.png&width=32&height=32&type=webp)
University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
December 08, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 8, 2006
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
They did a terrific job of controlling the tempo. We played really good defense, but our turnovers were killing us. It didn't allow us to get into our attack. We just turned the ball over way too much. Sonny Troutman's very difficult to go with against that 3-2 zone. He's very good with stealing the ball. This was a good win for us. We didn't play particularly well, especially in the second half giving up 19 offensive rebounds, but we'll take the win and move on.
Will Scott and Edgar Sosa won the game for us. We needed shooting at that point. You know when you watch teams play you can move the ball, move the ball, move the ball, unless you have confidence in your shooters and themselves. I watched Notre Dame last night, it doesn't matter what they're doing defensively. They can shoot and every offense looks great when you have shooters and Will and Sosa can speak to that.
On Terrence Williams I think he listens to the crowd booing him when he misses a shot. I think that bothers him a little bit. He can't worry about that, he's just got to go play ball.
Zone offense has four or five different ingredients. There are no great zone offenses. It's about ball movement. It's about player movement working inside to out, dribble penetration and offensive rebounding. We're not doing a good job of offensive rebounding. Our inside people are not running their hands into the ball and obviously we missed a lot of open shots which we made in the second half and it looked a lot better.
Teams that control tempo when you turn the ball over you allow them to play at their tempo and St. Joe's tomorrow night will be the same thing and when you turn it over, their tempo wins out like what happened tonight.
On Ohio They are a good basketball team, I don't think our fans realize mid majors, when they get that so-called label, they get juniors and seniors and are as good as any team in the country. That night at Holy Cross and Duke that was life and death. These teams can flat out play. They get good players in their juniors and senior class. Some of the great programs do not and that's a big neutralizer. They are extremely well-coached, well-drilled. They go to the glass hard for a small team, they deserve a lot of credit, I'm very impressed. I've known Tim O'Shea since he's been a 15 year old and he's done a good job.
We were giving up offensive rebounds and three-point shots. Twice in out of bounds plays we gave up a three. Our interior defense was pathetic. We stood there and let them go inside. There are some situations you just can't trap down on a player and you have to be able to play a man.
Ohio Head Coach Tim O'Shea
"I am disappointed in the loss but not disappointed in the effort. It was an effort we can be proud of. What I regret in the first half is that we had so many fast break opportunities that we did not convert into baskets but that's the way it goes sometimes."
"Playing in someone else's gym, it's always a challenge. We had a bunch of point blank fast break opportunities. Troutman tries to dunk the ball and it rims out. We had a lot of two on ones we didn't convert. What I like is our resiliency we kept after it and kept rebounding and got ourselves some second shot opportunities. That's just how it is sometimes, especially when you go on the road, the basket seems to have a lid on it. "
"Obviously the second half was a different story for both teams. They struggled to shoot the ball too and I thought that defensively the zone was good. We were able to get into some passing lanes and get some steals. We scrapped and that was kinda the game plan we wanted. We wanted a tempo to make it more of a half court game. We didn't want to play a transition game with Louisville. We were able to do that. We accomplished a lot of what we wanted to do except win the game."
"The challenge for us is that we played Wednesday, then we played today and we have to play Saturday and Sunday. I have a couple of guys banged up but it is very similar to what we are going to experience in our conference tournament at the end of the year, having to play three straight days."
"I am very proud of the effort. This, a 3-point loss to Louisville on the road is a good loss for us. It is very significant when you are a program like Ohio, because we still have some opportunites on our schedule to play Cincinnati, Arizona State, and teams like St. Joes, Rhode Island and Davidson. We are hoping that if we have a great conference year and don't win our tournament but win some of these nonconference matchups we could possibly be considered for an at-large bid. And a night like tonight plays into that."
