Louisville-Pittsburgh Postgame Quotes

Pittsburgh at Louisville
January 14, 2015 | KFC Yum! Center
Postgame Quotes

Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino

(Opening Statement) "I feel like my long lost best friend came back tonight. We been waiting some time for us to play defense like that it was exciting to play that way. Because that's the way it's been for four years. Tonight to take a great assist/turnover team hold them to four assists and 28 percent shooting, force 19 turnovers, take a great guard and hold him to a point and force three turnovers just a brilliant performance by our guys, I am real proud of them. Just all phases of the game tonight they were locked in."

(Did you see this coming?) "I didn't yell at them at all after the loss. I just said, 'look guys if your identity is to outshoot people then you may make the tournament but you're going to have an early exit.' I said now you can shoot and you're a good offensive basketball team but unless you learn to play Louisville-type defense were never going to be a great basketball team. They took it to heart and worked really hard at it this week, zone-man switching up, blocking out, did a great job."

(You were concerned about Pitt's execution, what do you think your guys did specifically to take them out of that?) "We kept switching from zone to man, man to zone, we did a very good job of bothering them where they went, they isolate a lot, and we really forced guys to their weak hand and then rotated and when they went to their weak hand we rotated properly and caused some problems."

(Just talk about Nanu's game and even on the defensive end seemed like he was talking back there telling guys where to go maybe) "When Nanu (Onuaku) gets a little tired that's when he'll make a mistake like when he gave up that three point shot he was resting in the lane trying to get a blow. I was taking him out because I saw him resting in the lane then he fouled him. Right now if he plays 33 minutes, we are going to be tough to beat. Once Mangok (Mathiang) comes back he can play 27-28 and won't be a problem."

(About getting 50-50 balls then it seemed like in the second half you really locked down on that)"We did. We made, maybe one mistake on not blocking out on the free throw that could have gone to 15. Outside of that, Ray (Spalding) did a great job. The guys switched properly. They blitzed properly. They downed properly. It was just a beautiful game defensively to watch."

(Compare Clemson and Pitt and the similarities in those two first halves?) "When you play conference play and both teams are going to play great defense and you're going to have some slow down games like this. But that's okay, as long as you're playing defense like this. It's two teams in the Top 25 playing to maintain that position. And we know we are going to play them twice. We know we are going to battle them the entire year. Look, I was uptight as I've been watching film on these guys. It was, watching film they're a scary team to watch. I would say that I got sick to my stomach, and I did get sick to my stomach. But I was worried about this game and what they do."

(A better reaction to a poor shooting first half. It didn't look like guys panicked) "No we didn't. Look, we missed a lot of inside shots. Q (Snider) missed a couple shots. We're a good shooting team. We just got to get used to playing that type of defense and shooting the ball, and we will. We will. Because in practice each day we make shots, and our practices are tough."
(Have you ever had to leave the game like that in the middle of the game?) "About 30 times in my career. I can't eat game day. Just think about this, the pros you coach 100 games. I can never eat. But a 9 o'clock game kills me. I made a mistake and I went and ate something. I get sick if I eat something."

(What did you eat?) "Just turkey, that's it, no bread. I can't work. These 9 o'clock games kill me."

(On Deng Adel catching up defensively) "Yeah, an injury like that, everyone is practicing double sessions and it just takes time. He's going to be a terrific basketball player. I know it for a fact, but he's also playing behind Damion Lee. I said to him 'you're not doing anything wrong, you're coming back from an injury. It's just Damion … I've got to keep him on the court because of what he does.' He texted me back, which is typical of this team, and said 'Coach don't worry about my minutes. I got a long time here, let's just win the game.' You don't ever get that today, these kids are so unusual it's scary."

(Defensive improvement from Clemson to Pittsburgh) "We lost the Clemson game because of offense and fouling too much. Sometimes you say well they only shot 38 percent, but when you put a team to the line 44 times that's probably the most misleading statistic. It's like sometimes you hold a team to a low percentage and they get 19 or 20 offensive rebounds, so you're not rebounding the ball well. They're sending four guys because they're missing all the time that's why tonight it was very impressive even though they had 14 second shots we held them to 28. That's pretty impressive and if you play great defense a great foul shooting team when they have to work real hard will miss free throws, I've seen that for 40 years. If you play soft defense, they won't."

(On difference tonight on defensive end) "Three areas, one we took away the strengths of the players from the scouting report. We took away Robinson's right, we took away their two man game with traps, we pressed without fouling. I can't remember, one time Quentin Snider fouled and the guy locked Q up and did a great job. He locked Quentin's arm and got a foul. Outside of that we didn't foul in the press. We did everything from a focus standpoint to take away their strengths. That's where this team hasn't been together because – Ray Spalding, when you tell him these things sometimes, he goes 'we're going to press go to zone and when are we going man and then when do we go back to zone.' This is calculus for him and he's not even on basic algebra yet."

