Louisville held their final red/white scrimmage and to no surprise Montrezl Harrell led the way.
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And your postgame quotes from Rick Pitino:
(Opening statement) "The score was a little closer at the end. I was disappointed in the way the red team ran their offense. They stood around and dribbled too much. Their effort was very good. I haven't seen 30 offensive rebounds, which does not bode well for the blocking out by the fours and fives on the white team. But the white team ran their offense better and that's why they won. They shot 55 percent to 35 percent, like I said, for the red. At the end, the white didn't execute their press offense and that's why the other team came back in the game. The other night I thought we played okay and then I watched the tape of the game and we did not. We played very poor defensively. We'll watch this right after this and determine how well we did defensively. Most of the time you can tell, offensively, what you do, but defensively you need to break down the tape to see the rotations."
(On how the white team was able to shoot effectively throughout the scrimmage) "Well, they got a lot of layups, too, which helps. With the exception of their press offense, they moved the basketball better. Chris (Jones) dribbled too much. Chris tried to win the game by himself, just with great heart and will his team back. But this is exhibition basketball; it's not only about winning, it's about executing your offense. He wanted to win very badly, but he did it in the wrong way."
(On if the team is as far along defensively as he had hoped) "Well, again, I have to look at the tape but you have to say that it's not the freshmen, it's Montrezl (Harrell), and Anas (Mahmoud), and Matz (Stockman), because the four and five for the red team had 20 offensive rebounds. Now maybe we were rotating and the guards didn't block out, I'll have to look at that. It's not just the young guys. Most of the young guys aren't going to play. Although we're mixing it up right now, you'll see more of it in the Barry scrimmage, more of our rotations. We're not going to play a lot of the freshmen because they're not physically, and mentally, not ready to play."
(On if the team's veterans have helped the young players develop more quickly) "I think we've got some good veterans, I don't think we've got a veteran team. I think we've got a few veterans. That's the weakness of the team right now; we don't have enough veterans. But the guys we do have- Wayne, Montrezl, and our backcourt- they're really good basketball players. The four of those guys have been through it. They know what it is to win conference championships, they know what it is to go to Final Fours. The problem is there's only four of them. They're going to play, unless they're in foul trouble, they're going to play the bulk of the minutes."
(On what he'd like to see accomplished before the first exhibition game) "We're nowhere near where we need to be. I mean, this is the weakest, physically, we have been in the last four years. From a physical standpoint, we're very weak right now. We've got to improve in those areas. Anas and Shaqquan (Aaron) both can play the game, but where they struggle is physical, like, you'll see Shaqquan, although he shot well tonight, he had one rebound tonight. He picks up his dribble every time he comes off a pick-and-roll because he's not strong enough to get in the lane and take the punishment on a little bit. He's not using his 6'7 frame to do good things because his physical weakness. We've got to work on that. We've got to get him up eight to ten pounds, we've got to get Anas up eight to ten pounds, and see if they can play this year."
(On Shaqquan Aaron) "He's improving. He's getting better - especially defensively, because he and Quentin (Snider) really struggled early on, defensively. He is getting better."
(On if he likes playing with a 30-second shot clock) "I do. It doesn't bother us. The red team dribbled too much, and that was a problem, but I do like the 30 seconds. It's kind of strange. I like women's basketball, I think they're very good at what they do from a passing, shooting, skills. It's fun to watch woman's basketball, but, if they can play with a 30-second clock, how can the men not play with a 30-second clock?"
(On how Akoy Agau has played since returning from injury) "Akoy's problem is he's missed so much. He really is still a freshman. He's missed more practice in two years than any player I've coached. So, it's always something injury-wise. It's tough to evaluate him because he's never practiced. A lot of those guys, like Jaylen (Johnson), he's got to get more athletic by getting his body fat down, where the other guy's got to gain it. So Akoy is the same way. He's really tough to evaluate because he's never practiced."
(On the team's on-court communication) "I think Montrezl was doing a good job. One thing we want Montrezl to do, we played him a little bit tonight at small forward. Montrezl is one of the brightest guys on our team. We just said, `Look, we're going to play you a little bit at the three today,' he nearly picked up every play and knew what to do. He's going to play some three, but what he's got to understand is that he needs to shoot more jump-shots as a four, than he should as a three. Because at a three, he should punish the smaller player inside, and that's the one thing. He's got to get it to where he's 75 to 25 inside, so he doesn't take away that dominating presence inside. He did a much better job in the second half of that. But those four guys are all going to play a lot of minutes. They're going to be very tired. That's why we didn't press as much in the second half, is those guys have to play from 32 to 38 minutes a game, because our bench is just not going to be there until sometime in January."
