Louisville vs. Vermont Postgame Quotes

Louisville Head Coach Chris Mack

(Opening Statement) "I said before we even played Vermont, that we would be playing a team that wouldn't be phased by coming to a big arena and playing against a power five, power six conference team, and they proved that. I thought our team, for the first 32 minutes, played as well as we have all year against a really good team. Certainly, didn't hurt that (junior forward Anthony) Lamb was in foul trouble, but part of the way we play is to put fouls on the opponent and get the ball into the paint and he was a casualty because of that. So, I give our guys credit for putting him in that position. I take a lot of the blame for the last 7-8 minutes. In our quest to put in a lot of different things in such a short period of time, at least from where I sit, six months, whether it's our system on both ends of the floor, we haven't done as much as we need to do in time and score in situations dealing with post traps. Give Vermont credit, they handled being down like a veteran team. They didn't quit, they found a way to rattle us a little bit. It's disappointing because we had four or five turnovers with about five or six minutes to go, ended with 10. Like I said before, you can always take things, if you're a mature team, and learn from them and win. So, hopefully our team does that. I have a lot of respect for (head coach) John (Becker) and his team, how they play together, how they play the game, but I love our team and I think we're going to continue to get better.

(On defending Vermont's strong shooting) "Coach Mike (Pegues) had the scout tonight, and he said it, heck, five, 10 times leading up to the game, 'Anthony Lamb's going to hit some shots. He's going to hit some tough ones.' He can really use his body, he scores, he's a tough mismatch, and we just have to make sure he's earning what he gets. You can't go for a shot fake, you can't leave your feet and have him step through and get an uncontested lay-in. We can't miss him in transition—if we switch a ball screen, we have to make sure that there's a man matched up on either guy. And I thought for the most part, we were doing that. A couple of shots that Lamb made the first half, it's what good players can do. The one right in front of me, I don't even know how it hit the rim, let alone…didn't hit the rim. It went all the way through the net without touching it. I'll give him credit. He's a big-time player and good teams, good players can do that to you."

(On closing out games) "It's basketball. You didn't mention the game in between when we played Southern. It's just a part of basketball. Good teams make runs. We're a work in progress like every team in November, and I don't say that to down our guys, it's just reality. We're going to be a heck of a lot better in December and we're going to be a heck of a lot better in January and we're going to need to be if you look at our schedule. My concern is that I just have to educate our guys on what we need to do when we get post trapped because if (redshirt junior center) Steve (Enoch) plays the way he did, you're going to see a lot of that. That's my job to put those guys in the right position and we'll handle the end of games better."

(On Lamb getting into foul trouble) "When he's out, they are a different team. A lot of times they start running the Duncan brothers (Ernie and Everett) off screens, (sophomore guard) Stef Smith off screens, where when Anthony Lamb is in the game, they catch you with the elbow and they do the old pinch-post and really puts you in a bind. He fakes the hand off and he looks like Vlade Divac out there. I think if you go into the game and say, 'We're going to try to get a guy in foul trouble,' then he will end the game with zero fouls and it's to no avail. So, there were some things we wanted to expose, and I thought we did that. We drove the ball, we got good reversals on players we felt were quicker than our guys. We got the ball into Steven and he produced until they started trapping. We got the ball where we wanted on offense. We scored enough points to beat any team in the country. Now, we've to get better on the defensive end and ending games."

(On the performance of sophomore guard Darius Perry) "He's dynamic. He's probably our most explosive perimeter player with his quickness and his ability to shoot the ball. Again, Darius, he's a guy that I really have to take under my wing, and our wing, and teach him how to end games. Although he made a few plays down the stretch where he finishes in transition, I'd rather him pull it out and run clock in that type of situation—he almost got the ball stolen from behind. Darius is such a playmaker for our team and he needs to be. He needs to be a defensive stopper for us on the other end and he's more than capable of that. He is growing up. He was a freshman last year, so he's gotten a whole lot better from last year and I just think there's so much more we can get from Darius and we will get over time."

