Louisville vs. Eastern Kentucky

Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino

(Opening Statement) "We started out a little slow because we broke down on what we practiced. I think that gave the other team some momentum and confidence, but once we move the basketball, once we stay with our principles of what we wanted to do, we played much better. I thought we were going to set a record number of deflections tonight because we had 46 with 9, 10 minutes to go, but we obviously took of the press and didn't get very many. We finished with 49, which is excellent, but I thought we were going to have the highest total of any team I've ever coached, so that was good. Still have a long way to go. Still make a lot of mistakes, a lot of poor passes. Our bigs bring the ball down in traffic too much, rather than pass it out or chin it up, those are all fundamentals we've got to get, but we're taking baby steps improving, and that's what you want to see."

(On what the record for deflections is) "The championship team had 54 once, and I thought we were going to get it tonight."

(On the number of shot blocks the team had) "When we get Anas [Mahmoud] back, we're a better shot-blocking team. Ray [Spalding] and Anas are the two best shot blockers on the team. Sometimes when you play bad defense, you get the chance to block a lot of shots and that's what happened quite a few times, but this team [EKU] is much smaller. That's not going to happen in the next few games, but we are a good shot-blocking team."

(On Donovan Mitchell's game) "He did a good job and I wish Deng [Adel] would get Donovan's mentality on the three-point line. I think if he misses a couple it bothers him. It doesn't bother Donovan at all. He'll just keep shooting, and shooting, and shooting and that's what I want to see out of Deng because it's okay to drive and try to get layups, but if you've got a wide-open shot after a ball movement, you've got to take it. But I thought tonight Quentin Snider made us all better. He made us better. We changed the angles of the pick-and-rolls, he got into the lane, he did good things and found people. That's the best game Q's played because he thought of a pass before a shot for the first time."

(On Quentin's 8-0 run and how it changed the game) "Well, he took good shots. A couple of times he'd go into the lane and he'd take bad shots, but we need Tony Hicks to play well, and he did tonight. Some of those turnovers really weren't his. It was Matz [Stockman] on the one play and then Ryan [McMahon] bringing his guy into him on the other play, so he's doing a better job in practice and because of his speed, he's got to play a lot."

(Are you more pleased with the passing?) "The passing was good. The blocking out still has a ways to go. Our four presses has a ways to go. This team's going to be very good toward the middle of the season, but we don't have time to wait until the middle of the season because the next four games are the toughest stretch I've had since I've been coaching, with the exception of when I coached the Knicks."

(Elaborate on changing the angle of the pick-and-roll.) "Yeah, so let's say I'm going to set a screen over here, and what they do is they down the pick-and-roll. The guard jumps out so you don't use it, and the big guy's there. So you've got to change the angle and screen this way, so he comes off and goes down the sideline. About 50 percent… about 80 percent of the teams in the NBA down it, pick-and-roll on the side where the guard jumps out and the big stays like this. You've got to change the angle of the screen, and that's something we started doing in the second half, and Q [Quentin Snider] started getting in the lane and creating shots for people."

(On Mangok's passing) "Yeah I thought, take away the first five-six minutes of the game, and we played good basketball."

(How do you keep your team motivated and keep them from looking ahead to the next four games?) "What I basically told them was 'Look, we've got to take a portion of this game, and we've got to say that's Kentucky.' Eastern Kentucky pushes the pace. I said 'I've never seen a team push the pace as well as Kentucky does since North Carolina.' It looks like, we'll find out today at 5:45, it looks like they (UK) push it even faster than North Carolina. What's impressive about them is that they pass the ball up the floor so quickly and then they finish so quickly. They're great runners, so we wanted to play good transition defense to get ready for that, but we didn't look ahead. We didn't work on Kentucky or Virginia or Indiana or Notre Dame. The interesting thing about all four of those opponents is how incredibly different they are. They all play such a different style. To go from Kentucky to Virginia is like going from Miami to Minnesota. Then Indiana, of course, is the most different, and then Notre Dame's normal except you've got to go to their place."

(On looking at the rivalry games through the perspective of his foreign born players) "Well, you'd have to ask them that because we haven't talked about Kentucky too much, but you'd have to ask them that. I don't know what their perspective would be."

(On in general the intensity of a rivalry game) "I think if you said to Anas [Mahmoud], 'Anas, Kentucky - their fans don't get married on a game day and they don't have funerals on a game day, he would find that a little different."

(On sprinkling in a dose of reality) "Yeah. I think that. I think that he would find it a little different than what he's used to. And Matz [Stockman] I'm sure would find it a little different."

(On what he likes about foreign players) "I like foreign players: everyone I've had. The thing that sticks out, and what we strive for at all times, and I tell them this, 'the greatest killer of potential is ego: in business, life, and in sports.' Greatest potential killer is ego. I always call it edging greatness out. So the foreign players all come in so humble and they're education means so much to them, so they're great students, they're very humble. The difficult thing is like Matz [Stockman] this is all so different for him. In Norway, what's the big deal about missing one pick-and-roll on defense because in Norway it's not a big deal; here it's a big deal. So it's getting him used to this basketball culture that takes time. With that being said, Gorgui Dieng, when he was here, he told a story to the team,' I came here to learn, academically as well as athletically'. So he told the guys, 'Some of you guys make excuses for your mistakes, then you don't learn from it.' He said, 'I came here to learn the game of basketball.' Because when he came here, he couldn't shoot, he couldn't dribble, he couldn't pass. Great feet because he was a soccer player - they're all soccer players except Matz is a handball player. I thought handball was, growing up in Manhattan, Queens, where you slap the ball against the wall, but that's not handball in Norway."

