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Louisville-Western Kentucky Postgame Quotes
December 23, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 23, 2011
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement)
“We got through the first part of our schedule and now the most important part comes. I don't have to tell you guys that we didn't play good basketball tonight. We haven't been playing good basketball the last three games. We are giving unbelievable effort to win. There have been four games where we should have gone down, but the effort is so great that we are winning, but we are not executing at the defensive end. I believe that the reason that teams are shooting a low percentage against us is fatigue. I don't think it is good execution defensively. Now we have to get really good execution defensively to get ready for Georgetown and to win. We are going to take some time off. Rock (Rakeem Buckles) tweaked his groin, and that's what happens when you have injuries and guys come back. They don't reinjure their knee, what happens is they haven't played in so long they injure their hamstring or they pull their groin. We have to get Swop playing better basketball, we have to get Chane playing better, and we have to get the whole team playing better. We will take off and come back ready to work and get ready for Georgetown.”
(On Russ Smith's effort)
“Russ is Russ, like we have been talking about. He is winning us games on just pure intensity and pure heart and he is the reason we are winning. We have got to get the rest of those guys playing like that.”
(On Kevin Ware)
“The effort is always good. It's the execution that is poor. I think there are reasons for that. I think I made a big mistake by trying to get a guy in who hasn't played a second and I'm trying to get him ready in two or three days. It was silly. I'm just putting the young man in a bad situation. These guys have been playing since the summer and there are so many keys. I am trying to get him in a situation and it is easy to do when you get a lead but when you are down it's not easy to do.”
(On Peyton Siva's performance against WKU)
“He did have a bad night and we noticed he has been falling down a lot. That is something we have seen in the past. He is on the ground too much, and he is losing his balance. We got to get him to get back to his game right now. He has had a bad couple nights. I think the whole team has really. We have played poorly the last few times, but I admire them greatly. I admire their grit, the way they fight to come back and fight to win. When you have that as your common denominator good things can happen when you branch out from that.”
(On second half 22-3 run)
“Yeah, I think there is a certain point when that happens. With us they were doing some really good things against our zone. We also weren't communicating verbally which led to wide open shots. We're just watching Dieng do too much. We got to give him some help. Kyle Kuric has to give him some help on the glass. Gorgui is a one man wrecking crew inside, and he is the only one battling on the glass. Kuric has to get in there and give us some help. It was just one of those nights you're lucky to win. You have to give all the credit to Western Kentucky. They are 4-8 but they played like and 8-4 team so we have to give them all the credit in the world. It really speaks volumes for the program. Ken (McDonald) told me before the game that he really has a terrific group of guys. He said he couldn't say that about last year's group. It showed tonight. They are 4-8, but they executed very well all the way to the very end of the game.”
(On Russ Smith's mentality throughout the game)
“I think he has some qualities that I haven't seen before. I really haven't seen too many guys that have a game like his. All of a sudden, he just takes off and goes. He just gets there without most of the time creating an offensive foul for himself. When the guy steps to us he goes around them. He has an incredible knack for getting his shot off. Down the stretch he is a six foot guy getting the rebound in a crucial time. He is just playing with an incredible effort. He does things that I haven't seen done before. He has unique hands, and a unique talent getting to the rim. I think because where Russ grew up, you can understand why he doesn't have much to fear. He was very happy and relieved just to get home at the end of the night. A basketball game is not going to make him nervous.”
Western Kentucky Head Coach Ken McDonald
(On if he feels his team has turned the corner)
“The past 10 days we've taken a little bit of a step back in terms of our expectations and how hard we've played. That's all we talked about; executing the game plan and not putting our heads down. We have some guys who haven't had a lot of minutes at this level. We knew that was going to be very important in this game to come out of here with a win. I thought this was our best 40 minute effort in terms of executing the game plan and playing hard. Honestly, I think we played really hard. We had a couple of lapses, which is going to happen, but we made big plays and it was fun watching the guys out there playing hard and listening to what we were trying to accomplish. I think even with the loss we made some big strides tonight.”