(On if he's pleased with the production from the center position) "I'm not pleased with Anas (Mahmoud). I'm pleased with Matz (Stockman). Anas has got to get tougher. If there's a ball in front of you, you've got to use your length and get tougher. I told Ray Ganong, I said, 'Listen, besides weight training, just get in there and wrestle with him.' Ray's going to wrestle him."

(On the confidence a solid night at the free-throw line will provide Chinanu Onuaku) "I think it's going to give him a lot of confidence. We shot 16-of-19, and held them to four assists. It's going to give us a lot of confidence. The most important thing is I think we're going to be a good offensive team. I'm not worried about Trey Lewis, I'm not worried about Damion (Lee's) shots at all. Those two especially. If we can play this type of defense, against Florida State moving forward, I think come March we'll be a tough basketball team."

(On if both teams were focused on defending the 3-point shot) "I don't know. We weren't really interested in the three too much tonight. Even though Purdue made 11 threes, they got up by going inside. Teams haven't been going inside against them. We were totally focused on getting the ball to Nanu."

(On how satisfied he is with the team's defense) "Tonight, it was like old times. But now we have to get ready for Florida State. I think the guys saw what it could do tonight, and I think they're encouraged by it. I think they'll draw some energy from it."

Pittsburgh Head Coach Jamie Dixon

(Opening Statement) "Obviously we are not really excited about how we played. Give them credit, Louisville played very well responding to a loss. Certainly we are going to have to do that here going forward. We've got a quick turnaround, so we will get ready for Saturday, but certainly tonight was not our night. I can't think of anything we did well, so we are disappointed by our performance. But that happens, I'm sure every team goes through it and we are going to respond in a good way and get ready for Saturday. So we have a quick turnaround and we will get ready for them. Obviously we didn't do anything well and they seemed to make free throws, knock down shots and defend very well. We had a lot of travels, we had a lot of unforced turnovers and our shot selection just wasn't very good, so again give them credit."

(On the assist to turnover ratio) "Obviously you could sit here… you didn't even have to watch the game, obviously the numbers don't add up as far as us. We shoot free throws well - we didn't shoot them well today. We are high assist and low turnover and we didn't do that today. It just didn't go well. We got off to a decent start and had some good looks and then I think as we missed shots, we got frustrated and I don't think frustrated - I think we just didn't play well and it falls upon us. I think every team has a game when they don't feel that they played well, it is how you respond afterwards. I think that's our task going forward here getting ready for Saturday."

(On beating the press but struggling with turnovers in the half court) "It just seemed like we continued to take guarded shots and we're not the team that does that and we did it for whatever reason tonight. There was a couple examples- fine I think we made the right pass and we had another guy pass up that shot and dribble into a congested area. We can go through every play. With that said, we're were down three at halftime, we're in position and we felt like we could've come out and execute in the second half and even for the first couple minutes we were playing poorly, but still was right there. We didn't get it done, so that's where it's at. So we got our second loss of the year".

(On play of Chinanu Onuaku and his improvement) "We didn't anticipate him getting 18 points. He had the six turnovers… it was his night. Obviously his free throws went in. It was a good day for him, so give him credit, good kid, hard worker and obviously no surprise he's obviously a talent. Everybody in the country recruited him and everybody knew who he was. He liked Louisville. He's no surprise. He's very talented, I watched him play in high school and a good kid and he will only continue to get better".

(On Louisville's defense affecting offensive game plan) "I guess you have to give them credit. Some guys might sit up here and just blame ourselves, but they're a good team and they responded to a loss and we need to do that. What is probably a combination of both. We went 1 for 11 (3-pointers), and we were 12 for 20 (free throws) and we had some guys who couldn't hit a free throw. It's just one of those things and it was kind of snowballed on us."

(On offensive struggles) "I don't know that we had trouble getting into (our offense) as much as I was surprised by our decisions that once we got it inside, once we got it where we wanted to get it. I was amazed that we got stagnant, because I think we felt that the right decision wasn't being made and the movement wasn't there. We had plenty of time to prepare. That's the thing that's disappointing - we had time to prepare. We had the Saturday/Thursday. We just didn't do anything that we talked about doing these last couple of days."

(On Chris Jones' status) "He didn't practice. He had to stay behind and he just didn't look comfortable. He said there was pain and obviously soreness, but he didn't practice the last couple of days. We had some guys missing practice, but again, certainly that's not a reason for us to perform the way we did today."

University of Louisville Athletics

Related News

Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Damion Lee

Trey Lewis

Chinanu Onuaku

Quentin Snider

Related Videos