(What's going to be the focus in practice before Wednesday?) "Well, they're a great transition team. I don't know… I'm not in the NBA anymore, but they've got three guys, if I was still drafting, I'd put those guys, I think I'd take their point guard maybe number one or two in the draft. I recruited him. I love him as a person. I love him as a player. They've got three guys, and that's not their only three players, that are probably going to go top 10 in the draft. They're very well-coached. They play excellent defense. They shoot it at certain positions. It's going to be a really tough game, but the whole four games is going to be a tough stretch. We could go four-and-0 or 0-and-four, who knows."

Eastern Kentucky Head Coach Dan McHale
(Opening statement) "The first 10 minutes was fun. I really thoroughly enjoyed the first 10 minutes and then they just overpowered us. They are who they are. I'm proud of my guys. When I look back I really only have two guys who played Division I basketball last year. So to see my five freshman... to see Dillon (Avare) playing at a higher level…. To see them grow up is going to be fun. We know what type of team we are. We're a team with two overtime losses from being 8-3 going into the game, and going out to compete the way we did tonight was fun. But we've got to learn. My freshman guards have to learn. I could tell them until I'm blue in the face that you can't drive it in on the best shot blocking team in the country, but until they get swatted like they did… Hopefully they see it for themselves, but they've got to learn. We've got a really young team and I'm proud of the way we didn't quit but obviously Louisville is a different animal."

(On what contributes to Louisville's runs) "They just suffocate you with pressure, and then you start getting on your heels and you go from an eight-point game to a 20-point game very, very quickly and you can only burn so many timeouts so… I've been on the other side of those runs and they're a lot more enjoyable than that. Like I said, we are who we are right now. We're a young basketball team that needs to learn from our mistakes and really grow up. We'll be ready come conference play."

(On what they learn from this game) "I was happy the way they didn't come out star struck. And that's what I told them. I said, you took Auburn - we outplayed them for 30 minutes - and let it slip away. We were up 27-12 against Texas Tech, so we had been there before. So I was happy we came out fighting and wasn't passive. I think the last time I was on that bench I was with Seton Hall and we were down 18-0 to start the game, so I didn't want that. But, they just have to learn you can't compound mistakes. You have to have an erase it mentality. If stuff's not going your way, if you get your shot blocked, if you're not getting a call, it can't snowball. And it snowballed a little bit tonight. So, we'll be fine. We'll grow up quickly, with one senior, two juniors and the rest of the young guys, we're going to be there."

(On Louisville's defense and what makes it good) "Their length. Their length causes you to take shots that you don't want to shoot. When guys keep getting in the lane and keep getting their shot blocked, eventually they're going to understand that you just can't get in there. Then they force you to shoot challenged 17-footers and they're such a great rebounding team that you're really not going to get a second chance at it."

(On what he will show his team from the game film) "With such a young team and a quick turnaround, we play Monday, I've got to make sure that this doesn't affect us on Monday. So, we're going to learn from it and I'll probably sit one-on-one with certain guys and show them what they need to embrace. But, we won't watch a lot of the horrific stuff that happened. I can't kill a young team's confidence because like I said we were playing really good basketball. We had a monumental win against Western Kentucky. It was the first time Eastern had beaten them in 29 years. Then we followed that up by beating Marshall the next day. So, we're a good team, we're just evolving right now and I can't let a loss like this snowball this team."

(Louisville's next game is a rivalry game. You just talked about your rivalry game, Western/Eastern. How big was that to get a win in that game?) "That was great. I told our guys, they'll never be able take it away from us. It had been 29 years since Eastern had beaten Western and we outplayed them, we were up 26 with three minutes to go, so we know what we are capable of, we really do. Rivalry games are great. I'll be in New York, getting ready to play Manhattan on Thursday, so I'll be sure to watch that game on Wednesday."

(On Nick Mayo- what has it been like to coach him?) "He is a special kid. He really is. He is only 19 years old. He has put on 20 pounds of weight since he's been here. He was first team all-league last year, rookie of the year. All the accolades, but he is just scratching the surface. He's got great poise and he really didn't show it tonight to be honest with you, but he is a special, special player that's only a sophomore. Like I said with him, with (Asante) Gist and some of the young guys, I am really excited about where we're going."

(On DeAndre Dishman) "Dish is getting better and better. 1 for 7 [tonight]... He missed some bunnies around the rim, but he is 6-foot-6 and he is going up against 6-foot-10, 6-foot-11. He plays a lot bigger than he is. He's got huge potential. Last game, he and Marlon Adams combined for 23 and 11 together. Dish is going to be a guy that's going to force, especially come OVC play. He is your typical OVC undersized big man that is going to have a great career for us, but I love coaching him. He's just scratching the surface."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Tony Hicks

Donovan Mitchell

Quentin Snider

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