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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
December 05, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 5, 2009
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
"That was a bitter pill to swallow. The great equalizer is the three-point shot. We can't say it was out of range because they make that shot. They were just much better than us. They outplayed us in every phase of the game. It's one thing to make the shots, that was disappointing, but we rushed our offense the same way we did against Western Kentucky last year trying to make up 16 points with the three-point shot rather than work it around and let our offensive rebounds get into play. Not paying attention to the scouting report was the biggest disappointment and we paid huge consequences because of that. We'll move on. We've got a lot to learn. It was just a very disappointing loss."
(On what they wanted to do from the scouting report) "We wanted to get up the line on them defensively so they would not get the high-low pass. We stayed equal with them and they ducked in on us and scored. We did not get on the backboard at all. They've got a young man with a knee brace on from an ACL and he's out-rebounding us at the end of the game when they're up 20. It was disappointing, but we learned a valuable lesson."
(On if there was ever a chance Preston Knowles would play) "If it came down to thirty seconds or a minute left in the game and we needed his defense, I'd play him, but if he gets hit in the hand he'd be out two weeks. That's the danger of it, but he wanted to play in the second half."
(On what the players can take out of this loss) "Unfortunately, we have been a very poor defensive team from the beginning. We are not athletic enough defensively, and that's been very disappointing. We lost a lot of athleticism. We are a young team and we are not going to get discouraged. We've been in this situation every year since I've been here. We're not going to get discouraged, but we've got back defensively. We have a very tough mentally and once again, you had Andre, T-Will and Earl, who were very good at picking it up and now you are substituting three guys who are not good at picking it up."
(On the injured player who has the best chance of being available) "I would be guessing, but I would say Preston Knowles would be the only one ready next week. I think he would be the only one, but that only one would be a lift for us. They deserve a lot of credit. They played terrific, they made big shots and they deserved a lot of credit."
Charlotte Head Coach Bobby Lutz
"Obviously this was a great win for us, Louisville was depleted with injuries and obviously they'll be better when they get everyone healthy. I'm still unbelievably proud of our guys. It's still not easy to come here and win, especially when you're coming off of 11 victories a year ago. We have so many new guys. We got blown out at Duke, so to come in and believe we can win was important. I told our guys don't come out of the locker room if you don't think we can win. Everybody says the right things, but they believed and played that way. We got contributions from so many guys. This team is like that, if we play five or six guys, we're not going to beat very many people. When we can play nine or ten and use everybody, we can play as we showed, with some good people tonight.
Having said that, if we don't have DiJuan Harris, we don't win the game. He totally negated the pressure. When he had the ball, they really could not affect us. We were able to do what we wanted to do. That's not easy. I've had a lot of guards and not many can do that. Even though we had great contributions from so many guys, no doubt in my mind he's player of the game for us with the way he was able to control the tempo and handled the pressure that is Louisville basketball."
(On how they were able to be so effective from 3 point range, and how many were challenged shots) "I'd have to watch the tape to see how many are challenged. We're a good three-point shooting team, we haven't shot it well this season, but I know they're good shooters because we watched them every day in practice. We just haven't shot it well consistently in games. I think we are a good three-point shooting team. I want my guys to shoot with confidence and we felt like if we could get it in the high post and kick it out, drive it, pitch it, that we could get some threes and I think that's what we were able to do. We made some contested ones. Derrio's shot at the end of the half was contested, he's got a really high release and he was able to shoot it over the guy. I thought when we broke the pressure we had some wide open threes, but otherwise I thought a lot of them were contested, but they were still good shots for us, because they're in the rhythm and Bowden, the freshman, has no conscience or limits on range and he showed that tonight and he started to understand a little better tonight how to play both ends for us."
(Using both the inside and outside to win the game) "Shamari didn't have a particularly good game. He had a decent first half, credit Louisville's defense for that - I think they had concentration on him, but that opens up some outside shots to our other guys. We've got four post guys, Chris is a freshman and he had another double-double and the last game I think he had two points or something, but he's a freshman, he's up and down. Phil had double figures in the last game, but tonight he didn't score much, but he made two big jumpers. Our team is different guys, different nights. I think no matter what, we're going to have balance. They were so worried about Shamari, I thought we could post Braswell up, he took advantage of it, he drove them and posted them up and got some huge rebounds. I think this team can score both in and out, obviously you're much harder to guard if you have that type of balance."
(On whether he told his team that this was a big game as they handed Louisville their largest margin of loss under Pitino) "Sometimes you don't want to cloud their minds. I appreciate the history of this building, I love coaching in this building. If there was a school here like `Freedom College,' I'd want to coach here when I'm done at Charlotte. I love this building, the fans are the best - besides ours - in the country, the classiest fans. So many congratulated me after the game, as they always have. I've shared some of that with them, but they don't about that, they're kids. They don't understand that. Not that it's bad, I don't want them to get intimidated by how great a coach - Denny Crum - Hall of Fame Coach; Rick Pitino - Hall of Fame Coach - I don't want them to be too worried about that. For me personally, it's a very satisfying victory despite the fact that they were short-handed, let's be fair. I was short-handed all year last year, so I can sympathize with that, because we had so many guys hurt. Our guys know it was a big win to beat Louisville."
