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University of Louisville Men's Basketball Post-Game Quotes
February 17, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 17, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opeining Statement) "Mentally I'm extremely happy. Physically I took a charge. It's got me in pain like you can't believe. I think I broke my arm and neck combined. That was a great basketball game. Being in this league, or in any league, there is always a team that gives you great difficulty. Notre Dame is our team because they are so difficult to defend. You can't play zone, so you have to play mostly man. They did a great job tonight. Our guys down the stretch were phenomenal. Jared Swopshire had a great game doing terrific things. We won it with Samardo being totally gassed. I was trying to give him a break, but the way they were playing defensively wouldn't allow it. In the past when we have played them we've gotten jump shot happy, and it's lost us the game and got us blown out. We wanted to continue to work inside and if we got a jump shot we wanted it to be inside to outside. They showed great guts. The young man Abromaitis is a heck of a basketball player. Jackson is terrific. Hansbrough is terrific. They are a great offensive basketball team and a nightmare to guard. I'd take guarding anybody in the country over them and it shows."
(On Samuels being gassed) "He worked his tail off. Obviously we had an advantage and wanted to wear them out. We weren't going to stop going inside. Every play we were running was going through him. If we were going to get something it was going to be from him. We got blown out last year because they give you jump shots. We were not going to deviate from our offense tonight. If we were going to lose it, it wasn't because we deviated from going inside."
(On Jerry Smith moving from the right to the left in overtime) "That is off of a play that we run. The pick and roll was there, but Edgar needs to pass the ball. They were taking the roll away. We had the roll a couple of times and the wings were wide open. We were trying to get the ball on the roll because we were just posting up before and he didn't pass the ball because he was trying to draw the foul. He needed to pass the ball. That was a crucial mistake for him."
(On 4-point play by Delk) "Well you could have seen it twice if Reggie had converted it at the West Virginia game. It was tremendous. We showed great guts because we were dead and they were dead. We played smart. We're not the greatest defensive team. We had to win it tonight with smart offense and then down the stretch we played great defense. We had a major mishap on not switching on the pick and roll but Swopshire did the right thing and Reggie needed to switch in that situation."
(On Jerry doing a good job late in the game) "I thought they all did a good job. We changed our presses. We changed from zone to man. We couldn't guard them in the zone. Like I said going in, I knew we were going to have a difficult time winning this game with or without Harangody because they are the team that gives us the most trouble. It was overtime last year with the number one of number one seeds in the country. They beat us by 30 at their place. Last year we deviated offensively. Tonight we did not."
(On the big picture with five games to go) "Well, we needed four out of six, and now we need three out of five. We have a great attitude. We're working real hard at it. This is not one of my better defensive teams I've coached since I've been here. With that being said, with the game on the line they could have folded about five times. Down seven they could have folded, but they didn't do it. I think Jared Swopshire has grown up in a hurry and is making big plays so I'm real pleased with him. I think that will probably be the last time anybody is disappointed in this crowd when he is in the game. So we got that out of the way, now maybe they can pick on Brickley when I put him in the game."
(On free throw shooting) "It was great, and we needed it to take a break. We were working so hard defensively that we needed to take a break. Even Edgar and Jerry, when they went to the line sometimes you said `Oh, couldn't it be somebody else' but they went to the line and nailed it. "
(On Samardo improving) "I think Samardo is getting a lot better at every phase of the game. He needed to pass the basketball late, but he didn't. He's going to learn that. He was exhausted and played way to many minutes. I could've played TJ, should've played TJ, but I was afraid we'd lose. Not because of TJ, but because we knew how to score and it had to go through Samardo. It had to be his night, so he had to play exhausted. If not we were going to have to run a totally different offense."
(On Samardo fouling out four players) "In the past we wouldn't have done that. We would have gotten jump shot happy. You have to give credit where credit is due to our guys. We played extremely smart at Syracuse and extremely smart tonight. I didn't think I would use that term much with this basketball team. Playing hard is what I would say."
(On meeting with Samardo about moping too much) "I pulled him out earlier for that reason. These guys were all denying and you think you're just out there taking up space. Then he showed bad body language and I took him right out. That being said, he's been terrific since I've talked to him three and a half weeks ago. I have no complaints with him. He was a warrior tonight and he was exhausted. He was the one that suggested putting in a guard to play defense at the end, and then Peyton fouled. I said `Real good suggestion Samardo.' He didn't want to have to switch out and guard the three- point shooter. When it counted we played great defense, and when it counted we played great offense. I think Mike Brey did a great job with his guys tonight- brilliant."
Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey
(Opening Statement) "We've had some wild ones down here. I don't know if I have ever been more proud of a group or a loss in my ten years here at Notre Dame...playing without Luke and with a lot of different guys. They made plays and we couldn't quite make it out of here tonight. Louisville made the big plays when they had to, to win it. We don't have much to show for it, but we bust our butt and we're 6-8 in the league. We have a week off before we play, so we'll be able to get some rest."
(On Looks at the End of Regulation) "We had good looks. Ben got in there. I told Mike Broghammer to get in there. We had a lot of open looks. The four point play was huge. It was a swinging momentum. Our game plan was for them not to light us up from the outside. We will let them have Samuels' two point shots. We didn't want them to beat us from behind our arc. We wanted to play slow offensively. We wanted them to work the clock and I thought we did that. Samuels was very good tonight."
(On Abromaitis Play) "We didn't want him to shoot the ball too quickly. We wanted him to play slower."
(On Their Positives in the Game) "We slowed the ball up on offense. We also went down to the block effectively and I thought we executed that very well. We ran the shot clock down. We called it "burn", which means we cut down the shot clock to single digits and get open looks in transition and I thought we did that very well. We did all those things to give us a chance. I'm disappointed more because they followed order and we didn't come out with a win."
(On Samuels Fouling Out Four Players) "I was thinking about putting Abromaitis on him, but I didn't want him to foul out also. We needed a shot-maker out there. I put Joey (Brooks) in so he could wrestle with him for a few minutes. We knew it was going to be one-one-one post defense, so we started the game sagging off their four-man. Later on, it was pretty much you go them one on one. We did not want to help off the guards. An example was when they made that four-point play we bit on Samuels and he passed it out to Delk, which ended up in the four point play...which was a big momentum play."
(On Tory Jackson) "I thought for the most part for 20 minutes then 10 minutes in overtime they were on him. He picked it up. He brought it up against the team for 50 minutes. He's thoroughly exhausted. We talked about being better with the basketball because we had not been better previously. We lead the nation in assists per turnover."
"As we go into the next four games, Luke is an unknown. I hope we have him back next Wednesday, but who knows. We may have to play on playing like this for a while. We don't play for a week."
