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Louisville-Gardner-Webb Postgame Quotes
December 18, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 18, 2010
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement)
"The guys did a lot of good things. We're trying to get what we call hustle points. If you get 30, you're doing a real good job. We got 40, which is very good. We got out on the break 31 times, because we did not give up a lot of offensive rebounds and that was good. We had 46 deflections which is good. The thing that Gorgui [Dieng] does in helping us, he tries fundamentally to be a factor every time down the court on defense. It makes it difficult because of his length and it allows us to pressure the basketball and get good things defensively. Even if we make a mistake, he can really bother the mistake that we make and he can erase the mistake in a hurry. It's a good win for us.
We have a big test with our first road game, certainly that is something. [Western Kentucky] will be a really tough place to play. We have great respect for [Western Kentucky University], and we've got to be ready for it."
(On getting what he wanted out of the new lineup)
"When [the starters] were in the game, the other team shot less than 20 percent. They made their mini-comeback when I substituted, so, I really liked it a lot. The ball movement is better, everything is better, because Kyle [Kuric] is a really strong basketball player. The ball was stopping too much with our other power forwards, with Kyle the ball doesn't stop. He can pick and pop and create a lot of problems for them.
(On the top three goals for the game)
"More than anything else we wanted to make sure that they shot a low percentage. The second thing we wanted to do is get rebounding. I said to the guys, you have got to act like junkyard dogs. It's not about the fives rebounding, the fours, everybody has got to rebound. I thought Preston Knowles did a fantastic job. He had nine rebounds. I said [to Preston], we have no positions on defense. Everybody has got to rebound the basketball. I thought Peyton did a good job coming back. I thought Gorgui [Dieng], who in the first half had 10 rebounds, he did a terrific job. We wanted to do that. The third thing was we wanted to win the hustle points obviously, plus 30 and we got 40. Mission accomplished."
(On the changing the lineup following the Drexel loss)
"I just said look, every team has a weakness, and our weakness has been rebounding. Let's go to our strengths. What lineups can we put on the court, where although we may not be tall, what can we get stronger at. By playing those guys who are better off the bounce, we're better defensively at switching, we're better offensively at ball movement. We were concerned with and certainly we want to improve our weakness - rebounding - but we're more concerned with being a better offensive basketball team. I think that the ball was stopping too much with our forwards, and it doesn't stop with Kyle [Kuric]."
(On keeping up the same lineup)
"Yes, very much so. This is it."
(On Elisha Justice getting injured)
"He did. He got an elbow in the face and then he was fine, he made some good shots, but then got woozy and had a concussion."
(On Russ Smith taking Justice's minutes)
"Yes, he's not ready to play right now. You see how tired he got, but he did a very good job. He's just way out of shape, but for what he had to do he did a good job."
(On Gorgui Dieng bringing an intimidation factor)
"I don't think he knows a whole lot what he's doing yet, but I think he tries to be a factor on every play. He tries to listen on every play. He's not full of himself. He's fundamentally trying to be a better basketball player, by doing that, he's really helping the team."
(On Gorgui's timing and shot blocking improvements)
"It is better. We keep working on blocking...but the most important thing is the way he rebounds. He tries to rebound. We keep an offensive chart of people going to the glass, considering every shot a pass to them. He's always scoring 85 or better. [Stephan] Van Treese does that as well. The guys that don't score well and don't do that are Rak [Rakeem Buckles], and TJ [Terrence Jennings] will score well, but he doesn't pass well. We made some progress tonight and hopefully for our first road game people play well on the road."
(On Preston Knowles)
"One thing I told him, I said `Preston, you can't just be a shooter on a basketball team. You've got to rebound the basketball, you've got to pass the basketball, you've got to do other things.' In the first half when he came down and we didn't have any numbers and he just jacked up a shot, I said `we may still win the game, but that isn't going to make the team better.' He understood. He did a lot of good things tonight. He had nine rebounds in the game, he had four assists in the game, so he did a lot of good things other than shoot and that's what we're trying to do. He's got to become a basketball player, and tonight he certainly was."
Gardner-Webb Head Coach Chris Holtmann
(Game plan coming into today's game)
"We knew they were going to come in and rebound the ball well and they did that. Coach Pitino was going to be on his guys about rebounding the ball better. We were going to try and do what we do and do it better than we had in the past. Give those guys credit, I thought they played hard and played together and crushed us on the glass. They were all over the glass. They beat us to almost every 50-50 ball, in particularly early and I thought we came back better in that area."
(What Louisville did to get the win)
"We didn't defend in transition well, but give them credit they push it on makes and misses. They had us on our heels a little bit. The thing we wanted to try and eliminate is something called pick 6's where we were giving the ball at half court and they get dead layups or dunks. For the most part, we were able to minimize those opportunities but they got us in the open floor off of our makes and our misses. I think the deal tonight was that they just rebounded tonight at a higher level, much higher level than we did."
