Louisville vs. Southern Illinois

Louisville head coach David Padgett

(Opening statement) "Today is Kenny Klein's birthday, that's why we played so well, so happy birthday Kenny. We played well for 40 minutes, and that's what I told the guys before the game. I said 'We've played well in our first two games in stretches, 26 minutes, 28 minutes, but we haven't put together a complete, 40 minute yet.' That's what I wanted to see. Besides that, we harped on two things before the game - defensive rebounding and taking care of the ball. We out rebounded them by nine and only had eight turnovers to 18 assists. Our guys responded. They bounced back. Very, very proud of the way that they played tonight. We mixed it up defensively obviously more than we have all year. For the first time out I thought our zone was very, very effective. Obviously with our first five, they were more familiar with it, but even our younger guys came in and did some good things. Overall a good night and it'll make Thanksgiving a lot better moving forward."

(What made the defense so much better?) "I just think it was our mindset.. We wanted to play a little bit more zone against Omaha - we just, for whatever reason, probably my fault, we just didn't get a chance to do it. We hadn't worked on it a ton in practice. We spent a lot of time on it the last couple of days and just mixing it up. What we've always done here even dating back to when I played. A little bit of zone, a little bit of man, press just throw it in there and it's effective. I think what it really eliminated was what we struggled with against Omaha and George Mason. It was one-on-one from the top of the key getting beat off the bounce. I thought our guys did a very good job, and they showed some toughness on the backboard tonight. The first two plays of the game, I think, they got an offensive rebound. I told them in a timeout 'Look we're not having it anymore', and they responded and did a great job. If you can get Deng [Adel] with seven and VJ [King] with eight was incredible. Then Jordan [Nwora] comes in and gets eight and Dwayne [Sutton] gets six. You get those rebounds from your guards and it helps immensely."

(On the play of Jordan Nwora stepping up) "He has. The biggest, it shouldn't be a surprise, but the most pleasing thing to me about him is we know he can shoot, but he's really dedicated himself the last couple of weeks to doing more than that. He's mixing it up. He's getting in there rebounding. He's trying to defend much harder, and he is. He had a couple silly fouls where he just reached, but he's trying to do more than just shoot and he sees that if you do that it will get you more time on the floor. For him to come in and get eight rebounds was just critical. Our guards did a great job of rebounding. The most pleasing thing to me from a team standpoint was it was a team rebounding effort. It wasn't one guy with 14. It was everybody got in there and mixed it up."

(On the offense being sluggish in the first two games and how you counteract that) "A lot of it you have to give credit to the teams we've played. They've packed it in. They've kind of tried to take away our post-game, take away the paint, and make us kick it out for jump shots and we just missed some. Q [Qentin Snider] missed. He was 1-for-4 from three, but all four of his were great looks. If you guys came and saw us shoot the ball in practice, you'd be blown away how well we shoot it with everybody. We've got to continue to just take good shots. That's the biggest thing, just take good shots and they'll fall. Just playing unselfishly, continue to share the ball and they'll fall over time."

(What do you say to your team when they start the game with 14 out of 15 misses?) "Don't worry about it. Keep getting stops because there is going to be plenty of times where we're going to have games like that on the road. We don't shoot the ball well, but it's all about defense. Defense has been the staple of this program for a long time. It's great to see, and it's not surprising because our first five have been here, but they're not letting their offense effect their defense. They're continuing to defend and rebound. I just keep telling them look, knock on wood, for whatever reason just in the second half in this building we shoot the ball better in front of our bench, and I'm not sure why. There's probably no reason for it, but I just said at halftime 'Just keep getting good shots. They'll fall, but just keep defending and rebounding."

(On how well the freshmen played. They totaled 41 points tonight, it's so early in the year, just talk about their growth.) "I give them credit because, even a kid like Lance (Thomas) who obviously hasn't played up until this point didn't hang his head, came in knocked down a couple of shots, his first one right there at the baseline hit nothing but net and for a kid to come in who hasn't played in two games to do that shows a lot. They want to learn they just want to learn what they have to do to play and what they can do to earn playing time. They're always coming into the assistant coaches' offices asking them can we watch film, what do I need to do. It's really paying off for them. It's no surprise because they're great kids and they're competitive and they just want to learn what it takes."

(Have you thought about running some screen game for Lance Thomas to get him some more 3s) "I told him after the game, 'if we don't want our 3-point percentage as a team to be in the30, maybe we should play Lance (Thomas) and Jacob (Redding) a lot more because they were 3-for-4… That's just the way those guys shot the ball in practice. I joke all the time, Anas (Mahmoud) is not a 3-point shooter and I know Ray (Spalding) didn't look like one tonight with his in the second half, but our guys shoot the ball really, really well, we work on it a lot and we just continue to repeat it and the most important thing is to just take good shots. If we take good shots, law of averages will make some overtime."

(Do the freshman play together a lot in practice, because the last 7 or 8 minutes or so they were on the floor together) "The first couple of weeks, I'd say the first three or four weeks we mixed it up as much as we could just to keep it competitive. Once we got into the exhibition games around Bellarmine we started to separate them to have the first five against the freshmen and there were days where they'd get their butt kicked pretty good but they wouldn't quit. There was a stretch, I think it was on Sunday where they struggled for about 15-20 minutes and I think Greg (Paulus) or RJ (Evans) huddled them up and then all of a sudden they went on a run against the starters. That's just how they are, they're very resilient and it's good for them to get beat like that a lot in practice, because it makes them better. To play against guys who are experienced only makes you better and I think it's starting to pay off for us."

