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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
December 30, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 30, 2006
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"Give credit to Asheville for hanging in there. They played like it was the third game in four days. I felt like I was back in the NBA except we were at home We weren't too sharp offensively but we did what we had to do to get the win. We have a quick three days to get ready for the most explosive offenses in college basketball, Notre Dame."
(About Charlie Tyra's death) "I didn't know that era too well but obviously he was a great one from what everyone has told me. We are saddened by the loss. I know he was our first All-America. I had the priviledge of meeting Charlie a few times and for his family, it is sad loss. He was the first great player at U of L. They are people that know him a lot better than me though."
(About overcoming the lack of experience) "I don't think there is anything you can do about turning a freshman into a sophomore. I don't thinkg there is anything you can do about healing Tello's (Palacios') neck and wrist. That is what we have, most people play freshmen as key reserves who play a lot of minutes like Taquan Dean and Cisco (Garcia). These guys are starting and they are the impact people. Prior to the last few games, we did not have Tello, T-Will, David Padgett and Brandon Jenkins available as impact upperclassmen. The freshmen are doing fine but we are just a young team and that is what young teams do."
"I started Perrin Johnson because he is best cheerleader in the bench and worked his tail off yesterday in practice and dominated our guys and he never gets a chance to play. Amazing that he would show up (with such enthusiasm) He had his family in for the last two games but didn't get the opportunity to playbut he still came back to practice worked harder than anyone else. So it was a reward for working so hard and being such a good teammate on the bench and deserved to play."
(About the freshman getting experience) "They just have to go through it. They have the physical game to go through it. Mentally I don't know. Somethings they do, I can't understand, they are just basketball players. They just have to go through it. Nothing we can do about it right now. Andre is injured. BJ isn't back to where we hoped right now. We have to get him in the gym as much as possible to work his way through it. This wasn't expected. I doubt Andre can play at ND, he hasn't practiced."
"Yeah, I think we are as prepared as we can be to face conference play. But I didn't expect to start an all freshman backcourt this year. They are going to have their moments where they look terrific and then they will have their moments like tonight where they don't look very good. I wish I could have had Andre and BJ back to start and let them come in to learn it. They are doing the best they can and living up to what I hoped. I have no qualms about them at all. They will have games like that. They don't understand the defense and they reach in and get beat a little beat. Other nights they are going to play great. The consistency factor when you go with freshmen is not there , I can assure you that especially in the BIG EAST."
"We have been playing good defense the whole time. That has been the plus. It is the one thing we are working on. We realize you can't turn freshmen into sophomores. Their execution is pretty good but the shots may not fall. So we have to be really good defensively. We are going to get truly tested because this team we are going face shoots 50 percent from field and 40 percent from the three and a76 percent from the line. In spite of all the hustle and strong work in the defense, we are going to ... in every BIG EAST game, it will be a possession game to win or lose it. So we have to make free throws. The jump shots are ok, I said that in the pre-game show. The areas we have to get better at are: we have to get better at making shots around the basket and free throws. The three point shot is everything you want from player movement, to ball movement and inside to out, all that is good. We have to make our 2-point shots when we drive to the basket and we have to make those shots. We need to concentrate on making those shots when we go to the basketball and not getting distracted when we go to the basket."
(About the schedule) "We did play like it was the third game in four days. We will have work so hard to beat them because they (Notre Dame) execute so well. I am sure we will watch the Orange Bowl as a team. We will have time to watch it as a team as it will be our travel day to Notre Dame."
UNC Asheville Head Coach Eddie Biedenbach
"This is a great opportunity, for UNC-Asheville. Every year we have an opportunity to play great teams. Some old friends, like Rick Pitino and other schools around the country schedule us and give us a good guarantee, which is great for our school. The game itself, to come into Freedom Hall, our guys, half the time they don't know where they are, this is a great honor to play here at the University of Louisville. It's great for our school. Our guys want to be pro players, just like Louisville's guys. They come out and they play against these guys. They see that they've got to lift weights; they've got to work on their skills. They're fairly talented but the time these guys, Donavan Jones and some of the other freshmen out there, by the time they get to be juniors and seniors, they are going to be good enough players so we can play with some of these folks. That means during the off-season, they work harder and things like that."
"The game was a good game from the standpoint that we didn't play very well at South Carolina, down there. You can blame it on Christmas vacation or whatever, we just didn't play well. We also didn't practice well the two days before. Yesterday, here at Freedom Hall, we had a great practice. We've had three or four of those this year. We're just not together yet. We're going to get there though. The big guys are getting a little healthier, like Padgett, they're not healthy. As they get better and get in better shape and work on their skills, we'll be a better basketball team. Fortunately we don't play North Carolina and Louisville in our conference, so those guys are going to be effective against some of those other guys. I liked playing this game with one day rest in between; our tournament goes like that, we play Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday or Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, so we only have a short time in between. We have conference games coming up, where we play Saturday, Monday the next two weekends, so our guys needed to experience this. They're tired, we broke the press dribbling, and we need to break it passing. Our two little guys are great with the ball and not many presses can hold them and they're good. That's not the way to play and win breaking presses and getting lay-ups; on the other end, it's too much dribbling and too much work. They were tired at the end of the game, whether it was South Carolina's or Louisville's press, they were dribbling too much."
"They played hard, we didn't have everybody play as well as I'd liked. Coach Pitino does a nice job. A lot of people don't see what he does out there. The organization, when we went over the game plan, we had to go zone most of the time. Things you can't guard when talent is a little better than yours, we did ok man to man. We had to go little, except for the big guys. It was good for us, for our guys to do that. Our guys battled and fought and I thought Louisville did a good job, they made a few baskets on the outside that we have to give up. If they don't make those, we might be able to get back into the game. They're a good basketball team, they have good players. When you have freshmen starting for you, you're going to have not the smooth organization you want all night long, but the talented players are able to play ahead of some upper classmen. The upperclassmen that can come in are tough and good. He's got four great guards, for our league, we think we've got four great guards. There's a difference between Louisville and Asheville. We really enjoyed it. Coach Pitino is great. It was great to see Valvano, I'm an old NC-State guy. You have a wonderful program here, wonderful institution."
(On Kenny George) "He'll tell me if his knee is hurting and if he wants to play. He's a great young man, biggest son of a gun I've ever been around; I've coached and known a lot of big guys. I played with Wilt Chamberlain. I've never been around anybody like him. He's a wonderful guy. He dislocated his kneecaphis senior year in high school. We'd never have gotten him if that hadn't happened. Then he dislocated again and we had to tighten the other one up; he's grown so much, he as loose knees. What a wonderful kid and a wonderful talent. He's got some hands; he's a better free throw shooter than he showed tonight. He's going to make a dent in our league."
