Louisville vs. Boston College Postgame Quotes

Louisville Head Coach David Padgett

(Opening Statement) "Lesson learned. First-time head coach. I probably should've waited a little bit longer to empty the bench a little bit there, which is part of this learning process. I thought our guys played very well in the second half defensively. Obviously, Deng (Adel) came to life at halftime. No, I didn't say anything magical to him. He just took it upon himself to try and win the game for us. We did a good job of rebounding, defending, and then, getting out on the break. I thought Deng, obviously, was aggressive scoring, but he did a great job of trying to facilitate, try to find guys…second half, it was very, very good to see. I'm happy with the win."

(On pushing pace after halftime) "Their guards are very potent offensively, you could see that. The first half—we actually chart this—they were 6-for-6 every time we let them go to their right hand, going towards the rim. And we said that at halftime: try to force them to their weak hand as much as you can. They may score a few times, but we'll play the percentages. I thought we did a good job of making them go left. We just did a good job of rebounding the ball, which enabled us to get on the break, get some easy ones. Ray (Spalding) obviously had a couple big deflections there, we had some deflections that helped save a couple baskets. But, overall in the second half, our defensive effort was pretty good."

(On Boston College's late run) "Look, you can probably sit up all night and try to figure out why it happened. They hit some threes that they weren't able to hit. We got lost a couple of times on defense. I'm not sure, I'd have to look at it first. But again, lesson learned. We executed our "late-game situations." Guys stepped up to the free throw line. I think we made all of our free throws down the stretch, except one, so that was good to see."

(On Jordan Nwora's recent performances) "Well, he's practiced well. Even before Notre Dame, he was practicing well, and then, they went zone. Obviously, we know Jordan's ability to shoot the ball, and they did the same thing tonight. They went zone in the first half. He's been practicing well the last couple of days, and he's been shooting the ball well, defending, rebounding. So, he's learning that if you practice well, it carries over to a game. That's something guys always need to keep in mind, even older guys. His energy's been good. He's been letting the game come to him and not trying to force things. His hard work is paying off."

(On Nwora needing good practices to earn playing time) "The last two games, he's played very well when he's been in there. He's given us a spark offensively and defensively. Tonight, him getting five rebounds in 16 minutes is obviously very good. He just needs to come in and do what he does, and not try to do anything he's not capable of doing."

(On play of Malik Williams) "In the second half, I thought he was very good. He also had five rebounds, which is good to see defensively. He got beat one time there in the second half—he let them go right, which we talked about. But then, the next couple times, he did a good job of making them go left. Our freshmen are getting better. Even Darius (Perry), whose stat line doesn't show a lot, but defensively, he created some havoc for us. It doesn't show up on a stat sheet, but, our freshmen are getting better. They're working every day, and I think they're starting to see the rewards of that hard work. They're continuing to practice well in those kinds of things, and it's helping us as a team."

(On Jordan Nwora not playing in three straight games before Notre Dame) "We spoke. We met. He came to me and said 'what can I do to try and get on the court?' It's hard to play 10-11 people on a consistent rotation. Unless you're a team like West Virginia, where you press the entire 40 minutes. It wasn't even so much what he wasn't doing well or what he was doing wrong. It was just other guys in front of him were playing well. Deng (Adel), VJ (King), Ryan (McMahon), those guys were playing well. Dwayne (Sutton) was playing well. And like I said, what I told him, was you've just got to stay ready. You never know when an opportunity is going to present itself. Sure enough he comes in at Notre Dame and gets us back into the game, and tonight comes in and helps us get back into the game and helps us win it. It's just part of the learning process of freshmen in college basketball."

(On team's depth in wearing down Boston College in the second half) "Our bench does a very good job. They come in and they focus on playing defense. That's what they need to do. Offense will take care of itself. We just try to- tonight it was Q (Quentin Snider) at 30 (minutes). I'm not looking at the stat sheet saying 'I don't want a certain guy playing this,' it's just a feel thing. Obviously the one lineup we had in there with Dwayne (Sutton) and Ryan (McMahon) and those guys got us going, but our bench has just been pretty productive for the most part every night out. And that's something that we need to have to be successful."

(On Deng Adel in the second half) "He was just aggressive. He rebounded- I don't think he had a rebound at halftime, but I could be wrong. He finished with 10, nine of them defensive. He got out on the break. We're at our best offensively when we're able to get a stop, a clean rebound, and we can go, because Deng (Adel), VJ (King), Q (Quentin Snider) and those guys are really good in the open floor. Tonight it showed. He (Deng) was just being aggressive. He wasn't trying to be superman or anything like that. Five assists is great to see from him, and when he plays like that we're a pretty good team."

(On Deng Adel's consistency lately) "You know, Deng's been around. He's played enough. He played enough as a freshman, and I know he was injured, but then he played a lot last year and obviously he knows. He's old enough. He knows that if he's not doing something he should be doing it, and he knows that if he's doing something well to keep it going. He's playing well, trying to make everyone around him better. When we play unselfishly, get the ball in the lane and drive and kick it and do those types of things, we're pretty effective. Our guys seem to be doing that more consistently now than maybe we were earlier in the year."

