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Louisville-Pikeville Postgame Quotes
November 06, 2013 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 6, 2013
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement)
"Well, it starts for real on Saturday and we have to make great improvement on the backboard especially because we are getting outrebounded by teams that shoot a low percentage and we are not coming down with the rebound. So that will be the first point of emphasis tomorrow. I have said this before in the pregame show, we are way behind right now. We have had many, many distractions and we have been without four major players from last year's team in Peyton (Siva) Gorgui (Dieng) Luke (Hancock) and Chane (Behanan). Those distractions, not Peyton or Gorgui, have led to us making slow progress right now. We have to pick it up a little bit over the next two days and play much better defense on the backboards. "
(Reaction of Kevin Ware entering the game for the first time since his injury)
"Well I think it is great, and kind of like a storybook plot taking your first shot and you don't touch the iron. I think it is great. I wanted to get him some minutes to get him over the jitters in case we have to use him against Charleston."
(When did you decide to play Kevin Ware)
"(I decided to play him) before the game. He has been practicing full bore. I wanted to see him out there run and jump and get some confidence, but he has been doing that in practice."
(On Chris Jones and his confidence)
"The backcourt is a very good backcourt. You can readily see, which is interesting because I see it in the pros as well as college because I watch a lot of professional basketball, guys can't guard anybody off the bounce because of all these new rules. So you are left in the open court and you really, to be a good defensive team, have to have three defenders playing the ball at all times. That is something that we have to work on because pick and rolls are impossible to guard with these new rules. It is the same thing as in the pros and you see all these scores that are 130 points in the pros and guys are doing down the middle wide open. That is exactly the way it was for the pros making those adjustments. We have to come up with some solutions. The one thing we can't do is cant force a team to shoot 30% and then give them a second shot. That is shooting yourself in the foot. You are taking away offensive possessions from yourself. "
(On Mango's performance and how has he been practicing)
"He hasn't been very good and neither has Stephan Van Treese. They are not making the progress I had hoped, but in Mango's case, he's just a redshirt freshmen and it's going to take some time."
(On what needs to be seen from Mango that is yet to be seen)
"One of the greatest things about Kenneth Faried is that when he blocks out, he never takes his eyes off the ball, so he can pursue it. Mango plays with his head down and tries to box out with his head, he doesn't have any idea where the ball is coming off and both Stephan and Mango don't do that. They don't have any idea how to pursue the basketball because they don't know where it's coming off. Also he (Mathiang) is just very weak fundamentally. He's a good athlete, runs well, jumps well, just doesn't know the fundamentals of the game. He'll catch the ball, he's passing it and he'll stare at the person. We have been working on the ball faking, so just things that sometimes you take for granted when you grow up playing the game, that he doesn't have right now, but he is a willing learner and he will pick it up. We are just way behind in that area."
(On What Stephan needs to improve on)
"He doesn't have any passion. He is not playing with great passion. He has to play as if he hasn't eaten in a week because he doesn't have the ability to let the game come to him. He has got to create the game. He has got to play with Montrezl's motor to get anything out of this game. Relentless pursuit and that's why he doesn't look good out there right now, but I hope he gets it."
(On Montrezl Harrell not really being challenged right now in practice)
"His progress is sort of going the other way because he is dominating his position too much. He hasn't got any competition and competition in practice is really what makes you better. That's why those guards are so good right now, because they have great competition and he's not getting any competition in practice. What happens when you don't get great competition in practice is you develop bad habits. He should have had 14-15 rebounds, but he had six and played almost 30 minutes of the game."
(On whether there is any news on Luke's return to practice)
"I don't know. I really don't. He is working out. He's swimming. Obviously we need him. Anton Gill is not ready to play right now defensively, so we do need him, but he's not ready. We have got to be really careful against Charleston, because Charleston does a lot of really good things. They have four starters back."
Pikeville Head Coach Kelly Wells Quotes
(Opening statement)
"I thought it was a great experience for us, I thought in most fashions, I'm surprised we were within four rebounds of them. I was very proud of our guys. That was one of our keys to be good on the glass. We're playing guys with NBA talent, very, very good coached team and I am pleased with our effort. The score is not indicative of how hard our guys played. None the less it was a good experience for both parties."
(What did he say to the team at halftime)
"Well we had five straight stops to end the half there, and the last one we gave a layup and could not find the basket. It wasn't shots we were normally going to miss, it was layups, mid-range shots, and open threes. We did a great job of hitting those, 61 points is uncharacteristic of our team."
(About Keala King)
"He's bigger, faster, and stronger than a lot of guys at our level. He's going to continue to get better. I was really proud, even though our guys that didn't have a great performance scoring wise. We gave a great effort and Chris Cantino was unbelievable tonight. I thought he was tremendous. To me we've got a lot to work on. But we're proud of what we did."
(On Elisha Justice)
"It's not an easy job and everybody in the AAC will figure out how hard it is to try to score. We had two ball handlers him and Josh (Whitaker) that really wore on them. Josh did a good job scoring early but he got really winded and tired. There's not going to be very many Louisville's in our conference."
