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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
February 21, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 21, 2007
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"We played great defense tonight. I think people said we were going to have a let down but I think our respect level for St. John's was so high there wasn't going to be any let down. We knew how good they are and how well they were playing and because of the respect we have for them it is impossible to have a letdown. All the guys played a great game they played great defense. Early on we were playing great defense, we were just giving up second shots. What happens is you get so concerned about giving up the three that the guards don't come back on the long shot and rebound the ball. And we just didn't do a good job at that. We did a much better job five minutes into the game."
"I think the defense stepped up from the opening tip. I think the rebounding wasn't good early on."
"We've been playing good defense. Defense has helped us get on this run. All I have been hearing all week and I didn't understand this, was the word letdown. Are you guys going to letdown and I never thought that for a second. We have played our best basketball on the road but we were definitely going to bring it in this game because St. John's is an outstanding team."
"I think when you say letdown, if you have that psychology then you can't compete in the Big East. In the Big East you just can't do it, the league is too tough. So those words should never come into play in the Big East. There might be nights in Conference USA if you are playing someone that you are much better than and you can overpower them because you are at home, but that just doesn't happen in the Big East."
"My optimism has never been guarded with this team. I've used the word bullish all season long. We have had the worst injuries in the last few years that I have had in my 30 years of coaching. The injuries are one thing but it's the lack of practice that really hurts the team. We would get Chris, Brad, and Perrin and all those guys were never hurt and they were practicing all the time. All your players that play the minutes didn't get to practice. Just in the last few weeks we have had an opportunity to practice, work on our defenses, work on our offense. DC coming back has really helped because we had droughts when David left the game. In the low post situation, he has helped us and the emergence of Earl. But there is no doubt about it, that the reason we started playing better offensively is because of T-Will and Edgar Sosa just making people better."
"I think with Terrence you look at his body sometimes and you think that he is a wise old man and he's not. T-Will gets upset with me when I take him out of practice, he does not miss a second of practice. He doesn't want to come out, he wants to learn. He wants to get better. He is so eager to please. He is like a son to me. And every single time he just wants to please me so much. Ever since I had a discussion with him about "there is nothing wrong with his shooting, you're the only one that can penetrate and make they other guys better'. He takes it to heart and immediately does it. Whatever you tell him, he does it 100 percent. He is tremendous young man."
St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
"Give Louisville, Coach Pitino credit, we didn't play well. We played decently in the first ten minutes. They did a good job guarding us inside. Probably the only guy who was really aggressive for us was Anthony Mason."
(About having a poor performance late in the season) "It is disappointing , we practiced pretty well, but give them a lot of credit, they're deep, they throw a lot of bodies at you. We don't have that many bodies but we are not going to make excuses because we haven't had many bodies all year. They can wear you out and I think they wore us down . We took ill-advised shots and we stopped guarding. Even when we did guard, they did a great job of rebounding the ball. The rebounds stats seemed even but they are not because when we got offensive rebounds we didn't finish. When they got them, they finished and that really hurt us."
"They got down a little bit, maybe a little frustrated. I think they got tired. We played like we were tired. We shouldn't have been but we did. I think the thing is because we didn't get stops and that allowed Louisville to get into their pressure, that really kind of wore us out."
