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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
November 23, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 23, 2009
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 1 
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"I thought we did a terrific job tonight for the third game in three nights. What we wanted to do was improve in all three games and we did. Offensively tonight we really, really focused in on where we need to score. We turned it over too much in the first half. Stepping on the line doing not good things. Turning the ball over in the second half. I think we did a much better job the second half, and we only turned it over three or four times. We clearly improved, and we needed to because we're going into a tough road game at UNLV. They're an excellent basketball team. They play great defense. We're really excited about our effort."
(On where the team improved the most) "Taking good shots. I was really upset the first night. Because when you spend so much time trying to figure out from a statistical thing what could help or hurt, you're 1 for 11 in taking challenge shots. You give the guys credits because they immediately saw what they did wrong. And, on the next night they went to the line 40-something times by driving, so you've got to them credit for understanding where they made their mistakes."
(On how the team will perform on the road) "We're very young, and we have a lot of growth. We've just got to keep getting better on every phase of the game. I think we're going to make signifigant improvement during the semester break when we have time off and we have no limitations to practice. We'll make the most improvement."
(On guys contributing off the bench) "I thought Rock was excellent tonight. He was so active on the glass, active defensively, getting a lot of deflections."
(On Rakeem Buckles rebounding) "I think all the freshmen are going to be terrific freshmen. It's a really good class. The one thing I've learned in 35 or whatever it is years, don't evaluate freshmen unless you're a Tyreeke Evans. Unless you're somebody like that, who's just one and done. You don't evaluate freshmen. Freshman year is just a learning experience, and they get a lot better - very similar to Jared Swopshire. I remember like yesterday, two and a half years not thinking Larry O'Bannon would step on the floor and gets 30 points on senior night. This freshmen class is really, really good, and they'll develop each year and get even better."
(On Jared Swopshire's peformance through the first four games) "I think Swop is the most skilled player on the team. His footwork is terrific. He just lacks strength. He lacks weight. He's lost five or seven pounds already, so we've got him on a different type of diet. We just need to maintain his weight. He's not going to gain, but we need to maintain it."
(On getting what he wanted with three games in three days) "I think we did. I don't like it, but we had to get three wins. That was the most important thing. We had to improve, which we did. We played very good defense, and we played three very good basketball teams. This team tonight was a veteran basketball team, and I think they wore out and that's why we won by a significant margin. Morgan State is very good, and East Tennessee State was a little banged up. Their best player was out, but we wanted to be challenged with this tournament and we got a lot out of it. We move forward."
(Is there a personality to this team?) "I don't think this team worries about who the star is. They're going to change stars each night depending on the defense. Tonight Rock was the star. Last night Samardo was the star. I think they change it. I thought Edgar had a very good tournament. The whole time I think he did a lot of good things on offense."
(On closing out on three's) "I think it's our fault as coaches. In transition, we didn't match up. We were concerned about their interior attack, working on digging inside, and then we stayed at home in the second half. We let those guys play one-on-one in the post. I think we have to take the blame for that as coaches. The players in transition, but our defensive scheme was to dig on the post and get some work on that."
Appalachian State Head Coach Buzz Peterson
"It's been a long trip for us - Arkansas Friday and then up here to Louisville. I'll say this, as the game went on, we wore down, especially with Louisville's size inside. We've seen a couple of their games before. Samuels is a load in the middle. At halftime I was pleased with what our guys had done. We're a team that turns the ball over way too much, so we were concerned about the press. Overall I was pleased with what we did there. They were just too much for us. They hit outside shots and that opens up the inside a little bit and it got away from us. This Louisville team, you look at the roster and they've got some young players but they're very talented with a kid inside like that and Sosa with his experience. They've got a good shot to make a good run this year."
