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Louisville-Southern Miss Postgame Quotes
November 29, 2013 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 29, 2013
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 1 
| Photo Gallery 2
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Remarks)
“I was really pleased with our defense, which is something we have worked on since the North Carolina game. We changed it up and played a lot of zone like we did last year and just went with it. We tried to get better at it and they performed admirably with it. This was a team that can score a lot of points off the bounce and we kept their assists low. We did a very, very good job defensively, rebounding the ball and playing intelligently. So, I am real proud of the guys.”
(About Russ Smith at point guard)
“He was playing the point and he knew they were going to play all matchup zone, so he was trying to get guys shots and did a good job of not forcing shots up. Did he even have a point at halftime? I don't think he did, so that tells you where his head is at.”
(On having Terry Rozier in the starting line-up)
“I don't really care who starts, but I was doing it because I wanted to get Terry (Rozier) some confidence. He wasn't playing like the Terry Rozier I see in practice, and I just wanted to get him some early minutes and get him feeling good about himself. It was nothing that anybody did wrong.”
(About 16 assists on the 23 made baskets, and what that says about the offense)
“For a low scoring game, that is very good. We did a very good job of handling the basketball. We got a little careless at times, but we did a good job. Overall, this was our best game of playing basketball because we played defense, we didn't try to outscore people. If our defense can catch up to our offense, we will be a decent team.”
(On playing more zone as the season goes forward)
“We want to play how we did last season. Last year, we played about 70 percent man, and that is what we did tonight. It confuses people and it gets them out of rhythm. We want to pressure them out of bounds. The way we played tonight is exactly the way we played last year, and I want to continue to do that.”
(On Russ Smith playing more point guard as the season goes on)
“Well, he has been playing a lot of point guard already this season. The main thing I wanted to do tonight was to get Terry Rozier's confidence going because he is a very good basketball player. He is nowhere near playing to his potential and I have to say that it was my fault because I wasn't getting him enough consistent minutes. With starting, I could do that for him.”
(On Mangok Mathiang getting more minutes)
“Mangok (Mathiang) played well tonight. We are going to play Mangok and live with his mistakes and mental mistakes and just live with it because he gives us length and shot blocking. We are going to live with his mistakes until he gets it.”
(On the mistakes that Mangok Mathiang is making)
“Just scouting reports and knowing the defenses. He is an athlete and all of these little things are very new to him. Some of their guys we love their humility, but they grew up playing soccer and a lot of the little nuances of basketball they just don't get. It takes time. It took time for Gorgui (Dieng); it's going to take time for him.”
(On the practice after the North Carolina loss)
“We were trying to win on offense and didn't play with any intelligence at all. Whether it was a road game and Carolina had all the fans, that is irrelevant, or whether they didn't have enough preparation, because they didn't have any either. Our scouting report was that we had to have a minimum of three guys back every possession and there were often times when we had nobody back. So we didn't mentally play a very smart basketball game. We tried to outscore North Carolina without playing defense and we lost the game. It will make us a better basketball team in the long run.”
(About Wayne Blackshear's play)
“I think he (Blackshear) did a good job tonight. Wayne, in the last game, pitched a shutout across the stat sheet and where Luke (Hancock) didn't shoot the ball well, but he went to the line nine times. You can't just spot up in the corner unless you have Kyle Kuric's left hand corner jump shot. You have to do more things. Wayne did more things tonight. He put it on the floor and got fouled. He took a mid-range jump shot and he did more things like rebounded the basketball a little bit. So, he had a very good night.”
Southern Miss Head Coach Donnie Tyndall
(Opening statement)
“I will start by saying that was a tail whipping. Their team was better coached and more prepared than our team - I say that sincerely and I mean it. I thought that our team had a good week of practice. They were tougher and again, better-coached coming into this game. I feel like the two main things were to take care of the basketball against both their full court and half court pressure and to not give up second and third shot opportunities. We were not able to get those two things into the game. We turned the ball over 22 times, mostly in the half court. Offensively they missed 32 shots and rebounded almost half of their misses. So they are a good team, they're a well-coached team, and in my opinion they are not the team they were at the end of last year, but they have the pieces to be as good or better than they were a year ago.”
(On playing Louisville after their loss to North Carolina)
“Their team will always be well-prepared, well-coached and have great talent. That's just who they are and who they're going to always be coach Pitino there. I didn't make it too big of a deal of them coming off of the loss. They're a great team. They probably turned it up a notch this week to get ready. I thought that North Carolina exposed some things playing them some zone and made them miss, which we did for the most part. The difference is Carolina limited them to one shot and they were able to get out and play in the open floor. We couldn't rebound the ball. We either fouled or they got one more kick-out, one-more threes on the second or third shot. That was the biggest thing.”
(On the slow second and first half starts)
“Give Louisville credit, they had us on our heels. I can't really explain why, but I thought our team was a little bit apprehensive against their pressure. We were reluctant to drive the ball and when we did go in there, we double-pumped some shots and they got deflections or steals or blocked shots. When you do that, now they're in the open floor, where they're really, really good.”
(On where the team goes from here after starting the season on a six-game winning streak)
“I don't like that saying, 'We'll go back to ground zero, or we'll go back to the basics.' That's not how I do things. We do the basics every day. That's who we are. We got our tails whipped today. We've got to be humble enough to accept that. We'll watch the tape as a coaching staff and players. We need to be able to take the bullet between the eyes if you will and get better for it. It's a really, really good team, they're well-coached, they're talented and we got the bad end of a tail whipping tonight. We're not going to say we've got to start from ground zero. We've just got to get better.”
