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Louisville-Syracuse Postgame Quotes
February 12, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 12, 2011
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement)
"The fun thing about coaching this basketball team is their heart and their guts. We really played great moving the basketball in the first half. Started the second half, and we didn't. It's going to happen, we're going to get back to normal. I've got to do a better job of getting other people in the game. Right now, I don't think Mike Marra is in shape to play. I know Gorgui [Dieng] is not in shape to play. Rak [Rakeem Buckles] actually is in pretty good shape, because for the last two and a half weeks we've worked him out. We've got to get our guys in, even if it's just for a minute or two, just so they can play as hard as they're playing. We ran out of gas a little bit there and tried to milk the clock, and that's a killer. When you play against a zone and you start milking the clock, you begin to take some desperate shots. That happened a few times. I thought our guys did a good job. This team is so much fun to coach because of their heart. They fight back when they're down. They're not afraid. Even George Goode took two really good jump shots. He missed them, but he had the guts enough to take them. I'm real proud of our guys. We're going to really start to work on our defense again. When you're small, you're going to give up things. This was a great win for us, a great crowd. I'm really excited to get a victory and to go four for four now in the segments. It's a heck of an accomplishment."
(On Louisville's offensive blitz)
"It was ball movement, quick ball movement. Inside, outside. In the second half, the last ten minutes of the game, we didn't get that. I think when you look at the minutes, I attribute that to--36 minutes, 34 minutes, 39, 36 minutes--our press got us pace. It didn't necessarily get us turnovers, it got us pace. We were trying to milk the clock a little bit too much and it helped them get back in the game. We made some defensive errors in the second half that allowed them to get a three."
(On Kyle Kuric's offense)
"Kyle runs that triangle great. We try to let him work the triangle. He's got a very good floater in the lane. He's a good passer, and then he gets out to the corner. If he gets to the left corner, that's Kyle's corner. We call that on every play, we look for Kyle in that left corner. He's getting better in the right corner. A lot of players don't like shooting the corner shot, he does. But he works that triangle great. Then you've got Preston [Knowles]. The good thing is Peyton [Siva] is running the team, and he's not looking to shoot threes. That's the good thing, because he's not a great three-point shooter. When he penetrates and gets the other guys, the other guys can flat out shoot it. But now we're going to get Rak [Rakeem Buckles] back, Gorgui [Dieng] is going to get into shape. We'll have him available next game. We'll be able to work on our motion offense. I'm really really excited."
(On Rakeem Buckles)
"He's good, but he's rusty. He's in shape. He's rusty right now. His shooting--he couldn't shoot. He got in shape, but he'll get it back in a short period of time."
(On Louisville's defense against Syracuse forward Rick Jackson in the first half)
"We did a great job of trapping him in the zone, even though we are playing man. We did a good job of trapping him. In the second half, on a couple out of bounds plays, he just moved TJ [Terrence Jennings] right out and he scored there. We made a couple of errors on three point shots, going to the wrong side of the floor a couple times. An inexperienced team will do that."
(On shooting the ball outside against the Syracuse zone)
"It all starts with ball movement. The thing that was missing--we had ball movement, we had player movement, we had inside to out action--we didn't have enough dribble penetration. You can't get good shots against Syracuse unless you dribble penetrate. We did in the first half, in the second half we fatigued. We didn't space quite as well, but we're a good shooting team. We play well against zones. Our guys have no conscience at all, whatsoever, as long as they take good shots, that's the main thing."
(On if he was drawing up plays to help the team run off with the game in time outs)
"Believe it or not, we are running something offensively, but I'm talking defense. I was giving them a play, but it was the defense that was breaking down constantly. I just kept saying look, if you avoid the basket and keep running it down to eight seconds, we're not going to win this game. You have got to get in it. Then they did some smart things in the out of bounds plays, getting to the middle and cutting backdoor."
(On how the team is doing in the BIG EAST race)
"I am super excited to be four for four in the segments. Super excited. I'm real proud of our guy--great team to coach, great group of guys. I'm really, really excited. I think in 10 years--I've had a [NCAA] Final Four team, I've had the number one seeds--I think this is the fan's favorite team in the 10 years I've been here. The reason is, they don't get down. Down 18, they don't get down. Whatever the points are, they just keep playing hard. Everybody just keeps playing hard. You can see they are not as talented as the number one seed, you can see they're not as good as some of the players in the Final Four teams. But you can see the heart every time they play, whether they're up or down. You saw it at Notre Dame, indicative of the way we play on the road. We're up at Villanova, we're up at Providence. We really haven't had a bad game, and that's surprising when you see them. Every big opponent, I'm talking about BIG EAST now, I know we had a bad game against Drexel."
