Eastern Kentucky vs. Louisville Postgame Quotes

Louisville vs. EKU
Dec. 14, 2019 | KFC Yum! Center
Postgame Quotes

Louisville Head Coach Chris Mack
(Opening statement) "A really funky way to play a basketball game. We haven't seen 40 minutes of pressure, 40 minutes of changing presses, and random traps. Coming off the heels of our game against Texas Tech, one of the bigger concerns that we've had as a coaching staff is just to make sure that we take better shots, we take better care of the ball, and make more passes. We are a little bit more patient in the shot clock, but then you come into a game like this, and sometimes you have opportunities where you get wide open looks. We just wanted to make sure that we didn't settle for the first shot or the quickest shot we could get and I thought some of our guys made some really good decisions. We weren't perfect, but I thought we made some really good decisions. Jordan [Nwora] had a wide open three in the corner and eyed the rim, little shot fake, and had a dunk. Ryan [McMahon] did the same thing where he generated some looks for our team by getting the ball into the lane first against their pressure. To go 22 assists on 34 field goals, I think our offense took a step forward tonight regardless of competition or the style of play, that we played against. Defensively, without watching the film, I didn't think our effort was poor. We gave up way too many offensive rebounds. I think that they also hit some contested jump shots, which is going to happen sometimes. I thought we got better over the last couple days and we're going to continue that improvement here until we play Miami Ohio on Wednesday night."

(You hit on it a little bit already with getting the ball in the lane, but it seemed like that was also happening in a variety of different ways. You were having the guards driving sometimes, sometimes it was a pass into one of the bigs on the low block. How happy were you just with the adversity that you showed and confidence?) "I was happy that we got the ball where you talked about right in the lane. I think Steve [Enoch], obviously, was crazy efficient. He's had those type of shots before and I don't know if I can remember him going 90% from the field and we gave him an awful lot of opportunities and attempts. We got drives to the basket, we shot the ball really well at the free throw line. We wanted to turn their pressure into fouls. And we also got some guys like Dwayne [Sutton] and Jordan [Nwora], some buckets in transition around the basket, so it was good. That's what I want out of our offense, to create looks and then really start by getting the ball in the lane first."

(You said yesterday you were able to get [David] Johnson in the game for a lot more time. What did you think of his play?) "Good and bad. He's a freshman. It was just a weird game. Not a lot of teams play the way Eastern Kentucky plays. But that's good for David, to have those types of experiences where they have a smaller guard up under him. Not only is he dealing with his primary defender, they're randomly running and jumping. He made some turnovers in those moments but he also did a good job with the accelerator on. He got to the rim and made some plays. Sometimes you have to go through some both positive and negative experiences on the game floor to be better the next time. So I like what David did today and I think he's only going to get better and better."

(It seems like your defense was communicating and more fluid than it has been in recent times, even though they were hitting those contested shots. Has that been a focus as of recently?) "Yeah, I thought we lost our defensive intensity as we became impatient against Texas Tech. That's got to be our identity. We have to be a team that gets out on the floor and gets out of a break because of our defense. They did scramble and I am not happy with them getting 16 offensive rebounds. A large amount of those were long ones that they were tracking down. I think they have some really good team quickness, quite honestly. We have to be better than 16 offensive rebounds. I thought our defense, again, without watching the tape, I don't think it was an A+, but I also don't think it was the C-range either."

(How much of the trap and the press did you expect to see from EKU and what kind of adjustments did you make?) "We expected to see exactly what we saw. That's what they've done every game. They've picked up full court. They change their looks. Sometimes they'll run and jump. Sometimes they'll go two-two-one. Sometimes it's really hard to tell the difference. I thought our guards, for the most part, did a pretty good job really having never seen that before."

(You're 11 games into the season, one-third of the way through the season. What do you like about what you've seen about your team so far through those 11 games? What are the things you need to see from here?) "Well the thing I like is that we're a team that learns. We try to correct the things that plague us. Tonight we shared the ball like we did through the first five, six, seven games. I thought our offense was much better. You look at Steven [Enoch] and Jordan [Nwora] and how efficient they were, and that's going to be important as we play better defenses and better teams. I do think we've been a really solid defensive team all year. It has to continue to improve. Tonight we gave too many offensive rebounds and turned the ball over a bit too much, but part of that's the funky style that Eastern Kentucky plays."

(To go back to David [Johnson] and his play, throughout the course of about six games he has only played about 29 minutes and he got a bit more action. You said you saw some good and bad, but how pleased were you to see how poised he was, even if he had a bad turnover or something like that, he went back and just played defense?) "I am really pleased. One thing David has, that he's always had, at least ever since we started recruiting him, is a very calming demeanor. He's very even keel. He doesn't get too high, doesn't get too low. It was very frustrating throughout the recruiting process because I never knew what the hell the kid was thinking, but that's a good trait to have on the basketball court. He's not going to get rattled. He may turn the ball over, but I think that's a little bit more of just learning to play at this level versus nerves. That's a really good to have is poise as a freshman."

