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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
January 13, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 13, 2007
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"I'm really proud of our guys. Obviously we played tremendous defense tonight. It's refreshing to see their attitudes every day and I'm really thankful that I have this basketball team because they play so hard and they're getting better and they're getting confident and that's something you need."
(On the fast start) "I think that's a result of the South Florida game. I think they are a confident basketball team. There is no fear in shooting the basketball. They are moving the basketball well."
(On confidence) "Why do you get confidence? If you're shooting low percentages and you're not making shots, would you be confident? We've gone to work on this every day. There are two things that are going to make you confident, going to work at it, passing the ball properly, spacing, and taking good shots. Then obviously you have a game like South Florida. The ball goes in and now our guys have a totally different mind set. Now we just have to get Edgar to relax on the foul line because he can be a decent foul shooter. He's not an Ellis; he can be a good foul shooter."
(On the small lineup)"It's very difficult to guard against a zone. Providence doesn't play man unless they have to. They're doing a very good job against the zone. It's not hurting us, obviously we didn't want to play small but it is such a great offensive rebounding team, such a great rebounding team, being plus being 10-4, so we are going to lose something, which is the backboard, but we're going to gain something, which is movement, defense, forcing turnovers. They played the 2-3 zone as well as any team I've had. They just kept closing the window down on every penetration."
(On Edgar Sosa) "He just needs to not worry about making a mistake. Just relax. It's like I told him. I took him out and I said, `son, you're playing a great game. The reason we're us is because you're playing a great game.' So you miss a free throw, so what. Big deal. You just go back and make it up with defense, just like a turnover. If you go back and erase it with good defense, then it's not a turnover. So don't worry about it. But he feels he's letting everybody down and he takes everything so personally. That's what he's got to work on more than anything else."
Providence Head Coach Tim Welsh
"U of L came out and blitzed us early and that was really the game. Our guys fought back hard. When you get yourself 19 down, against a team that is playing with a lot more confidence than they've had over the last month. I think the last game, kickstarted them a little bit got them going. I thought they played well in other games. You have to give them credit they played very well against Miami. They are shooting the ball more confident. Defensively, Louisville was more aggressive today than they've been in some of the tapes I've seen and that was key obviously that got them going. They got their transition game going. We turned the ball over way too many times to be effective. To get into a flow, at times we got the ball in the right spot, we made some good plays, banged the boards hard but we had 26 turnovers and you can't win on the road especially."
"Williams certainly came to life today and Sosa was terrific with the basketball and it was really hard to guard off the bounce and that got our defense out of the spots we needed to be in when a guy breaks you down like that. We were scrambling from behind, they chased us a little bit, we had to get out of our zone and come after them. Our guys fought but the execution wasn't there when we needed it."
"We gave some up out of transition. Turnovers...that was the thing. And they stretch your zone. With four guards, with Williams I guess being a guard, they've got four guys on the floor that can shoot threes and they move the ball well when they gap you, which they do off the dribble they get your zone stretched from the interior and they do a good job of kicking out and that's makes it a little harder o play when you've got four guys out there that can make threes. The turnovers were a killer. They cost us 12 points in the early going. Where they got their open looks, layups, drives, and kicks and they had our defense back on our heels."
(On turnovers) "You've got to give them credit they were the team on defense. They are very active with their hands. Sometimes when you dig yourself a hole, you get out of your system. And you try to do a little too much by yourself it's not selfish basketball it's just more frustration basketball and we saw that at times when we tried to make plays that weren't there. Some of that was their defense, some of that was ours. But you can't turn the ball over a 2-3 zone. A few of the turnovers were against the press but most of them were against the 2-3 zone. They're aggressive in a 2-3 zone and trying to get deflections and steals, but they don't trap out of it, it's unacceptable, you can't turn over the ball like that. I saw plays I haven't seen from our guys all year long I guess maybe it was Louisville."
