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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
January 22, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 22, 2007
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"I don't know what the reason for us in the first half at home. We play loose on the road. But we play tight offensively at home. I wish I could figure it out. I tell jokes, stories everything else. I don't know what it is but the important thing is that you are shooting 20 percent and you go into the lockerroom at halftime and the good thing is that we are only down only three. So we are playing great defense, pressuring the ball well, not turning it over and we are making the free throws and because we are young, the offense is going to come. David Padgett gave us a great lift and They are pretty much like us, minus David Padgett. We have an experience player and they don't and that is the difference in the game."
(About getting going in the second half) "We made shots. We also didn't turn the ball over. We haven't been handling it well. We, by and large, played good defense except for free throw blockouts, that was the only mistake we made."
(On the press) "At times, when I go home after coaching a young team you can be very rewarding and also the most frustrating thing a coach can go through on top of the fact that we are young this is the second game we have had healthy bodies. At the beginning of the year, David Padgett couldn't walk but he had the threshold to play."
(About UConn) "I can just imagine what Jim goes through. Those kids play hard, you can take a look a their team and know that in a year or two they are going to be great. You know in a year or two they are going to be great. I am so sure of that that I know it. They've got terrific talent. They've got that big guy. A guy like Thabeet, who we recruited. I am positive they will be great in a year. Thabeet, in three years, will be the best player in college basketball. Or if someone puts the notion in his head that because he is 7-3, he'll sit the bench, never make a second contract and never make any money in his life. So hopefully, the right people get a hold of him. He'll be intelligent and he'll be a very wealthy man someday if he listens to Jim Calhoun, who puts more guys in the pros than the draft does."
"I told a story before the game about playing against Louisville while I was at UK, I said you will beat this team (U of L) if you don't keep taking it to Samaki Walker. If you just make the little mid-range floaters in the lane or pass the ball, you will win. And a triple double later, when Samaki had blocked about 11 shots, I said, so do you think I am telling this story because I want to remember the good old days at UK? I am telling you that you can't take it to Thabeet. So we kept taking it, and taking it and taking it and at halftime said `I ran out of stories with you guys.' Edgar Sosa is in that lockerroom right now saying, `I know I can take him' (Thabeet).That is what I am dealing with."
(On why U of L played well) "To be honest, I think we got healthy. I have respect for all of you, but I don't think you understood the magnitude of our injuries, you just didn't. Because it is not just the bodies that were out, it is the ability to never practice. They may be out, but now they've come back and now we are healthy. We can substitute with the exception of T-Will, we have backups at every position. Now, we have backups for every person except T-will. He is the only guy we are short on."
"Do I think we are turning the corner? Not in this league, so all I am going to celebrate tonight. In this league I watched Cincy play Syracuse the other day and Cincy should have won. Then they go down and play St. John's and lose that game. I watched Cincy beat WVU. I watched Marquette play Pitt. This is a young league and next year it will be devastating, that is why I would like to announce my retirement right now. I'll be in Miami (joke)."
"You don't make field goals when they are fouling you. Free throws are very important. We beat DPU because we made free throws and they missed. UConn would have beat IU if they had made their free throws. IU made them. It really comes down to when you play as hard as this , the shooting percentages (go down) when you know each other so well. Jim and I know each other so well. It is like 25 years. I am not going to surprise him, he is not going to surprise me so it is going to come down to free throws. Young teams have a tendency to not be good free throw shooting teams."
"If you lose the rebounding war, you can't beat UConn. You have got to stay even or stay within one. You can't win the game if you lose that. Because You can't win it without it if you lose that . They are one of the best field goal defensive teams in the country. We took good shots but they are a very good defensive team. I was watching a tape and they said, boy they are shooting way too many threes. But every timeout, I was encouraging them to shoot three. Because DePaul's defensive scheme is that when you throw it inside they trap right away. You can't make a post move so you are going to find other people and take a three or drive and dish and take a three. You have to know the scheme."
(Three point line) "That we haven't moved the line back by know the spacing to the post is not good with that line. I am a big believer in the three."
(On the White Out) "I loved it, because I spent a lot of money on that jacket. I am not like a woman who spends a thousand dollars on a dress and only wears it once. I haven't had the ability to wear that jacked since I wore that jacket to the Derby a few years ago so I am glad to get to wear it again. Maybe we are going to have a green out because I can wear it more than once a year at Derby. And by the way it is a winter white."
UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun
"First thing I want to congratulate Louisville, I thought they did a great job physically, coming in and doubling us in the back court, very physical in their traps. The way the game is called, you just have to adjust and keep on playing. That means two guys that are with you and we had four left and lobbed the ball too much. I thought they had a good offense and were exceptionally well coached. Conversely, I thought the first ten minutes of the second half it was the same old tune: not much fun, missed some foul shots, not taking care of the basketball, not doing that well against pressure, initiate some offense, couldn't make a three. We didn't run a very good offense against their zone. I had a feeling Rick would go predominantly zone tonight, which he did. The press we worked, and at one point in particular run, we took them from down three to plus twelve. We had four different guys take the ball out of bounds and press break them, when we did it right, we got lay-ups, so we weren't very well coached tonight; conversely, they were. I thought Rick and his team did a great job, and my congratulations to them."
(What do we have to do to get the offense moving in the right direction?) "Go away for a while, and next year when they are older, maybe they'll be better. I have no answer to it. I wish I did have an answer to it. I don't know how you can play defense like that in the first half. You can say, `yeah, they missed shots,' but they were defended, that's why they missed shots. Do I expect us to fight back? We fight in practice every day; I keep saying we don't look like the team that practices. That's the thing that's scaring me. I've had teams that have had to get out the baseball bat on to get them to practice hard. We practice hard as hell. Coach Blaney said, `I wish we were playing today. We practice better than we play.' I've never had a team to do that in my entire life. I can't fault their physical efforts, but their mental efforts but there was a big point between two, three, four probably seven or eight minutes which allowed them to make their comfortable lead. That put us in the hole. The pressure should have helped us, but we didn't handle it the right way. I don't agree with some of the judgment calls, when was the last time you saw the shot and one in two shots. I was trying to think when was the last time I saw that, that's when a guy should think about another career, possibly; officials didn't cost us the game, you guys know that and I know that. But I am just saying we had those six, eight minutes or four minutes or whatever it may be when they took their 2-2-1, moved it up, started double teaming the ball and we just didn't have any...I thought we gave good team effort, I thought Doug Wiggins had the worst game, maybe, in a uniform. Jerome (Dyson) was not very good; Stanley (Robinson) didn't score a point, he just came off a great game off Indiana. And so who's going to be next game. But we'll go back and try get ourselves ready to play Providence, but tonight it was very difficult for me personally and hopefully for our team and coaching staff. To have these kids work so hard to get so little out of the game. When they practice so hard, make shots, make foul shots, we shoot 80 percent in practice."