(About when Malik is the only big guy on the floor with Anas and Ray on the bench) "Well it is not, it is no knock on Malik, it is not something I want to see a lot because that means we're in foul trouble, but you know tonight there in the first half he did a very good job. If Malik can defend and rebound, which he seems to be doing, the rest of it will take care of itself, he's shooting the ball with more confidence, he's taking good shots, you know obviously he was two for two from three, both were very good shots. Like I said these freshman are working hard and they're starting to see the rewards of that hard work they are putting in every day."

(On the biggest difference between now and Kentucky loss and what has been the change) "You know I've been asked that a lot and I really don't know. I don't have a simple answer to it, I've said this before, I don't want to say Kentucky was a wake-up call for us because we played very poorly, they played very well and it was just a horrible day on the basketball court. Now with that being said, the three days of practice after that before Pittsburgh were three of our better practices, we responded from a bad loss and you know we came out, played well at Pitt, and even the game at Clemson, even though we lost I think our guys saw going on the road against a Top 25 team we played well enough to win the game and when we play hard and defend, you know we'll be right there. Obviously, getting the Florida State win kind of just got us over that hurdle, and you know it's just we got to focus on being a good defensive team, our offense will be fine. We'll have games where we can't shoot the ball well and that's just where we got to rely on defense and our guys have just been working extremely hard in practice every day and we're playing well because of it."

(Can you talk about how tough the league is? You're at 5-1 and moving to that next segment.) "Well I just told Bob, with the exception of my wife and kids I probably would've sold my soul to be 5-1 if you would've told me that back in November after six games. You know look, we're very happy, obviously, but with that being said we can't be complacent. We don't want us to be satisfied because then we won't, you know we won't succeed more, so we got to look at this film, say 'what did we not do well'? Look to improve and you know our schedule obviously gets tougher every single night. Playing at Miami is a very difficult place against a good team, and you know our February schedule is even more brutal, so we just got to take it one game at a time."

(Now that the game is over, who are your Super Bowl picks?) "Well I know who Greg (Paulus) is pulling for because Doug Marrone is who he played for at Syracuse, so he's obviously pulling hard for Jacksonville, but you know man it's tough to go against Tom Brady, but you know we'll see, I'm not a big NFL guy, but kind of excited to watch those games."

Boston College Head Coach Jim Christian

(On what enabled Boston College to make their final run at the end of the second half) "We finally made some shots, that's what happened. You can't win on the road and go 8-for-29 from three with 16 turnovers. So up until that point we had some shots – and their length bothered us a little bit, especially around the rim - we didn't make extra plays or draw enough fouls, but we made shots at the end. Those were shots we had early, we just didn't make any of them. They were from good shooters, we're a good three-point shooting team. For us to win with our limited depth, we have to make shots, and we didn't make threes today. Sometimes it's that simple.

(On Boston College's road losing streak) "I don't care about historics. It means nothing. We have a totally new basketball team. We have some good teams. We've played at Virginia, we played them to one. We played at here, played them to whatever, four final. This isn't the NBA. If it was the NBA, you have the same guys year in and year out, you can talk about cycles. I'm building a program, and building a program is establishing winning at home. We're 10-1 at home. You're establishing opportunities to give yourself a win in a very difficult league on the road, that's what I'm doing. Historically means nothing, those are all stages of the process of rebuilding."

(Is the next step then, to be able to pull out a game on the road?) "We're trying to do everything that everybody else in this league is trying to do. There's nothing we're not trying to do that they're not trying to do. I'm sure if you ask David (Padgett), he would tell you winning on the road is huge in this league. So that's the next step for anybody trying to get to the NCAA tournament. We're no different than anybody else. We don't worry about anything that's happened. It's all part of the process and now we're trying to, this year, give ourselves the best opportunity. A win on the road today would've been a great opportunity for us."

(Coach, you guys kept Deng Adel pretty much blank in that first half, what did he do during the second half to get more active?) "A lot of transition passes. He's really good in transition, so there's a lot of long missed threes when he was able to get the ball up the floor and make plays. He's really, really good in the open floor. In the first half we were able to limit those opportunities and in the second half we did a poor job of that."

(Was there anything they were doing with (Jordan) Chatman or (Ky) Bowman defensively?) "They were not leaving. So when we were driving the ball downhill, Jerome (Robinson) was able to get downhill in the first half. He was really, really sick today… he almost passed out in the first half. So he was able to get downhill and they were not leaving those two guys, so they're going to make us finish around the basket, which he did a great job early. We did a poor job late.

(Which was sick?) "Robinson. He left one time, we had to get a sub after the whistle because he was puking on the bench."

(Is tempo important to you to kind of keep the pace a little bit slower? Not to get into that up-and-down game?)
"It depends. If we rebound ball, we like to go because our guards rebound a lot so it's good for us to create opportunities. They did a really good job of bottling us up in transition. They do such a great job of back-tipping the ball, so they got us early with that and then we were probably a little more tentative of pushing the basketball. We want to run. Nobody knows it better than you all. My first year here when (Terry) Rozier and the other guy, they played 39 minutes night. Your body gets used to it. Your game gets used to it. That's what happens. It's hard to wear our guys down. They don't usually get worn down. When they're physically ill - there's nothing we can do about that."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Jordan Nwora

Quentin Snider

Malik Williams

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