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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
March 04, 2007 | Men's Basketball
March 4, 2007
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"It was a good win on senior night. They are a tough team to play against because they trap so much. We gave up the three ball early on, which killed us. We've done a good job all season. This is the team that turns every body over. They're averaging 18 forced turnovers; we only turned it over six times. You know when you play against a team like that, you think about it. We had one turnover now you're playing against #1 steal team in the BIG EAST. We only had six turnovers. We did a good job of handling the basketball. We are proud to get this victory. There were times we didn't expect to be 12-4, matter of fact in the beginning of the year we didn't think we'd be 12-4, we were hoping for 10-6. So we were real proud of the way the season ended. We ended very strong. Hopefully we'll come out in the BIG EAST."
(On the last six games) "I think it is a combination of things. The injuries hurt us but in one respect, helped us. I don't think we would have ever developed our freshmen as fast as they developed, if it wasn't for the injuries. They got playing time in crucial situations where they had to win the game and play so many more minutes than I expected.So, we are very pleased with that. We have a group of freshmen for every situation; every difficult situation came through for us."
(On their confidence) "We have confidence, but we didn't play with great defense tonight. That's been a staple of ours. In the second half we played much better defense than in the first half. We realized we weren't sure of what bracket we wanted last night. It looked like the three seed was better than the two seed at times. You are going to have to play the winner of Villanova/ Providence, Villanova/West Virginia. The only team I think we don't match up real well is West Virginia. We haven't faced them. It will be a lot of fun to guard their offense against their 1-3-1. They'll probably play great because I'll have no idea what they're in."
(On the tournament seeding) "I think that each game you win you move up one. You win the tournament you move way up. I've said all along you all write about what seed we should be; just think about what it was a month ago. You're thinking about what restaurant you're going to in New York. So this is fun times for us. It's matter of perseverance. I think that one thing I've always believed in as a coach, it goes back to way before the LSU comeback, you're down 31 things seem like this is going to be an embarrassing night, but you come back with fifteen minutes to go, win it in regulation. I've always believed the game is forty minutes and the season is thirty games or whatever number you play. You never stop playing until the final game or until the horn sounds and that's what we've done all year. We've never got discouraged. We got the biggest break of all, to play Pittsburgh and Marquette on the road. We were so happy about that. If it was two teams unranked, it wouldn't have helped us. We thought it was a great situation. The guys have come through in crucial situations, never getting down, never stopped believing in themselves that they could win."
Seton Hall Head Coach Bobby Gonzalez
"Obviously it was important for our team. We had nothing to play for but pride, because obviously we got eliminated from the BIG EAST tournament. We wanted to go down swinging, go down fighting, that's what our team did all year; that was our identity. It's my first year as a coach, so the way we finished was very important to us. We wanted to give Louisville a game, 20,000 people, senior day, they're hottest team in the league, and they've got one of the coaches in the history of the game. Coach Pitino is a brilliant, brilliant coach. I think this year might be the best job he's done with a team. That's a very good team. I think they've got good pieces to the puzzle, but the MVP of the team is Coach. I think they've got very good pieces, but to me they don't have a lot of first team all-league type guys. He's probably going to be Coach of the Year with the job he's done. I have the utmost respect for Coach Pitino and the team. The way he's coached this team, I can't believe how good they are for the pieces they have."
"For us and for me, we went down fighting and swinging because that's just me, that's my personality, that's our identity. That's what I wanted our kids to remember for the season. It was important for us to just go down, we knew it was a difficult game to win, but the way we played was very important. There's a saying that says `there's a way to lose and there's a way to lose,' so we wanted to make it a game, maybe steal it. We thought we were in it until maybe three or four minutes to go. We felt like they couldn't really relax until the last few minutes, so we did our job. Our kids showed a lot of character and courage to come into this building and play today on a game that would mean nothing for most people. Obviously it meant something for Louisville, because they were playing for the 2-seed in the BIG EAST tournament and it was senior day. We wanted to make it like it was a national championship for us. I'm proud of our kids for doing that."