(There doesn't seem to be in any game, intimidation, but they come out and deliver) "They do. I don't know, I guess they're just not fearless. I think they just really enjoy playing. As a freshman you've never played in an environment like this before and once you've experienced it a couple times I think you really look forward to it and appreciate it. I think they just get excited for game days, and they just come in and have no fear. They come in and do what they do, they do what we want them to do and they seem to not be afraid of the spotlight. Obviously, we haven't traveled yet, not to get ahead, but I'm sure next Tuesday will be an eye-opening experience for the young guys. But so far they've been good when we put them in they've given us great minutes."

(Speaking specifically to Dwayne Sutton, what have you seen from him from his transfer year to this year. He's knocking down jump-shots, getting blocked shots, rebounds, he's doing a little bit of everything.)
"Dwayne is doing exactly what I knew he would do. We could put him in, he can play the 2, the 3, the 4 - he probably could even play the 5 if we needed him to in a pinch. He just plays every possession as hard as he possibly can. He's not afraid to get in there, he's a tough kid, he's strong, he gets in there and rebounds, he had six tonight, he had two assists, two blocks, and two steals. It was great to see him knock a couple shots because sometimes if you miss a couple you lose your confidence, but he's really worked hard to improve his jump shot. I hate to call him like a utility player, but he's just someone you can put in almost any position and he'll do something positive for you."

(What kind of things can you learn from those slow, grind out, dog fight game?) "Well we're going to have a lot of games like this, a lot of the teams we play in the league, a lot of the teams we're going to play coming up they're going to play like this and that's just how it's going to have to be. It's good for us to be in those positions and learn, and not like I said, over and over, not let our offense affect our defense. We have to continue to guard, we have to rebound, and eventually our offense will start to click. A lot of teams we play and a lot of teams we haven't played, almost all of them they're just packing it in, but as long we continue to take good shots and defend, I think we'll be okay.

(Darius Perry had seven assists, it looked like he could hand them out when he wanted to.) "The most pleasing thing to me was Darius at the beginning of the game, his goal was to try to get assists for other people. Sometimes if you're on a fast break you can go lay it in and try to score it yourself, but he wanted to find people. He probably does a good of job as anybody of getting in the lane because he's so quick and fast, and then he has a pretty good feel of how to find guys. We kept harping all weekend in practice 'just be strong with the ball.' Not only Darius, but everybody else I think did a good job when they got in the lane just being strong with the ball and not turning it over."

(Was there any pressure on the performance tonight?) "Not from us. We were 2-0 heading into this game, that the only thing that matters. The only stat that matters is the final score. We wanted to come and play well for 40 minutes, I feel like we did that for the most part. We just want to take it one game at a time and hopefully continue to try and put wins in the left-hand column."

Southern Illinois head coach Barry Hinson

(How surprised were you with your team's struggles with the press today?) "I was really shocked, I was surprised. The thing that I was surprised about, I'll tell you the two things, I'll just go right to it from our guys. We felt comfortable going in at half, we thought we had done a good job, and we had not shot the ball well, so we thought that we would make a really good run in the second half. We thought we'd have a chance, and our guys just quit. We quit in the second half and we were uncoachable. They wouldn't do what we asked them to do, and that's on me as a head coach. I promise you we'll take care of that before we get on the floor next time. The other side of the coin is you've got to Louisville credit. Everybody's been on them because they didn't beat Omaha or George Mason by a convincing amount. We knew we were going to get their best shot. We knew David was going to challenge them and that we were going to get them. We guarded in the first half. We guarded, we did a good job, we did a good job on the boards. The thing that bothered me more so than anything is how we shot the ball and how we turned it over. I didn't see that coming."

(What do you chalk up the shooting to? Was it Louisville doing anything in particular, or was it just a bad night?) "I think you've got to give Louisville credit. I don't want to sit here and make it anything like that. The bottom line is that we've got to get our two starters back, so we're going to be a much better basketball team when we get our two players back. The bottom line is they took advantage of what we did tonight, and I think you've definitely got to give Louisville credit for their length defensively. I think they challenged us a lot. It made us stagnant and we rushed our shots, but I think you've got to give Louisville credit."

(On his team's shooting) "That's the thing that bothers me right now and I just may have to change my quotes. I've said that this is the best shooting team I've coached since I've been at Southern Illinois, and I may have to take those words back. We'll wait and see what happens, but I still think these guys can shoot. We haven't in the last two games. Our numbers are atrocious. We'll just try to get up and practice some more shots."

(On Louisville giving up sizeable leads in the second half against George Mason and Omaha) "We were kind of counting on that, but at the same time we knew that David had challenged them over what had happened in the previous two games. None of that was a surprise. The surprise was that our guys just quit playing. That really shocked me. I did not see that coming."

(Being able to play against a power five team and play in an arena like this, what does that experience do for your guys?) "I think most of the time playing in an arena like this and an experience playing people like this can give you a boost, but I don't think there's anything positive out of tonight. I don't think there's one thing we can take out of this game and say that it prepared us or helped us."

(What did you like out of Rudy's performance?) "That may be the one positive thing we can talk about. Rudy played 20 minutes, and I thought he played pretty good for us and handled the ball. Put him in some situations defensively and offensively that he hasn't been in lately. I thought Rudy had to be our player of the game."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Jordan Nwora

Darius Perry

Dwayne Sutton

Lance Thomas

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