(On key elements in the game plan)
“We talked about it in football terms. We talked about time of possession. You hear about Alabama and LSU talking about time of possession a lot. We wanted the offense to have the ball a lot so they couldn't have the ball on offense and hit those run that Louisville does or get us in foul trouble. We watched our game from three years ago and we really thought we had to scrap for every rebound we could and make some extra hustle plays. We wanted to take the crowd out of the game. For the most part it was a pretty quiet game and that's the way we wanted it. When it got loud they made some runs and we knew we weren't executing totally. That was the biggest thing; control the tempo and make sure that we scrapped every possession.”
(On this game building confidence)
“We're never going to be happy with a loss but I think the guys were excited about this opportunity. I think they've been working hard all year. It's good to see some results for them. Even in a loss you can see the confidence that we built up over the first 30 minutes of the game. That's important to any team. Going into league play, it is important for us to know we played a very, very tough non-league schedule. From this point on we can play with anybody. Now it is coming down to final execution and making sure we're hitting free throws and doing some things down the stretch to give ourselves a win.”
(On how they prepared in practice for tonight)
“I think sometimes you've got to hit a low point to totally understand how to win a basketball game. We're talented but we're young. Even our veteran guys have not played a ton of minutes. The experience factor is important. What I believe we've done is put our head down in a couple of games when we got down. Tonight we said I don't want to see any bad body language. I want to see you guys working hard from each other and if somebody makes a mistake I want to see four teammates and the bench picking that guy up. Try not to compound one mistake into another. That's one thing Louisville does; they make you make multiple mistakes and that can lead to a run that's hard to overcome.”
(On the runs at the end of first half and the end of the game)
“The one at the first half really hurt. You could just feel the energy in the building shift. It started with a free throw where we just weren't ready for the press. That can flip in a hurry with the way Louisville plays and we didn't respond that well. In the second half, I thought we came back out and got the momentum back on our side. It thought that was a real positive. Obviously at the end of the game you've got to make your free throws and do those things to finish out the game, but one thing I'm really happy about – we never stopped fighting for 40 minutes. I don't care if we're down 10 at the end, we kept fighting and I'm proud of our guys for doing that and that says a lot about them.”
(If there was a game plan on Peyton Siva)
“He's so fast and he really hurt us last year. Last year he looked like Derrick Rose. He was really, really good last year. He made shots, he made shots off the pivot, he got in the lane, he made three point plays… he made a lot of plays last year. I'm not sure with his injury if he's totally 100 percent. Keeping him out of the lane, it's a chore, it's really a chore. He's a special talent in that area. For the most part we did a good job. I thought late he got all the way to the rim. We wanted to make him make jump shots and hopefully keep the ball out of some other shooters hands. I thought we did a pretty good job, but it's really hard to contain him and keep him out of the lane for the whole game.”
(On at 4-9, are they where he expected them to be)
“We've had our fair share of adversity with injuries and guys out. I think the guys have come to work every single day to practice to get better. I'm not going to say I'm happy with where we're at, but I understand coaching and I understand teams and I do know that we've got a lot of good guys. We've had our chances to win some basketball games against good teams. VCU we're up 12, we had them down a point in the last six minutes of the game at our place. We had St. Joe's – same thing a one point game. And now, a run, here or there can put it out of contention and against good basketball teams, that's going to happen. That's why we play a good non-league schedule to get ourselves ready for conference play.”
“From here on out, I think it's let's make sure we understand how to win games and go out and execute. The guys really did that this week. They were focused all week, we carried it over to the game. Not a lot changed in terms of preparation, I think the guys just went out and were really locked in mentally.”
(On forcing turnovers, including six by Peyton Siva)
“A couple were late when we went after them and had all-out pressure and we did a good job. I think that came down to the scrap that we needed to win this basketball game the reason why we were able to win three years ago. I thought we really hustled and tonight -deflections, diving in after loose balls, different things that are going to win a basketball game against a good team. They have great length, they pass the ball well. We didn't give up on plays. I don't think they took a lot of uncontested shots. We have to be that team that really scrambles for each other, that's going to allow you to get back in plays.”