(On if the team is ready to face "some new faces" against Barry in the first exhibition game) "Not at all. I think it's the opposite. I think this team needs a lot of practice, a lot of work, a lot of skill development, fundamentals. So no, we're not tired of each other at all. That's true sometimes, not with this team. This basketball team needs practice, practice, practice."
(On Anas Mahmoud's play on Sunday) "I think Anas has good skills, but his deficiencies are from a lack of physicality. He's got good skills. He's smart enough to, you tell him once `Don't bring the ball down,` Matz brings it down every single time he catches the ball. Matz, you know, it's Halloween. I think he's afraid of the rim. I'm going to dress him up in a costume of a rim."
(On Terry Rozier becoming a major contributor) "Well I think, it's a subjective thing with all coaches, they all love their own players, and I won't say our back court is the best in the country, I just say I won't trade our backcourt for any backcourt in the country. I think Montrezl Harrell is one of the premium players in the country and I wouldn't trade him for any player in the country and I think Wayne Blackshear is a consistent performer, night in, night out, does a lot of good things. We have a culture here. I'm really, really doing everything humanly possible to play for the front to win, whether it's a conference championship, whether it's the NCAA. Unfortunately, we have six-seven players who don't understand that culture at all. So until those young guys learn what were all about, not so much plays, not so much offense and defense, it's all about giving every single thing you have. Like Chris Jones did not play well tonight, but he gave every single thing he had to try and win that basketball game. He did it the wrong way, but he did everything possible from that standpoint, and that's what we got to get all those guys to be able to do, to play with his type of fire. So he's come a long way, from going from a good freshman to one of the premium backup players in the country, is a quantum leap."
(On how hard it is going to be to instill that culture in the new players) "I think it's very difficult. Now, if you're physically ready, you don't have to worry about that, so then you just try and get them mentally ready. But when you're not mentally ready, not physically ready, and you don't know the culture, it's very difficult. It's very difficult on Anas (Mahmoud) and Shaqquan (Aaron), but they're great guys and they're also very talented. And I say this only by guys who I think are very good basketball players, so I'm not talking about role plays, but two of the guys in the last 12- 13 years that have had the poorest freshman seasons were Peyton Siva and Russ Smith, guys that could play. They have had as bad of a freshman year as any player I've coached here that was a player. And they ended up two of the premium players to play here, so I don't concern myself too much with that, but Russ wasn't physically ready and Peyton was, but they still had very poor years, but they evolved into outstanding basketball players. I think a lot of these freshmen. I don't know which ones, are going to evolve into outstanding basketball players and it's all going to be - do they have the Peyton Siva Russ Smith heart and buying into that culture. Those two guys bought in as much as anybody, and evolved into All-Americans."
(On thinking about redshirting any guys) "You know, Matz is not ready to play college basketball, because his background playing in Norway, you see he wants to play in the perimeter and pass and cut and he shies away from the rim. I'm not being facetious when I say that, if any player had that type of size, all they'd be looking is 10 on the rim on every play, so he needs time. I don't know, because he's very smart, whether he's going to evolve in three more weeks. I've seen in one week's time, Shaqquan (Aaron) improved a lot, so you just can't gauge improvement sometimes with these guys. Like Anas (Mahmoud), he's very smart, he's studying to be an engineer, and so you only have to tell him something one time and he picks it up right away. I don't know if Anas can get... 10 pounds just makes him look like he's not going to disappear, it doesn't make him look like a strong basketball player. But we've got to get him 10 pounds just so he's not punished in a game. And that's 210 pounds, seven feet."
(On finding guys with heart and passion for the game) "I don't want to talk about this recruiting class, that I may be very excited about because I can't mention names, we probably concentrate on that, what you just mentioned, this year more than any other year I've had. We felt, when it was all said and done, in the last three years of having the most wins in the history of the great tradition, you realize why; Luke Hancock, Stephen Van Treese (selfless player), Russ Smithand Peyton Siva, Gorgui Dieng and all those guys, they just bought into a culture, just had great heart and we realize now, that has to be a premium for us when were not only evaluating skill level and attitude, but were evaluating that heart. I can't say right now, I know the class that we'll bring in this year will have that, over the top have that. This class, I can't say because they're very quiet, they're very shy and very meek at times, and you really can't tell. It was so obvious tonight that Chris Jones wanted to win, so badly. Didn't do a great job of knowing how, but he just wanted it. When you get guys like that, you have a great chance to win."
