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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
December 23, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 23, 2009
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"Without question offensive rebounding won the game tonight. Our outside shooting was off. Generally on those types of nights, it will go down to the wire. Offensive rebounding was the second offense onto itself. We scored a lot of buckets off 25 offensive rebounds. I thought Samardo and Kyle Kuric did a fabulous job tonight of doing that. Defensively we just made so many poor rotations off our press by running after the ball when the team spreads it and goes to the three point line, you've go to run and jump. You can't run and trap. Give them credit. They did a good job of making their threes even though some of them were way out. We're giving up way too many three point shots, and like Charlotte we're using the excuse that it's eight feet past the line. That's no excuse. People are going to get in the zone and make those shots. You've got to play them."
(On Samardo Samuels) "He did a good job tonight. He has to improve his passing because he is going to get double teamed."
(On Samuels minutes in the fame) "I think he was fatigued. He should be fatigued playing heavy minutes. He did a good job tonight playing intelligent defense. Fortunately for us the five-man on that team is not a big scorer. That helped us. It's the one through four doing most of the scoring."
(On Samuels improvement) "He had to become a better athlete to reach his potential. He needs to work on footwork on defense...Just being in his stance, sprinting down the floor, being more of a runner. I think when he does that, when he is more of an athlete, he will improve his game."
(On Sosa's Passing) "Edgar has to do a better of job. Forget the assists. Just make plays for people. We're trying to interior pass too much when the pass to the corners is wide open. He has to play better defense at the beginning of games because we gave up some three's."
(On his confidence in Knowles as a point guard) "Yeah, I think could play at point guard. I think our freshmen haven't grasped that passing and defense lead to points. They're just going in there and hunting shots when guys are wide open. They're thinking about points and freshmen have a tendency to do that rather than become basketball players. I have very good confidence in him to play the point."
(On the direction of the team) "I don't think we played as well as Western Kentucky, but I think that was due to the speed and quickness of this basketball team. It's teaching me a lot about our basketball team. Tonight was a team that pressure didn't bother them, so we switched back the last seven minutes to our 22, which worked a lot better. I'm learning about the guys, too -where they're good and where we can make our adjustments. It's teaching me a little bit about where their strength is."
(On Samardo's Samuel's rebounding) "I think he is improving. I think he has a long way to go. I am still not happy with his footwork...his foot speed. I'm not happy with his quickness, but that's the area he has to improve on to be a great basketball player. He is working on it now and he knows it. He's going after it. Samardo's biggest problem...one of the reasons why he doesn't defensively rebound well is that he blocks out is rather than checks out. What I mean by that is that he'll block out and get tangled with a guy, so now he can't be explosive. He's on the ground. What he has to do is take his forearm, checkout, and get that jump to the ball. That's what all NBA players do. They checkout. They use their forearm. They create offensive space and get that athletic step. That's why a lot of players inside take that dribble because it gives them that athletic step to go up strong. Well, it's the same thing on blocking out. If you get caught a point guard needs to do that...to hold his man off the glass while the other people get there. A center's got to learn to checkout, hit the man, and get off the ground. That's what we're trying to work on with him to go chase the basketball off the glass."
(What the team is working on over the next four days) "We just have to keep becoming a better basketball team. Our freshmen are struggling with adjustments and timeouts. We gave up five 3's just by doing silly things, and we've just got to keep working at the game. They're working very, very hard. TJ was a major distraction to us the last two days because we were working with him in the starting lineup...doing a lot of things. It was a major distraction to us."
(On when Jennings will return) "I don't know. He's got some things he's got to adhere. We don't take it lightly. He let the team down."
UL Lafayette Head Coach Robert Lee
"I thought our team came out with really good energy and emotion. I thought in the first half we handled their press really well. The first five or six minutes of the second half, I thought that's when the game really separated and really started to go in their favor. We turned it over four or five times in the first four or five minutes. Samardo Samuels was just a beast inside. We could not match him on the inside. We gave up 25 offensive rebounds. I told my team with two minutes and change on the clock it is a nine point game and you have given up 25 offensive rebounds. I am happy with the direction our team is going in. Louisville's inside game, especially Samuels was too much to handle."
(On three-point shooting) "We shot of 10 of 24 (3-pointers) That is 45 percent. That is not a bad percentage to shoot. We would have liked to hit a few more tonight. I thought we shot a decent percentage, but against a team like Louisville, you may have to shoot a little better percentage. I think the game was won and lost down in the paint."
(On turnovers) "I don't think their speed or fatigue was the issue, we just stopped executing the plan that we had as far as trying to pass the ball against the press instead of trying to dribble the ball against the press. In the second half, we started to dribble the basketball too much. When you dribble it, it is easier for those guys to get into the pressure. In the first half, when we were passing the basketball, we were making the extra pass and getting some open looks. I think we just stopped executing. You credit Louisville because of the way they play, they forced us into maybe getting away from our game plan."
(About Louisville adjusting to hot shooter) "When we broke the press, we were trying to get Daigle and Gradnigo as many shots possible. Those guys have a really good skill level of shooting the basketball. We knew coming in here tonight, we would have a chance to win the basketball game, but we were going to have to make shots and those guys give us the best chance. I think our guys did a decent job of being able to find the open man and making the few extra passes."
