG EAST game number 1 - it tells you what this league will be like. We played extremely tough and aggressive I thought we were sloppy with the ball. Our defense and rebounding kept us in it. Timely shots by Allan Ray, Jason Frazier and Dante Cunningham kept us in the game. Every time Louisville made runs at us, those guys made big plays. Game number one in the BIG EAST, that's what it's going to be like."
(On Jason Frazier) "He's such a warrior. When you look at all the surgeries, it was probably nothing to him. I'm just so happy for him. When it comes to him it's bigger than the game. I'm just so happy to see him on the floor. He's really tough, a great competitor. The game was fast, he kept great composure and was always under control."
