.png&width=32&height=32&type=webp)
Louisville-Morgan State Postgame Quotes
December 27, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 27, 2010
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement)
"The old basketball cliché says that shooting cures a multitude of sins tonight. I haven't seen shooting like the last two games in a while. It is just good passing, two guys shooting 13-of-19 from the 3 and shooting 17-of-23. Even though we didn't play good defense tonight, we did press well in the first half. We did have 47 deflections and 19 of 23 on the break, which is good. We didn't play really good defense, but the shooting in the last two games was spectacular because the passing and the unselfishness was very good. We are not going to get the looks that we have been getting the next game, obviously, so we have to do a better job in executing."
(On the defense)
"It sucked. I will give you the Hubie Brown Clinic - a.) we got beat off the bounce, b.) we didn't trap the post when we were supposed to, c.) we didn't close out well enough, d.) we didn't trap up on the baseline when we were supposed to, e.) we didn't talk in transition. It is tough playing with a lead. Quite frankly, I have not seen this type of shooting in a while. "
(On carrying over good shooting to UK game)
"Pray hard. We are not going to get those looks. A top-10 team is not going to give you those looks. So, you have to work hard and execute. But I am not worried about the offense. I know they are a terrific defensive team. I am worried about our defense, especially transition-wise."
(On what buttons he had to push to get defense going)
"We have been playing decent defense. I think playing with a lead. I think we were just trying to win the second half. I don't think we did. I think we tied them in the second half. They gave us trouble last year. I tell you what, we did a very good job in the first half. They have two really good rebounders. Last year, they had 13 and 16 against us and we held them to two rebounds in the first half. We just didn't rotate properly and didn't do certain things we wanted to do but it is tough to do with a lead. I try to find fault but it is very difficult to do when we are shooting like that."
(On shooting)
"We are a good shooting team but I do believe it is a good shooting team because of the passing."
(On the UK game)
"I have seen a little of them (UK) - a little of the UConn game and really that is all I have seen. I will start looking at it tonight, but haven't seen a whole lot. I know they are a much different team than last year. They are just as fast as they were last year in terms of pushing the pace. They shoot it great, which they didn't last year. They take you off the bounce very well and are a very good defensive team, but I will start studying a little more tonight."
(On Elisha Justice returning)
"He will be back, but I don't think he will play. He is going to practice tomorrow, but I think I will probably go with Russ (Smith) because he (Justice) has missed seven days. I will try to get him (Justice) ready for BIG EAST. "
(On what concerned him about Morgan State)
"Inside play. We wanted to go after him (DeWayne Jackson) in the low post. Although he is only 6-foot-5, he is tough to guard in the low post. We didn't do a good job last year, but we did a much better job tonight trapping him. We were very good at the press tonight. Once I took it off, I think we lost our defensive intensity. I think a team like this can very easily win their league. They need to handle the basketball a little better, obviously, because they made a lot of careless turnovers. But outside of that, they are going to win their league. "
(On Kyle Kuric)
"I thought he was very active stealing the basketball and very active in the press. He did a great job in the press. I thought he did a great job in all areas. He went to the offensive glass and moving him to the four spot, he has done very well in that too."
Morgan State Head Coach Todd Bozeman
(Opening Statement)
"Louisville is very good. Coach ( Rick Pitino) does a great job of getting those guys to play to their strength. They don't have the low post game they had with Samardo (Samuels). They are not extremely deep, but they play hard and those guys shoot the ball. They shot the lights out. He does a great job of getting them to play. He could have kept pressing the whole game, but there is no telling what it would have been when it was all over. He is a class act and that is what coaches do. They have a good team, not to take anything away from them, but we are still growing just with maturity and lack of discipline. This is a nice building a great building. I understand they took from a lot of different places to put this together and it's a great building."
(On DeWayne Jackson's play)
"The fact that he didn't stop playing - that is the positive I take out of tonight. Outside of that, I couldn't heap too many praises on him because you don't lose by 30 and say a guy plays well. He is a good player. Kevin (Thompson) has been a good player. Those guys have done some good things at times. I would be hard pressed to say he played well. He shot the ball but we needed him to have discipline. We need guys to shoot the ball well when we need it. When the game gets out of hand that is a whole different story. I am giving him credit for playing hard because he does do that. That is one of the things we wanted to do coming out in the second half. We wanted the guys to do two things, stay together and to keep playing hard. We didn't want them to fall apart and start playing as individuals. We wanted them to stay together and keep playing and I thought we accomplished that. That was our own goal that we set."
(On the second half)
"He pulled the press off, and we still had 20 turnovers. Not saying that if they would have pressed us we wouldn't have 20, but that did contribute to it because the pace of the game changed. It was more of a pace that was conducive to us. The guys kept fighting. We have had the situation before where the game was tight. Against Providence, it was a tie ball game with six minutes to go. We lost by 22. Against Syracuse, it is a nine point game with nine or 10 minutes to go and we lose by 42. We want to try to avoid those types of scenarios and those situations by having your guys play hard and get through that. We obviously don't play this kind of competition in our conference. Those are the little things that we look for to try to build on and build upon. You could say we played them even the second half. But the strategy they had also changed.
I am a realist - it is what it is. It doesn't mean that we can't build and get better toward the end of the season because that is what you really want to do. You want to get better and prepare yourself for conference. That is what we want to do and that is what we have done. Have we had games like this? No, not since we have been here, especially not back-to-back. We might have one here and there but you don't have them back-to-back. We just have one more of these monsters on our schedule which is Baylor. We just want to keep building and try to stay positive."
