Quick takeaways from Pitino's Friday Q&A
Rick Pitino held his first pregame press conference for local media since Dec. 12 on Friday, and it was chock full of updates on Louisville's 2014-15 team.
Let's get right to it. I'll do some shorter bullets instead of three longer items.
On Chris Jones: Pitino says his 5-foot-10 point guard received the message after Pitino didn't start him against Long Beach State in the wake of the whole flopping ordeal. Jones played nine minutes in that game. "He was embarrassed," Pitino said, especially by Jay Bilas's comments during the game broadcast. Louisville's coaches are also working with Jones on taking smarter shots. He's 6 of 36 on "off-the-bounce" jumpers this season, meaning fallaways and dribble-move shots. Pitino wants his point guard to dribble out of those situations and move the ball, and then take advantage of his open looks. But, Pitino said, Jones has issues listening, and it's a work in progress.
On Terry Rozier: Louisville's other primary guard is on a run of late, averaging 21.8 points, six rebounds and 2.7 steals per game over the last six contests. Pitino attributes the 6-foot-1 sophomore's improvement to his "professionalism" and ability to take coaching once and make the adjustment.
On Montrezl Harrell:
Pitino said his 6-foot-8 All-American forward was embarrassed by his one-game suspension and his involvement in the WKU scrum two weeks ago, and that it's affected his mindset. Beyond that, Pitino said, Louisville's working with him to take his 3-pointers and jumpers later in possessions instead of hoisting them up early on in the shot clock. "He needs to get back to playing his style of basketball," Pitino said.
On Anas Mahmoud: Louisville's 7-foot, 200-pound freshman big man Anas Mahmoud needs to get up to about 210 pounds by Jan. 15, Pitino said. That's two days before the Duke game, though I didn't get the sense that that is anything other than coincidence. Pitino said Mahmoud's the only young player on the team who seems to be mature enough to take coaching and work at improving both on and off the court "like a man." Pitino's been surprised by Mahmoud's contributions this season. "He was the one guy I told, 'You're 95 percent going to redshirt.' I didn't think he could physically compete," Pitino said.
On Shaqquan Aaron: The 6-foot-7 freshman probably won't play much 2 going forward, Pitino said, mostly because of Aaron's defensive struggles against smaller, quicker players. He appears to be more comfortable as a small forward backing up Wayne Blackshear. The Seattle native is up to 177 pounds after arriving on campus at a meager 165, and U of L wants Aaron up to 185 in the next two weeks.
Quick layups: Pitino says incoming freshman Donovan Mitchell is an example of a high school freshman "who's going to be mentally ready."Pitino talked at first about playing in the ACC for the first time, but his scouting process will go one game/one opponent at a time instead of a pre-conference-type preparation. With freshman guard Quentin Snider, Pitino said he's got "to live with his defense" and let him go on offense, comparing the young Louisville native's development to that of one Russ Smith, at least in terms of accepting one weakness in exchange for his strengths.