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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
February 04, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 4, 2006
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"I'm absolutely elated, I'm on cloud nine. There's a part of me that absolutely feels sick on the inside for Notre Dame. I may have coached Mike Brey at Five Star basketball camp. That tells you how old I am. But, I've coached for 32-33 years and that's as fine a coach as I've gone up against. I've gone against Coach K, Dean Smith, Bobby Knight and they're all great of course, they're legends. But he's as fine a coach as they come. What they do offensively and defensively, the changes they make, the shots they get, the adjustment. You feel awful for saying that because they're 1-8, but for a coach to get his team ready without any deflating at all. What they've been through, he's a great motivator, a great X and O guy. I'm proud of our guys for the victory, but I can't say enough about the Notre Dame and Mike Brey. He is as good a coach as I've seen. We were fortunate to win this game, but we played our hearts out."
(On Dean's shot to tie the game) "I wanted them to get back in the game and stop with the chest thumping - we had a lot of X's and O's to do. We wanted to bring him off the double and they were playing to the outside, and if they played it to the outside, we were going to slip Tello (Palacios) to the three. I asked (Dean) why he didn't do it and he said it I didn't want Tello taking the three, I wanted to take the three."
"But Tello, after struggling a little bit, makes an unbelievable big shot in the corner. David Padgett was brilliant the whole night. It just goes to show you. We played probably one of our best games against Villanova, Cincinnati and now. We're life and death to win at home with a loss on the road. That just tells you how tough it is. We're playing terrific basketball right now. The competition is so keen. It's unbelievable, I've never seen the BIG EAST like this. It's always been great, but it's never been like this, it's truly unbelievable."
(On Andre McGee) "Andre played great. The problem with Andre is, I'm playing him too many minutes. In the second half it takes a lot out of him. It's just like the rookie wall in the NBA, he hits the guard wall - he's playing too many minutes, I know it. But he's an improved defensive basketball player. He's got terrific hands, he's really gotten a lot better, he advances the ball and I like Taquan at two. So I go with him, hope for tv timeouts so we can make good plays with him in the game."
Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey
"Great game, we had out chances. I thought Dean threw in a big-time shot right there at the end. I'm proud. I hope we keeping giving ourselves a chance - that's all I can ask at this point, that we keep battling and giving ourselves a chance. We are who we are and we are where we are. There's no way to sugarcoat it."
(On Chris Quinn's free throws with 11 seconds left) "I'm thinking maybe it's swinging a little bit and I don't want to foul right there because the last time we fouled in the Central Michigan game. We have not practiced like that. I thought we tried to switch everything and get out. You knew Dean would take a forced shot, but a forced shot for a guy like that is still a forced shot. Just like a forced shot for Chris Quinn is a good shot sometimes. He hit a heck of a shot, but you've got to win in right there. We kind of had it stolen on the road right there. We've not really been able to get over that hump."
"We were trying to get it down the floor. I think for him you've got to get a three up. I thought they were going to foul like West Virginia, because I thought I overheard them say that. I wanted him to get into his motion and maybe get three shots right there. You've got to win it before that. You've got to win in regulation. Louisville was fearless and did a heck of a job sending it into overtime."