(Did you talk to [Jordan] Nwora individually after his game at Texas Tech?) "I talked to all of our players individually and as a team."

(What was your message to [Jordan]?) "I didn't have to talk to him one-on-one to get the message across. He forced his offense and took quick shots. He has to understand he is circling every scouting report and we're also going to run stuff for him. When he takes those shots, we're not a good team. He understands that. He's a smart kid who has come a long, long way from a year ago. You see how he responds. He gets 26 points, but he doesn't shoot 24 times to get it. It says a lot about his maturity, his coachability, and his talent."

Eastern Kentucky Head Coach A.W. Hamilton

(Watching Louisville on tape and then seeing them in person, what do you think?) "I understand why they are the number one team in the country. They have a great team and a veteran team. They came in and they were hungry today. I think that they responded and played a great game. We did some great things, but they got a little bit more talent than us and they are tough to play at home."

(If you lock in on one or two things about their team that differentiate them from people, what would that be?) "I just think they have an older team. They have a lot of veteran guys. I think those guys understand their roles. They understand their identity on offense and defense. They are going to win a lot of games and they are going to have a chance to win the National Title."

(What were some of the things they did to slow down [Jomaru] Brown?) "Sometimes, Jomaru slow himself down. When they plug gaps, he's got to dribble and kick the ball out, and sometimes he slows himself down by taking hard shots. I thought he did some great things. He had a positive assist to turnover ratio, we're excited about that and we will build off that."

(Talk about putting your brand out there with all the other Kentucky schools. What does it do for your program to put yourself on a national level like this?) "It is so important, we to recruit our state. It's really important for us to recruit the state of Kentucky. I'm biased, I love Kentucky. It is one of the things that I am most proud of being a Kentuckian. It's great for us to have the opportunity to play Louisville and play on the ACC network. People around the state could have watched us play today."

(First start today for Michael [Moreno], how did he do?) "Michael Moreno is doing an awesome. Michael Moreno would be a completely different player if we had him all summer and all preseason in the conditioning. He's coming off a broken foot, but he's responded and doing great. He's going to be a big time shooter, he's going to be a big time player for us."

(What does it say about your team that you have now played two top ten teams? What have you learned about your team?) "The thing I loved about us tonight, when we faced adversity we kept fighting. When we faced adversity against Kentucky we kind of laid down a little bit. We played for 40 minutes and we were scrapping. We fought and I was proud of our guys for that."

(Just want to get your thoughts on Jordan Nwora?) "He is a superstar. He was ACC preseason player of the year. I think he's living up to it."

(You've got a little homecoming on Thursday, how much you are looking forward to that trip?) "That's going to be a great trip but look, we get past exams. Now we can get into more practice time, more weightlifting time, and kind of invest a little bit more in basketball. This will be a great week of practice and a great opportunity to play at Marshall."

(You hung with them for a while, is there anything they did or you didn't do?) "We could not capitalize off some turnover that we forced. We missed some shots that we know we can make, but they're hard to defeat. There's not a lot of room for error with them. You make a couple of mistakes then they can go on a 10-0 run on you in a second."

(What do you guys go from here, team wise?) "We are young. We have seven freshmen and sophomores. We're young, we're getting better. We showed some great improvement the last two games. We're going to be fine. I'm excited about this group, I'm really excited about this group.

(How does this kind of environment here help the young guys get ready for a big test in the OVC?) "All of these games are helping us get ready for the OVC. The OVC is a great league and it's a tough league. We played a challenging schedule and I hope it pays off once we get into the league."

(What kind of improvements have you seen in team?) "The thing I like the most right now is our ball movement. We got the ball from side-to-side. Early in the year we were playing on one side of the floor and now we're getting better ball movement, better ball reversals, we're sharing a little bit better. Then we come up with 16 offensive rebounds, I was proud of that."

(What about the defense that you guys played tonight?) "We press, that's what we do. It's hard to press those guys sometimes because they're so big and they can throw it over the top of you. We did some good things. We've got to get better at guarding the basketball. Just guarding the ball. If you can't guard the ball, then somebody is going to beat you, it's hard to win a game."

(What about the post? What did you see from your post?) "I loved the post. I love Darius Hicks, I love Tre King, love Michael Marino. I thought those guys were warriors tonight. We're going to feed off that, that was good for us. We needed them to get going. They got going. That was good for us."

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Jordan Nwora

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