(On how likely he thought the team would be 8-4 in the BIG EAST at this point)
"Like I told you over and over with Ralph [Willard, Director of Basketball Operations for Louisville], Ralph kept saying to me, `look it's going to be a tough year on you man. You've got to stay positive.' I said yeah, Ralph, the past two or three have been very easy on me, so don't worry about it [laughs]. I just said look, we're going to get through it. We've had some surprises along the way. Gorgui Dieng was a much better player than we anticipated. You haven't seen it yet, but trust me, he is. We didn't know this attitude would be so phenomenal. Every group of guys you coach today, the number one weakness is ego. Ego is the greatest killer of potential there is today. In every aspect of life, ego kills it. We keep talking about the 12 step program for alcoholics, and I read a great quote, "Ego is edging God out." That's what ego is, and we keep talking about that, keeping telling that. When they don't play with an ego, everybody just plays with each other. We have no ego. Truly there's the old cliché of playing for the name on the front of your jersey, and I've never coached a team in my life, maybe two, Providence in '87 and this team, that plays more for the name on the front of their jersey. I think that's why the fans love this team so much. It just shouts out at you that they're playing for Louisville, they don't care about themselves."
(On Louisville being able to hold on when the game gets tough)
"We had some incredible passes to get up 21 there, in the inside and outside. What happens when you have a lead is your defense breaks down. Our defense broke down, and we gave them a couple of threes, we gave them some inside action. We fell down twice which was unlucky. They came in for a layup, Kyle [Kuric] had the rebound. He fell down. TJ [Terrence Jennings] fell down, gave them a dunk. They were a really good basketball team and they're very physical. They're very talented."
(On Preston Knowles' contributions to the team)
"Preston is a great leader. Seniors, everybody today is in a rush. Some of you, I guess all of us, if we could trade with college kids we'd want to go back in a second to get those days. The other kids are the opposite. They're in such a rush to get to the pros, to get to the next train stop. My thought on college is you never want it to end. They're going to realize it, but this team gets it. They don't want college to end. It's the greatest time of their life. Preston is enjoying every moment of it. For all of us who have been out of college, if we had one wish, besides the health of our loved ones, we'd want to be back in college again. These guys truly enjoy where they're at, and Preston is not looking at what is going to happen to `me' down the road. I told him the other day, you're going to have a briefcase one day, be working for UPS in their executive program. He's interested in UPS. I said, `Your future's all set. You keep making jump shots and UPS will be coming for you in that brown uniform.'"
(On if he was worried about how the team would bounce back from the Notre Dame loss)
"I think one of the most overrated things in basketball is, they're going to have a bounce game. I thought that was just horse racing because they can't speak. We can speak and communicate, and we were really disappointed in the loss at Notre Dame. We knew Syracuse and us would be tight. We knew there was a lot at stake. What I told the guys before the game, I was listening to the TV, and this is a moving week. They were alluding to Ohio State and Wisconsin, and Pittsburgh and Villanova, would they move into a situation where they can't get caught. I said, this is moving week for us, and we've got to get Syracuse. The guys did a great job. Syracuse did a phenomenal job of coming back against us. We made some really exciting passes and backdoor plays, and we just broke down. With this team, I don't believe in all that stuff psychologically. Not with this team. When have you seen this team have a down night? They battle Notre Dame all the way, they battle on the road and win double overtime against Connecticut, they're up against Villanova, they battled--you all don't realize Providence is a good team. But they fight until the end and it's really fun for a coach to coach these guys. I know the whole staff feels that."
Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim
(Opening Statement)
"Well, we had a bad end to the first half. We talked about not letting (Kyle) Kuric and (Preston) Knowles shoot and those were the two guys that we let shoot. The second half, we did a good job fighting them and then letting other guys score and getting right back in the game and made a great effort to come back, but it's tough when you're 19 down on the road to come all the way back. We made a great effort and got our offense going and did some good things on the defensive end, but you can't get that far behind."
(On Louisville's passing through the zone)
"Yeah, we know they do that. They do a great job, but that wasn't the problem. We really got hurt in broken situations when we came back in and they penetrated. They were still going to kick it out in the broken situations and those were the ones that probably hurt us the most."
(On Syracuse's defense in the second half)
"Well, we wanted to do that the whole game and we didn't do it. That cost us the game."
(On Louisville handling Rick Jackson)
"Well, they doubled him and we knew that and we got good shots. He got the ball out and we got good shots and played off him. And as long as they (Louisville) doubled him, we got great shots because two times he got his passes out of the basket and Kris (Joseph) was in the run too. And Kris and C.J. (Fair) didn't finish and when you don't finish, that leads to a fast break out. You have to finish those. I didn't think we were tough enough in those situations and I was disappointed in that."
(The mood of the team after the game)
"Well, you know it was disappointing. We left too big of a hole for ourselves to get out of."
(On Fab Melo)
"He missed practice so he's not playing."
(On why Fab Melo missed practice)
"That's it. He missed practice. He's done playing for now."
(On Brandon Triche and Scoop Jardine)
"I thought they got open shots and they can make them. They got some good looks and they can make those shots. They've got to play that way and play aggressively offensively. I thought especially Scoop played well the whole game and in the second half, Brandon got going too."
(On the foul late in the game)
"Well, the first guy called the foul a one-and-one, so he made the call. The other official came in and made it a two-shot call and you cannot do that. The guy that made the call ... it's his call. And he called a one-and-one. It's not like he did not know what he called - he knew he called a one-and-one. The other guy came in and changed it. I don't think you can do that. I don't think it's possible to do that. The kid might have made it anyways, who knows. You can't do that, bottom line."
