Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino

(Opening Statement) "It was a shame that young man got injured because he was one of the better players. We did a lot of good things offensively; the pace was terrific. Defensively we have a long way to go. We did a good job on our presses, all total they were 3 for 16, excuse me 4 for 19. But the defense has to get a lot better. We will get a lot of experience from that. But offensively we did a good job of sharing the basketball, of moving the basketball, the pace was terrific. I thought Ryan McMahon came in a did a lot of good things defensively for the first time. We know he can shoot, and he gives a big lift because he haves two back tips, he can play defense well, he obviously made the shots and that's when it went from 20 to a blowout because of his efforts. Both Tony and Ryan did a very good job in the backcourt. And in the fast break we were 17 for 25 those are good numbers."

(Coach is giving up dribble penetration is that the biggest thing you've seen with the defense?) "Yeah, Quentin [Snider] got beat a few times, but you know what happens when you play with guys a lot smaller. I don't think that will be as prevalent when you play against a little more size, but tough to guard one-on-one."

(What is the next step defensively that you want to see for these guys?) "Ball containment. We made second and third rotations, but when you are jumping around as much as us you have to make fourth and fifth rotations, and we didn't do that as well."

(How happy were you with Mango?) "He did a good job. Mango did a good job. I didn't want to play him to many minutes. I thought that Anas did a good offense of job, but didn't defensively rebounding. Like I told him, it's not our fault that you didn't grow up to 230 pounds. It's your fault, so, the fact that you are thin, you have to tougher.
Did he have a defensive rebound? No. So, that is just toughness, but offensively he is a very good basketball player. I think he will be better against more size, believe it or not.

(Coach, with up tempo it looked like you all made an effort to push the ball more. How much pressure does it put on the opposing defense when you're pushing, even on makes?) "Well, that's the way we're going to play this year. If your press is effective, your fast break will be effective. The guys are in good shape, but we're not ready to open against Evansville. That's for sure, but there's a lot of positive things, so we've got to really knuckle down this week and get better. Bellarmine will be a good test for us because of the way they shoot the ball, so we've got to make major improvements to our, but obviously I'm very pleased. We've played very close games with Kentucky Wesleyan and this wasn't."

(You just said you think Anas would be better for taller competition. What do you mean by that?) "Just because he is better against taller people."

(Why do you think that?) "Just in practice. He doesn't.. He has a tough time guarding smaller people."

(Mitchell seemed to be in the passing lane a lot, how important is he when it comes to igniting the style of play that you want?) "Very. He was 0-3 from the three tonight, but he could just one ball fake rip move and he took a 16-foot pull up. It was pure. Donovan's the second best shooter on the team. He's worked real hard at that. He's playing good basketball. I thought Deng [Adel] played good basketball tonight. We've got 2-3 terrific power forwards. It was a good night."

(You shot 60%, you don't see a lot of 60% here) "Yeah I think some would have…. We outmatched the competition tonight. You know when you play fast, they don't get into their sets, and we've allowed them to get into their sets in years past. They didn't get into it, but Happy [Osborne] is a terrific coach. They're going to gain great experience from this, and it's going to help them immensely."

(How much does it help you to be able to round to guy like Mitchel and Adel that are so good at on the boards how much does it help your team?) "It does, and Q's [Quentin Snider] got to do a better job in that area. You know he had 3 tonight. Donovan's going to do what Terry Rozier did. He's going to grab a lot. He's going to be a terrific rebounding guard. Now we've got to get Quentin in there and just get those lose ball rebounds"

(Tolerance for mistakes change?) "You know they're going to make…I don't care about offensive mistakes. I really care about defensive mistakes. Offensive mistakes when you play fast, the more you throw bounce passes, the more you stay away from what I call, 'air passes,' where you go down the lane and try to throw an air pass and the defense gets a deflection. Lobs and bounce passes are something we work really, really hard… making the extra pass. They're doing a great job of playing fast. They're an unselfish group. It's the half court defense because we rely on our match up zones to stop people and now it's, 'mano a mano,' you got to be able to guard to play this style."

(You left the reserves in for a huge chunk during that second half. How important is it for them to get confidence to get used to playing out there?) "Yeah, I wanted to see certain things. You know, Tony [Hicks] is… He's just learning this. He's like an extremely bright fifth year senior, but he's like a freshman from a learning curve because he didn't play any basketball last year, and this is a totally different style than what he had at Penn. So he's going to be very good. He's just got to get used to this style."

(On best way to measure possessions) "How long it takes to get the ball from end-to-end, and that was brilliant tonight. Brilliant."

(On what the time goal of a possession is) "We'd like to cross half-court in three seconds. But, honestly, I was more impressed with the fact that we recognized, when two guys ran it him, we recognized it, like Matz did a great job of flashing, looking opposite. The recognition was really, really good tonight, and that's good. If we can get our defense going here, I think we're going to be really tough."

(On Mangok playing how he expected him to) "Yeah, he did. He played 13 minutes. We'll give him off tomorrow just to rest a little bit, but he's going to be ready. He'll be ready for Evansville. It surprised me that he's this ready because we are very cautious with him and very surprised that he's come along, in last two weeks, as quick as has, but we're going to treat him with kid gloves a little bit because we have Anas. We have Matz, so we'll just take our time with him."

(On patience with bigs in this new style offense) "The bigs have done a great job. It's tough - last year and this year - it's tough to get upset at anything. They're such unbelievable kids. You know every coach says that, it's part of it, but I'm not sure that they only mean it 70 or 80 percent of the time. The last two years, this has just been such a joy. These guys… It's just not normal. I mean we are having an awesome recruiting class because of those guys in the locker room. They sell it. I mean our coaches are doing a great job of recruiting sophomores and juniors and going out and beating the bushes, and I've been out probably more than I've ever been out, but we don't have to sell them. Once they come here, these guys. The parents just… every parent has said to me 'Boy, I'm so impressed with your guys.' He said 'Do you tell them to do this?' I said 'We don't tell them anything. We just tell them that you're coming in.' They're very impressive young men. Their parents should be very proud of the job they've done with them."

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