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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
January 31, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2009
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement) "That was as good of a half as we can play. That was the first time since I have been a coach we had 33 deflections in a half. We try to get 35 a game. The unfortunate thing we only have four in the second half, which is record low. It was tale of two halves. You have to give them credit; they make it very difficult to score. We were doing a really nice job of going back door and executing. We shoot a good percentage, but we kept turning the ball over too much. We kept picking up our dribble too much. They are a very tough team to play against. We are really happy with the victory. It is better off the way if happened because our players have a tendency to fall in love with themselves too much. It was probably better off that we had a war down the stretch. All of that was good for preparation us."
(On Terrence Jennings) "He just keeps improving, getting better and better. In the beginning he could not run full speed, get a pass in traffic, come to a jump stop and dunk the ball. He could not do that. He is really improving dramatically."
(On Jerry Smith's performance) "He was very active moving without the basketball, going back door. It was good to see him have a good game like that."
(On Louisville's defensive effort) "I told my guys that they were getting too down during timeouts that they could not score and they were turning it over. I thought our theme in this game was to be the better defensive team and the better rebounding team not the better offensive team. When you play against a team like West Virginia you have to be the better defensive team. It was our veterans that were losing it mentally."
(On West Virginia's second half performance) "They turned up their defense and their rebounding. They (Louisville) were great on the glass during the first half. That was as good as we can play in the first half. A team like West Virginia, it was good that they came back on us from a teaching stand point. It is much better the way it ended from a teaching stand point. Our players understand what a lead is all about. When you go from 33 deflections, which is a record to four which is a record low you learn."
(On understanding the concept of scoring) "That is the thing that is most important, it really is not about scoring if you can just sacrifice and say they are a great defensive team. Whichever way you can get the points, get the points. They make it tough in the low post, they make it tough denies. They do it very well and they play really hard. We played great during the first half and they played great in the second half. We were fortunate to come away with a victory. If can get our guys to forget about points and just worry about defense. With our basketball team it could be anybody. It just changes based on who we can exploit on the other team."
(On Louisville's development) "I think it was good for us to go against switching defenses here. There are two things you have to do with a switching defense, the screen has to inside cut the man, which we were great at last year. Second, you have to screen your own man and make tight curls. We did neither. Our guys just had a very difficult time coming from the timeout and understanding that. That is something we have to improve on. We allowed them to switch and did not burn them, last year's team picked it apart. They are a terrific defensive team; you have to take your hat off to them. It was a great game for the both of us."
West Virginia Head Coach Bob Huggins
(On second half play) "Our execution obviously was a whole lot better in the second half than it was in the first. You can't continue to throw the ball to them and expect to win. I think I heard Rick say they had 33 deflections in the first half which he said he can't remember having that many. They're good, they're active. They get to the ball and we helped them. And when you have all those things going for you, you can't help them. And we helped them. In the second half we talked to our guys about dealing with it and we didn't deal with it very well in the first half, and did a lot better in the second half. If you're going to be any good you have to deal with pressure. You have to handle it a lot better than we did in the first half."
(On Devin Ebanks) "Devin is just getting better and better. We are playing with one point guard and he's a freshman. I wouldn't be honest with you if I told you he wasn't responding very well. And I said during a timeout `if when we get in our half court offense could he get us in,' and he said `yeah coach I will get us in there.' Devin hasn't been the problem."
(On freshman) "I thought Kevin Jones was pretty good. I thought two out of three of them responded pretty well. Kevin played 22 minutes I thought he did a great job defensively for us."
(On making adjustments) "We didn't really make any adjustments. We just tried to do what we were supposed to do going in. And we didn't do what we were supposed to do going into halftime. I asked them during halftime `who doesn't know what press breaker is? Those of you who don't know let me know so I can explain it to you.' And that's not really what we talk about. I've been doing this a long time, and Rick's been doing this a long time. And what you see is the people who respond to pressure, they have a chance at greatness. If you think about it whatever it is, it's just not sports it's life. People who can deal with some adversity, people who have things put on them and respond. The more put on them the more they respond. And that's basically what I talked to our veteran players about. Every team doesn't have twelve great players. We have some people that we have to depend on. And basically I asked them `can we depend on them? Are you going to do what you did the first half or can we depend on you?' That ball is pretty special and when you give it to somebody, they have to take care of it. And we just didn't take care of it."
(On Jerry Smith) "He hit a huge three when we were making a run. We lost him a few times. It's hard for us because we don't have two studs inside that we can throw the ball to. Everybody's pushing on the perimeter on us because we don't have a post game."
(On defensive tone of game) "We didn't deal with their pressure very well. I don't know how to say pump fake any different than what I said it for two days. I may need to learn another language. But you watch the film and they do it. They get to the ball. They're great athletes; pump fake I think is pretty simple. Second half we pumped fake and we were able to score a little bit. They are great athletes and they are extremely well coached. Its one thing to be great athletes and it's another thing extremely well coached great athletes."
