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Louisville-DePaul Postgame Quotes
January 14, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 14, 2012
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Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening statement)
“Playing against DePaul isn't your typical game. We told Russ (Smith) at halftime that against this kind of team we have to run something. But that's what the game was like and he said, 'But coach, we're breaking the pressure.' And it almost had to be that way because we were using Kevin Ware at the three. So it had to be individual players just doing good things. We didn't play great, but we played really, really hard.”
(On the difference between Russ Smith this game and the Providence game)
“I think the tempo of the game, the way the game was played. The less organized the game is the better he plays.”
(On whether he threw out the playbook)
“No, we tried to run things, but breaking their pressure forced us to put in a new press offense. I showed up this morning and Gorgui (Dieng) couldn't practice yesterday, and Elisha (Justice) couldn't practice yesterday. So I told Gorgui to take the day off, and be ready to play today. And he shows up with a neck brace on. I asked Gorgui what was with the neck brace, and he said, 'I can't move my neck.' So, I looked at Zach (Price) and asked him are you going to be able to do it? Not taking anything away from Zach you really have to flash, and pass the basketball. I don't know what the doctors did, but an hour before the game he was ready to play – at least move his neck.”
(On Dieng's performance)
“I'm telling you he couldn't even move. This is a game where we were really tired physically, and we didn't have that much of a bench. We needed him to play big, and he did.”
(On if the team answered questions from the last few games)
“It's a game. We lost by 33 when we were the number one of number one seeds. We didn't play well at all no one did, and Providence played great. Providence made shots that when we watched all their film, they never shot the ball like that. We played terrible so you give them credit, and move on. It's one game. The effort has been phenomenal the whole season the execution hasn't.”
(On the offense executing better)
“Our offense is Russ Smith playing in the middle of a playground in Queens. Chris (Smith) ran the offense. We have to play that way, because DePaul is always trapping. So you have to flash, look opposite, and go back door. You have to rely on basketball instincts. You have to bring four guys up on pressure. They're not going to let you play a normal game. They will continue trapping until they get their runs.”
(On Marquette)
“Our goal is to win every home game and win two road games. That's our goal. It's not going to be easy. You look at the way West Virginia is playing on the road and certainly Pittsburgh is going to get it back when you move Ashton Gibbs back to the two. They look much better. It's going to be a tough task, but we've answered the bell every season. I remember one year we had to win seven out of eight or something like that and we did it. We feel we're going to answer the bell because we do think we're going to be able to get healthy and practice.”
(On splitting the season up into segments)
“We didn't do any of that this year. You do that when things aren't going well and you want to give your guys a silver lining. You try to look at things positively and not negatively. So you give them those goals. You tell them, 'We're not out of it. We are fine. We are capable of winning every home game. We didn't lose a BIG EAST game this year.' You start talking that type of jargon.”
(On Rakeem Buckles)
“Fifteen or 20 years ago, an ACL injury ended your career. Today you can come back but it takes a good year and a half. Even though they come back from an injury they don't come back 100 percent. I don't know if you saw it but he tweaked his knee running up and down. He's constantly tweaking and missing it. He's only practiced I would say 20 percent of the time because sometimes we swim him. He's got to get through this year. We need him as a backup.”
(On Chris Smith)
“I think Chris was trying to do things he can't do. He'll try to dribble the ball and not take the shot. He's used to doing what Kyle does; moving to open areas, getting the shot, going back door, and he's a good jumper. Before he was trying to do things off the bounce that just weren't his thing. Tonight he did things that were very good. “
(On Chris Smith playing the 3 position)
“The two and the three, if you're playing zone, are the same position. The only thing more difficult is you're inside and you have to block out a bigger guy. At 6-foot-2 it is more difficult for him to do that. He played a lot of three last year when we went with Preston (Knowles), Peyton (Siva), and him. I was planning on playing Kyle at the four. That was our strategy. Somebody asked how it looked. I said we literally came out of warm-ups and ran one play. So we never found out, but we planned on going small against this basketball team tonight.”
(On the players only meeting the other day)
“We have about 5-7 player meetings a year. They are very good. They need to talk. We don't let Andre (McGee) or anybody in there. It's just them. I wanted them to talk about it and do something about it and take ownership of this team. I think it was a good meeting. They've played incredibly hard every game but one game. It happens. I'm sure it happened to North Carolina today. It just happens in this game. You have to move on.”
(On Marquette)
“I was looking at them in the office waiting for the game to start. I've seen them play a couple of times. They are great. They don't give you an easy bucket. The way we played tonight, Marquette would have a field day. If you dribble in any close areas they strip you. You have to keep them out of transition, so passing is a premium play against Marquette. It's the opposite against DePaul. Marquette smells blood and they go after the ball. What happens is they're great in transition so they change ends very quick.”
(On Russ Smith playing the way Pitino wants without losing productivity)
“I don't think that's possible and I really mean that. All I want Russ to do is play defense hard. Everything else you've got to let him go. If he starts evaluating what's a good shot and what is a bad shot you take away his skill level. A normal person goes 0 for 3 or 0 for 4, you may think of passing. It may cross your mind. If you watched him tonight do you think it ever crossed his mind? So all I wanted him to do was play hard defensively and just let him do his thing.”
DePaul Head Coach Oliver Purnell
(On how they started the game)
“I thought we were locked in and playing pretty good, we just couldn't make shots. We missed a couple of layups early and that caused some separation. I thought Louisville came out scrappy, on an emotional high and I thought we kind of settled into the game and it kind of came back to us a little bit. We just missed too many easy opportunities, so timely turnovers. We make a 3 at the end of the half to only be down nine. I felt really fortunate to only be down nine. Our two best players were struggling.
“It was kind of the same the second half. We didn't get off to a great start, we called a timeout and kind of settled it. Cleveland (Melvin) and Brandon (Young) still don't have it going. We get them out of there and the other guys keep pounding and all of a sudden we're down five with seven to go. Our guys hung in there on the road and played better. Missed some layups and your two best players really don't get it done offensively and you miss some layups from the other guys - and those are 99 percent shots and you're playing against a fired up team, that's what happens.”
(On their interior defense)
“They did a pretty good job with their big kids blocking shots and changing shots, but it was a pretty physical game for us to only go to the line five times.”
(On what they have to do to get off to better start in the future)
“I thought today was different, we just missed some shots – you've got to make those shots. I thought we were locked in today and we weren't turning the ball over and that kind of thing like we did the first couple of games. I thought we definitely got off to a more solid start – it wasn't a good start - because we didn't make shots and that kind of thing. I thought the area where we really let down was our transition defense. Louisville had made a conscious effort to attack early and we weren't doing a really good job with that. I thought we were in the half court and I felt we were getting some pretty good shots. We missed some layups early which caused some separation on the transition.”
(On being down five on the road with seven minutes left with a chance to pick up a conference win)
“You feel like you're in pretty good shape. I think our defense let us down. They went right down and scored.”
