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Louisville-DePaul Postgame Quotes
February 05, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 5, 2011
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement)
"We're hanging on. We're doing the best we can, but it's very, very difficult. We've been saying we want somebody else to step up, but it's extremely agitating what we're going through. We've even gotten out of shape, which is unheard of for one of our basketball teams. Because we can't practice, we can't do what we want. Every time somebody goes up for a layup, our hearts are in our mouth because we're afraid he could go down and we can't have practice again. It's been the most agitating, annoying thing I've experienced in my coaching career. On the other side, like I told Kenny [Klein, Louisville's Sports Information Director], we could be 5-18. We're winning, but we're not improving, because we're not practicing. We're holding on. I'm very encouraged by the guys. It's very difficult line-ups we have to play. You have to give a lot of credit to DePaul, who hasn't won a BIG EAST game. They played their hearts out. You have to give a lot of credit to them. We're happy to get a victory tonight. We're playing without four fantastic basketball players. Maybe there's a silver lining down the road. We've always been good in February, but we're not improving because we're not practicing. I'm hoping we get healthy pretty soon."
(On Louisville's defense)
"We got a nice run pressing, but there's so many times in the game when we were supposed to be in a zone and we were in man. [There were] so many times when we were in man and should have been in a zone, and we gave up threes. This is not a team that makes threes. That's because we were not organized. We all thought Preston [Knowles] was going to play. For him not to play, it's a pretty good injury. He's the toughest kid on the team by far."
(On Louisville's 17 assists on 21 made field goals)
"They did a very good job. They found people, and they cut. They all made some really good interior passes. We have a difficult time running our offense now. We have to really rely on a few people, and isolate them in situations where they can create easy shots. Kyle [Kuric] always cuts back-door well. I thought Stephan Van Treese did a good job of getting to the right spots for him. Peyton [Siva] did a good job of passing. He took some chances down the stretch, but overall he played a good game."
(On injuries during the game)
"Peyton [Siva] is hurt, but Peyton goes down. I've never seen - I've been in coaching too long - but I've never seen a man fall down as much as Peyton Siva. He averages, no lie, 15 times per game he's down on the ground. Against Connecticut he set a world record. He comes out of his shoes, he falls down. He played a good game, gave it to us. We're getting a little bit out of shape, and we have got to start getting back our conditioning. Our execution has got to come back. I'm hoping this week that will happen."
(On going to Notre Dame)
"They're playing great. We need to become a good basketball team once we get healthy. Right now it's really difficult, really difficult. It's very difficult to execute offensively, very difficult to execute defensively. That's the poorest game we played all year, and I don't think it's the player's fault. I think DePaul had something to do with it. I just think they're showing great courage. They've been through the mill, had a lot of comebacks. Tonight wasn't right for us. We got a win, though, and that's the important thing. No one will remember how you played, they'll remember the "W".
(On tonight's game injuries)
"I'm worried more about Peyton [Siva] than I am about him [Chris Smith]. Peyton hurt himself down the stretch. Fred [Hina, Louisville's Head Trainer] said he's going to be back in a minute, and then Russ [Smith] turned the ball, and I said make that 30 seconds. They're all going to be sore tomorrow. I don't think they're going to miss any time over it. They're all going to be pretty sore."
(On judging Louisville's mistakes)
"Like I told them, Peyton went 0-8. I wasn't bothered one time by one shot he took. Maybe he shouldn't have tried to dunk the ball, do a layup, put it in. That's not a big deal, I was upset because he was playing the wrong defense two or three times down the floor. That upsets me. Missed shots are missed shots, I don't have a problem with that. Defensively, we have got to get better. We were playing fantastic defense, terrific defense. Now we're letting teams shoot too high of a percentage. We had people in the 20s, in the 30s, three-point wise. Injuries can do that to you. Injuries can really affect your team. I think when you lose your best players, if you substitute an average player for a good player or a good player for a great player, we lost the best players on our team. Gorgui [Dieng] is one of the top two five men. Preston [Knowles] is the top two man, best player on the team. Rakeem [Buckles] is the best four man. Swop [Jared Swopshire] never played. We're losing the best players, and the guys filling in are trying their best. This lineup is the most difficult lineup we've had all year. It was not fun out there. It wasn't fun."
DePaul Head Coach Oliver Purnell
(Opening Statement)
"I am very disappointed that we ended up losing this game. Our guys played hard and tough, and we deserved a little better. It didn't seem like we got any breaks going down the stretch. But I think the errors that really got us were Louisville's ability to get on the boards on the offensive glass late in the first half and the end of the game. I think (Peyton) Siva really hurt us, although our half-court pressure bothered him. He had some really critical assists that kept them in it and gave them momentum or gave them a little bit of a lead. I thought he was really good. We helped out a little bit too much on him and as a result he was able to get them some easy scores. His easy assists and scores along with their offensive rebounds, and second and third opportunities really hurt us.
"Again, our guys got better, they played hard but those couple of errors really hurt us and I would like to see us get a couple more breaks."
