Louisville vs. Texas Southern

Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino

(Opening Statement) "Well, congratulations to Derrick Griffin because that was an amazing rebounding performance. Besides us fundamentally not blocking out correctly, what happens is their little guards get in the lane. You're forced to help block the shot, then he comes in and he's great offensive rebounder. It starts with not containing penetration and then he comes in and does a remarkable performance. [Demontrae] Jefferson had a great game as well. We had to battle a lot of problems tonight with foul trouble. We actually made a run with four interesting guys in the game. We made a nice run there, so that was good to see. Happy with the victory, but when you can learn lessons in victory rather than defeat, like the Baylor game, it helps you a lot. I've been showing these guys clips three different times of Terry Rozier blocking out because that's probably, from a fundamental standpoint, our biggest weakness. Not the fact that they don't realize they have to block out, but the technique of blocking out is all wrong. It was good tonight because those guys got taken to the woodshed on the glass, and they'll learn a valuable lesson with all these great teams coming in. Who we're going to play coming up, it's a great lesson to learn. We'll do a much better job next game."

(On Jaylen Johnson being physical down low) "Jaylen's been battling a cold, a terrible cold, for two and a half weeks. He can hardly breathe. It's really affecting his running. We can't seem to get rid of it. In fact, every huddle we all try to get away from him so we don't die. It's been there for two and a half week right now, and I think that it's really hurting his conditioning. But you're right, he did a good job."

(Do you have a name for the lineup you used at the end of the first half?) "Not really, not really. Desperation, I guess. On the offensive end, I saw a lot of things were better. You score 100 points, you only turn it over nine times, you move the basketball well, from that standpoint we did a better job, but defensively we have just a long way to go. We're stopping people, but then we're not blocking out, so it's kind of shooting yourself in the foot if you play really good defense then you don't block out."

(Do you think this team will take care of the ball well?) "We'll see, we'll see. I keep saying this, I don't think people believe me what I'm saying, I really don't have a great feel for this team. I really don't. Wonderful kids, wonderful young men, who work hard in practice, but from one game to the next you don't know really who's going to play well. In practice, you don't know who's going to play well. Like Q [Quentin Snider] started out not playing well, then he got us the big run. Deng [Adel] played great last game, tonight he did not. You just don't know what you're getting. It's a lack of consistency at times. I just think it's young players who will mature and get better and the consistency will follow.

(Guards getting the ball into the post near the end of the first half and second half and attacking the basket) "I feel like every time you put David Levitch on the floor, your offense automatically flows because even when he has an open look at the basket he tries to get somebody a shot. He's smart enough to know when he shot fakes, he knows he's going to get somebody a shot. That's his whole mentality, there's nothing about him saying I have to have a great game because I have to get these scouts to look at me. He's trying to get Mark Casse to give him a job at the horse track."

(Scouting report on Demontrae Jefferson and did he catch anyone off guard) "Look, he was 10-for-30. That's not the worst defense in the world. 10-for-30 so he didn't catch us off guard. We tried to focus more on Zach Lofton to be honest with you, he's the leading scorer. So although we congratulate him on his 27 points he was three for ten from the three and he was 10-for-30. Now that being said you didn't realize he was 10-for-30 right? You were just looking at the 27 points. But Zach Lofton we did a good job on because he was one for seven."

(In terms of Jefferson's quickness) "They're all quick. With those guards what happens is they go by you and they get in the lane and they're 5-7 and here come the shot blockers and there's the offensive rebound"

(Assessing VJ King's performance) "We needed rebounding from him and he didn't give it to us. He's a good offensive basketball player, he just has to do more. He didn't have a defensive rebound in the game and he's a terrific freshman. Love his game, love him as a person, he just has to do more from a physical standpoint because you have to get in there and mix it up. Now sometimes when you're guarding a Zach Lofton or your guarding a guy on the perimeter, you're trying to stop the three. You're not in there to rebound as much, but tonight it was more, the one man getting beat, having to switch on the bigger guy and not blocking him out."

(When they cut the lead to nine in the second half, what was the key to that run at the end that put the game away?) "I think ball movement. Ball movement, lose balls. You know, conditioning plays a factor. You know this amazing thing is this team is going to play sixteen straight road games. I have never. I have seen a lot of road games, but I have never seen sixteen straight road games and if they stay together and get better, they are probably going to be a NCAA torment team because they will win their conference and they are playing the likes of Arizona and us. They were 4-4. LaSalle gave Villanova all they could handle. They beat LaSalle. LaSalle beat James Madison. They play Texas Southern. They have outstanding talent. Really good talent and then I love that Derrick Griffin because, we always have an expression as an offensive rebounder that you have to consider every shot a pass to you and he does. He takes it literally. Every shot taken is a pass to him. So they are going to get a lot better, but that many road games, I have never heard of that in my life. Sixteen."