(On handling first-year teaching moments with his team) "It's just natural. I've only coached in four, five games, I guess, if you count the two exhibition games, so learning me, what I value—believe me, we're trying to infiltrate their minds in practice with all this stuff. There's nothing like game conditions and game situations. We've fouled now, I think, three three-point shooters in three games. We have to learn from those types of moments. That's just not acceptable to me and we have to rectify that. That's just one of the fouls and I find myself doing that a lot, but I'd also be lying to say that last year I just sat there on the scorers' table and watched our guys play, too. I think that's what your job is as a coach is to always teach and I try not to be just a history coach that just says, 'You should have done that, and you should have done this.' I've got to try to put them in positions before it happens."

(On performance of Steven Enoch) "He's a talent. He'll get so much better dealing with double teams. If he's not double-teamed, he's going to score on a lot of people. He keeps gaining game experience after sitting out a year. He's just going to keep getting more and more confident, and his teammates are learning how to feed the post so much better than we did four or five weeks ago. To answer your question, I told you in the very beginning, Steve isn't relegated to a five-foot chain around the basket. He can make free throws, he can step out. We need to do that on both ends because the game requires our fives to not just defend post players, but they must step out on the ball screen and be able to switch, to be on the perimeter some too on the defensive end as well."

(On ball movement) "I think anytime you score the amount of points that we did—we got to the free throw line. I thought we were moving the ball. We got to the free throw line an awful lot and made our free throws. Again, when they started post trapping, it gave us problems. But prior to that, I don't know what our points per possession was, but it was as good as you're going to find around the country, in terms of getting the ball movement that we had, the shots that we had. We had four turnovers, and in my opinion, that's pretty efficient."

(On Vermont's two-man game) "It's tough. They're very coy, they're really smart. If you overplay, they run backdoor. If you sag off, they pop back. If you try to whip underneath that little handoff, he pops back behind and shoots. Two guys run at him, they just hit him, and he rolls. They're crafty. I think their coach does an amazing job of sort of playing chess. He sees who is on who, and that's part of the game that we have to play as well. I thought we did well enough up until the last six or seven minutes. I blame more of our offense than, quite honestly, our defense."

(On performance of sophomore forward Jordan Nwora) "He's getting there. He's far from perfect. He's recognizing when he loses his man; when he doesn't stay on his feet. He's a big time offensive talent. My charge, and my quest, is to continue to help him get better, not just defensively, but offensively as well. Being ball strong if he drives to the basket; not using his off arm and getting called for charges. He can score the ball. We know that, and his teammates recognize that. Jordan continues to get better like most of our players."

Vermont Head Coach John Becker

(Opening Statement) "Tough game tonight. A lot of credit to Louisville, they played really hard and made everything difficult for us offensively. I thought we did a good job on their bigs, but I think (Jordan) Nwora and V.J. King were tough covers with their size and athleticism. We showed a lot of heart at the end there and battled back and made it a game, but we were on our heels for a good part of that game. A lot of that, I would have to credit Louisville for. We'll learn from it. We're a young team, we had foul trouble, they went to the line a lot and it's hard. I liked how we finished the game, and I like that our young guys got a lot of experience tonight. We'll watch the tape, and we'll get better."

(On the difficulties of Louisville's size) "They were really into us all over the court, and it made it hard to run our offense. I think it took a little while for our guys to adjust to the physicality on the perimeter. Again, that was an ACC team playing really hard. They've got a different level athlete at a lot of positions, so it's a good game plan by them."

(On the first four games and looking forward to the rest of the season) "I've been really proud about how we've competed every night, playing here in Louisville, playing at Kansas, tough road win at Boston University. We've been on the road three of the four first games with a really young team, a new team essentially. I've been really proud of how we've competed. We have a lot to work on defensively, we have to get a lot better. But we've found a way to stay in all of these games. I think this nonconference schedule is really difficult, we've just got to keep grinding away here. It'll be good to be home next week and play a couple of games at home, some tough games against Yale and Bucknell, but it'll be good to be home. We knew this was going to be a process. It's good to get it started, and we have a lot of stuff on film. I think we're going to be alright once we get to January and February."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Steven Enoch

V.J. King

Jordan Nwora

Darius Perry

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