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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
March 22, 2006 | Men's Basketball
March 22, 2006
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"That was a lot of fun. College basketball is supposed to be fun we are having a lot of fun and we are having a blast going to the NIT. And certainly, winning adds to that. The one think I just told the team is that we are in the best city right now for college basketball ... it isn't even close. It is enabling us to play great basketball. Our field goal defense was 27 percent, our offense was 50 percent. That really has helpd us grow as a team. We had 15, 000 people and they were out of control. Going into the NIT we said every time you go into a game it is excel. Look at Gerry McNamara, someone voted him the most overrated player of the league and he went into the Garden and owned it. Taquan had a lot of injures and now he steals freedom Hall."
"The whole Missouri Valley Conference is not just one of the great conferences in basketball, but I say their coaches collectively are the best I have seen in a long time. This coach is as good as it gets. He is a tremendous coach in everything he does in every phase of the game. We played great. We had to play great. We had a very strong home court advantage. Their coaches are unbelievable and their program and coach are unbelievable. I admire the MVC - definitely not a mid major conference and whoever repeats that doesn't know the game. They have big time players, big time conference and big time coaches. We are very pleased with the win."
"I think in the whole NIT we played great defense. And that is what we tried to stress more than anything else. If the other team makes you have a bad night offensively, you have to rely on your defense to win. We talked about how we can't hang our head because we have injuries. We can't hang our heads because we are young. If you go to the NIT Final Four and win the championship that is special. That is the way we are looking at this."
"I think when you move the basketball, you don't take quick shots. Let the big guys handle it and get great back pursuit. We did a great job on Ahearn because we treated him like he was JJ Redick.. There is some truth to that (beating each other up in the BE) you have to recruit depth and use it. It didn't wear us out because our injured guys are coming back and are fresh."
"TV is dictating how things are going. The Big East didn't seed us well. I told them from Day one we weren't that good. I guess they thought I was Lou Holtz Junior. So we had UConn, VU twice and our big rival twice."
Missouri State Head Coach Barry Hinson
"I have been in a lot of leagues and played in a lot of college basketball. . The people of Louisville have been more than cordial. I have only been to one other arena where the crowd that applauded our players when we left. This is only the second arena and that is a lot of class and we really appreciate that. It meant a lot to these seniors to be applauded. I am also really proud of Taquan. I thought he played great in his last game here in Freedom Hall and I am really happy for him. I have never been in the Hall and I was impressed. I was just hoping that this truck convention would start a day early and we could have had this game in Springfield. I thought your fans were awesome tonight. We got to 48-39 and I thought were going to make a run but 14,600 some people stood up and said you are not going to make a run. They did a good job and should be commended."
"We felt good going in at halftime. We felt like we had played fairly well if you look at the stat sheet. You look at the stat sheet and say we couldn't make a shot. We chose a bad time tonight to not make our shots but they had a lot to do with that. We couldn't make shots and got off start where it was a 9-2 run. We fed the piranhas out there. We couldn't do that. I really thought when we got to 48-39 we had three straight possessions where we could not get a ball to fall. Two of those were three point shots."
"I don't want to sit here and said we missed all of those ourselves. Blake was so sped up I thought he had two Mountain Dews at halftime. They only out-rebounded us by one, a bunch of old country boys. If you took an egg and cracked and put it on Taquan Dean's back it would have fried, that is how hot he was."