(Coach, Matz had tough go of it early in the game, but then came back out and seemed to play a little bit better in his second and third runs. How do you feel about his play since Anas Mahmoud has been out?) "I wasn't too impressed with him tonight, but I have been impressed with him the last few games. Matz just stood there too much. You know I told him, 'God has blessed you with a seven-foot frame and a seven wing span and he expects you to use it" and he didn't use it. I was kidding with him and said "If you don't want it, give it to one of us.'"

(Do you think hitting a couple shots tonight will help Tony kind of feel a little more comfortable on offense?) "Yeah, I was planning on going with Tony more. In practice I wasn't planning to play Ryan today, but actually Ryan did a really good job on defense. I was quite surprised because we opened up with miss, miss, miss, miss, miss and putting Tony in instead of Ryan would have been in our best so I was really going with Tony first, but I'm going to play with him more at the one guard rather than the two. So I can get a bigger line up of Deng and VJ."

(Do you think early on you just settled for too many perimeter shots or contested shots or were they just not going in?) "Yeah, you know I didn't hit them with the press, which usually gets the flow going because they were playing two 5-6, 5-7, point guards and I think that's why they did that. The press and I just think we missed some good shots and wide open shots and that's why at that time, I put Ryan in the game, got some fouls, but you look at this game and look at the score people will say, Louisville blew them out by 31 points. We all know because we were here that didn't happen, but we are playing very good defense, but we are not blocking out and it is not me blocking out. I'm a power forward against my power forward. It the rotation switch and not blocking out on the switch guy. So we will get it. We will learn our lesson for that. They have a great deal of faith in our defense and tonight they saw a young man have 26 rebounds and that's going to bother them and they will do something about that in practice."

Texas Southern Head Coach Mike Davis

(Opening Statement) "We knew it was going to be a challenge for us, but what we wanted to get out of this game more than anything was to come out and play for 40 minutes. Demontra Jefferson (No. 3), he only practiced one day - yesterday - and so I wanted him to play for40 minutes to get his wind going, for the rest of our games. I thought we did a great job on the offensive boards, we got 30 offensive rebounds. [Derrick] Griffin had like 26 total for the game, but it was a good first half for us. But from a conditioning standpoint, it was tough for us to overcome them because Coach Pitino is one of the top five coaches in the history of the game and he gets his guys to play so hard. So it was a great game for us, so now we can go back and prepare for our conference by understanding the level of intensity and effort you have to give every night.

(You kept it close in the first half, but in the second half they pulled away, what do you attribute that to?) "They're just so physical. We knew it was going to be a physical challenge for us. Because of that, a turnover here, a missed shot here would've been different, but it would have been pretty hard for us to sustain our play for 40 minutes. This is why we play these games like this, because we want our guys to see the condition that you have to be in, how hard they have to push themselves. So when we get to our conference we can understand that and play with the same intensity we played and we can be a really good team in January and February.

(On Derrick Griffin) "He got off to a slow start this year, but last year I think he was second in the country with freshmen behind Ben Simons in double-doubles and this year I think he's at 11. He came last year from football field. This year he's playing with us the whole season. This was the game that I thought that he thought that we could have a chance to keep it close. He performed what he needed to do for us with 26 boards - that's big time. I wish it had been 30."

(How much of a lift Derrick Griffin provide to the team) "He was a great lift for us, because we got 30 offensive rebounds against one of the top teams in the country. And we've got Demontra Jefferson – this is his first game playing. He only had one day of practice, yesterday was his first day of practice. So he didn't even know what we were doing a lot of the time. He couldn't even practice with us until he got eligible to play. I wanted to just play him through all of his fatigue, I wanted to just keep playing him – because the only way you can get in shape is to play through exhaustion. So that's a bright spot for us at that position and he'll play with the other guys who will step up and make the plays they've been making for us. And for Griffin to have 26 rebounds somebody said that's the most in the nation this year – I didn't know that. To get 12 against this team is pretty good, to get 26 – that's amazing."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Jaylen Johnson

David Levitch

Anas Mahmoud

Quentin Snider

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