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Louisville vs. Long Beach State
December 30, 2014 | Men's Basketball
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 1 
| Photo Gallery 2
Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino
(Opening Statement) "I know you all want to watch the football game (UofL in Belk Bowl) so I will be brief and it is not because I don't like you. For 30 minutes, that is the best basketball we have played all year. That team and Indiana are the toughest defensively to guard because they will put five guys on the perimeter, create a lot of movement and our guys were brilliant on defense with their switching and maneuvering but then we turned it around and we were great passing the basketball. Then for a period in the second half, we hunted shots and didn't pass it as well and we didn't look as good. But for 30-32 minutes of basketball that is the best we have looked all year. I thought Quentin (Snider) gave us a big lift, Wayne Blackshear was sick, throwing up before the game and we really appreciate his toughness in gutting it out."
(On starting Anas Mahmoud) "I don't think we have been getting anything out of our five spot and we tried playing him when we simulated Kentucky and he kept getting pushed out of bounds. We knew Kentucky, Duke, and maybe two or three other opponents are not for him. But we are hopeful we can get some more strength on him. We are hoping by the 15th we can get him up to 210 (pounds) and then up to 215 and then at least he can hold his own but he is the best passer, shot blocker, shooter that we have. It is just that he is very weak. It is Gorgui (Dieng) as a freshman, now I do believe he will become one of the more talented big guys I have coached, it is just that he is weak."
(On starting Shaqquan Aaron over Chris Jones) "I didn't start Chris not because of his shooting percentage, I didn't start him because of the flop issue. I was very upset at that. We don't do that type of thing and then to fake it with the jaw like he got hit. You can't fake it, in junior college you do it, but it is on TV and you can't fake those things and I told him you are not playing because of that incident, that is something Louisville guys don't do. He was the best cheerleader on the bench and he did a great job with the guys. It was great experience for Quentin because that is a very tough team to defend and he did a very good job."
(On what he needs to see from Shaqquan moving forward) "I explained it to the guys this way and I will explain it to you guys this way, I have said numerous times that this is the weakest team I have had in the last four years. It is the weakest team and I don't mean physically because I explained it to them at the beginning of the game, you have heard the expression about one weak link on a chain, the fence falls apart. We have eight open links, eight guys that don't understand what we do. We have four that do. So we have to close the links up week by week. Shaqquan is one of the links that doesn't have a clue. He has never seen all this switching and all this talking and all this, it is foreign to him so he can't go out there and play like a normal freshman and just get by on a lot of desire. So it is tough on him. There are certain freshmen that can do it and there are some that can't, this group cannot do it. Now Quentin is getting a lot better, a lot better. He came to me and said he needed a break and that is the only sentence I have heard him say all year and I couldn't hear him say it. So I patted him and said, `great job' and he said it again and I still couldn't hear him. I said, `What are you saying Quentin?' and he said `I need a break' and he finally said it. So that is the loudest and only sentence I have heard out of him so that link is closing."
(On how Montrezl Harrell is handling the defensive pressure) "This is a trapping team. Montrezl is a good passer. He's got to rebound the ball better. He's an All-American and people come after you. You've got to be able to pass the ball early and finish late like he did. I do think he's having a very good year. He's in, right now, a little bit of a drought for him, but I think that suspension bothered him a little bit and it knocked him out of whack a little bit."
(On if this was a good test before starting ACC play) "This was a very good team. I was really concerned about this game, because this team, the schedule they played, we were just trying to take out their legs tonight because they open up 95-90 with a BYU loss. They played Xavier twice, they played at Texas, at St. John's, at Syracuse. I'm missing some really good opponents too, and then they're at us. So they have gone against good talent, they shoot the heck out of the ball. For the first 25 minutes of the game, we played tremendous offense and tremendous defense, and then we let up a little bit with that because I think they fatigued us a little bit."
(On if the young players realize that finding a team identity is a process) "What I try to tell them is the best player I've coached here at Louisville, in terms of the type of senior year he had, was Peyton Siva. Peyton Siva was also the worst freshman I've ever coached. Russ Smith, the second worst player I've ever coached and his senior year was spectacular. Look what they've both accomplished team-wise. So I keep trying to tell them those things. Gorgui (Dieng) was the weakest freshman, hurt us so much in practice and games, and then he was one of the best centers in the country. So I try to use examples. They all want to play, like Jaylen (Johnson) made a great move tonight, wanted to play, but he's an open link, and I think each week that goes by, we'll close the link a little bit more. What I'm hoping for is come March, we've got nine to 10 links that are closed."
(On Chinanu Onuaku) "He's just the third center right now. He did tweak his ankle, but he's the third center right now because I expected him, in the last few games, to rebound and block shots better, and he didn't do it. He did play against good competition, so I think our future right now, because of catching and blocking, is Chinanu, but literally in practice I've got to stay on him in every possession. We put in blocked shot drills every day for 10 minutes just for him, we do it in individual instruction. It's a process, but I think he's a very talented process. And Mangok (Mathiang) knows what he's doing, so they're going to all play, like he's going to play against Duke obviously and Virginia and those teams."
Long Beach State Head Coach Dan Monson
(Opening Statement) "I thought Louisville's defense was something we couldn't get comfortable with until it was too late. We finally started attacking and not turning it over and the deficit was too much. But I thought our guys fought. They got down 20 and got it back to where they were manageable. We had a couple of open looks to make it interesting. The bottom line Louisville is just a very disciplined team, they are very well-coached, they don't beat themselves and we couldn't beat them today.
(On Louisville's run at the end of the first half) It was 19-19 and whatever that run was, was a critical one. I think it was 31-19 the next time I looked up. There is a fine line between attacking their pressure and getting sped up and turning it over or not making plays. I thought we let our frustration on the offensive end dictate and we gave them a lot of looks. I thought defensively the best thing is that when we were frustrated in the second half, we went back and played better defense. To hold them to eight field goals and two of them were in the last minute... in my mind six field goals in the gut of the second half, I thought defensively we did a lot of good things."
(On Branford Jones' performance today) "The thing Branford gives you is another kind of ball handling guard out there. He's not really a point, but... he takes a little pressure off of Mike (Caffey). I thought Branford was very strong with the ball. He came out very aggressive, he hit a couple threes to get us going. But that's just a good basketball team that's at a different level than we are at right now. I don't think we are that far off either. We've got league starting in a week. We've got one week to get better."
(How does their tough non-conference schedule prepare them for league play?) "We know what we need to work on now. We play these teams and they show us our deficiencies. We've got to be a better ball-handling team. Nineteen turnovers - you just can't win ball games with that. We have to handle pressure better. That was a great game for us to be able to get ourselves to understand that. We'll watch that on film and go from there."
