.png&width=32&height=32&type=webp)
University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
February 18, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 18, 2008
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"The guys really did a great job of focusing on what we needed to do to win. They key tonight was transition defense and rebounding. They only had five fast breaks and the offensive rebound we got back and we outrebounded 53-35. Those were two areas that we wanted to concentrate on and they guys did a wonderful job at that. We knew we had to win it off defense. They are very long and they don't give you a whole lot of good looks. As I said to you guys yesterday, we are undefeated when we take less than nine challenged shots. We took eight tonight. That was also a very good job."
(on tonight's rebounding) "We give the same rebounding performance we did against Providence we have zero chance of winning. I told them not 10 percent, not five percent - you have zero chance of winning if you rebound like you did against Providence. They took it to heart."
(on Preston Knowles) "Preston gave us a big lift by dogging Jonny Flynn. And that is not going to show up on the stat sheet. When he came in we did substitute because we knew we had to get after him so he wasn't as crisp. Their two big guns were like 6 for 28, so we had to wear them out somehow. That is the only edge to having two great basketball players."
(Was the offense more effective in the first half?) "The offense was fine in the first half. I just think that we missed shots due to their defense; you have to give them credit. We did a better job in the second half. T-Will did a great job of doing what Harris does for them. Getting the ball in the middle of the zone and taking it to the basket for those little short jump shots. And Harris does the same thing for them."
(On the foul trouble) "The just weren't smart fouls. We have got to just stand there and be tall and jump in your plane. You (Padgett) can't come on the guy when your way too smart and way too old for that. He needs to stay in the game and move his feet and block it off the ball don't block it when they are taking it. They knew that. Derrick did a good job tonight. He struggles to pay attention to the scouting report. That is his biggest problem. When we play man and the ball goes inside we wanted to trap him we didn't want to play him three quarter on the high side. If you give him the low side there is no help. They empty it out."
"You have to wind with defense certain nights. Other nights you can win with ball movement. All I can say is the three key points was transition defense keeping them out of transition, trying to wear them out. Keeping the challenged shots under nine and rebounding and the guys did a good job. Those are the three points of emphasis with us. It wasn't anything other than that. The guys did a great job of doing those three things."
Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim
"Obviously, teams struggled to shoot the ball tonight. I thing the game just came down to offensive boards. They really did a great job on the boards and we didn't - that was the game. Both teams really struggled around the rim, 28 percent three-point shooting team and we managed to not quite get to that level tonight. They're a good zone team I thought we were good against their man to man. We got the ball to their inside and we did a good job inside. We've struggled against zones all year and they struggled tonight against ours'. I thought we did a great job at the end getting it to two. Instead Williams hit a big shot in the corner and we did a bad job on the fast break and that was the ballgame. This team's battled as hard as you ask it to. It is difficult for us to play three nights in six days. Some fatigue will play a part of it. With that said, with three or four minutes we're two points down. I thought we battled as hard as we could - ultimately it was the boards but we did not shoot the ball well."
(On offensive rebounds) "We did a good job on the rebounds around the basket - a fairly good job, there were a lot of long ones. I thought our interior guys did job rebounding. Paul (Harris) and Jonny (Flynn) especially get seven or eight rebounds - we didn't get that from him tonight. There's two keys in the game: the shooting, they had bad shooting too, so we can't use that. The game turned on the rebounds."
(On Louisville's defense) "They played zone defense, I thought we got good shots. For the most part we took a couple, rushed some. I thought we got good shots. We're shooting 28 percent from three for the year, so that's problem for us. We're fortunate a lot of teams don't play zone."
(On Donte' Greene) "I thought he had good looks to start the game. A couple of foul line jump shots. I thought he had pretty good looks from the three for the most part. He has not shot the ball well in a while. It's not a new thing. He was 4 for 16 the other day. For the most part he's our only three-point threat. There's nobody else coming in there so he's got to take a couple that are on the border."
(On Louisville) "First off they're really good on zone and man, tonight they didn't shoot well. If we'd played better offense it still would have been a good game. But the way we shot, if they'd shot well it would have been over at halftime."
