CARDINALS

Quick thoughts on Pitino's ACC tourney preview

Jeff Greer

Louisville Courier Journal

Feb 28, 2015; Tallahassee, FL, USA; Louisville Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino during the game against the Florida State Seminoles at the Donald L. Tucker Center. Mandatory Credit: Melina Vastola-USA TODAY Sports

Well, first of all, the biggest news of the day, at least for Louisville basketball and its coach, Rick Pitino, is this:

Pitino has agreed to be Puerto Rico's head coach this summer , and his U of L team will play Puerto Rico's national and junior teams in the Bahamas in mid-August. Click that link, then come on back for some Louisviile hoops/ACC tournament chatter here ...

OK, welcome back. Three quick thoughts from Pitino's press conference:

Preparing for the ACC tournament: I find the scouting practices of coaching staffs to be pretty interesting, so I asked Pitino how his team and staff will scout potential opponents for the ACC tournament. If Louisville wins twice, it'll play three games in three days.

"It could happen this way, it could not happen -- we could possibly play North Carolina, Virginia and Duke if we were to be successful and get to the final," Pitino said. "That in itself really, really has got me excited, because that's about as good as it gets."

He later said he preferred getting a double bye for scouting reasons. Louisville now has Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to scout, practice and walk through what it might do against either UNC, BC or Georgia Tech. Pitino said he and his staff lean heavier on scouting the team they think they'll play, which, in this case, is UNC.

"We've already scouted these teams from playing them," Pitino said. "You can't deal with much game film at that point because you have less than a day of preparation, so everything is based on eight-to-12-minute edits of everything the other team does ... Sometimes you try to concentrate on who you think is going to win. This time around we'll do the same.

"Everyone was asking why it was so important to me to get this double bye. It really wasn't because of playing four games vs. three, because sometimes I like to do that. It's more because you get three full days of preparation, where Carolina gets none, or the winner of Georgia Tech-BC (gets none)."

Late-game scenarios: The late-game situation on Saturday went according to plan, Pitino said. Louisville wants the ball in sophomore guard Terry Rozier's hands with the game on line, and from there, he can attack, look for his shot off the dribble, throw an entry pass to Montrezl Harrell in the post or find Wayne Blackshear on the wing.

We saw the Blackshear option at UNC -- he missed a 3 from the corner. We (kind of) saw the Harrell option in the other UNC game, though Louisville doesn't want him shooting a 3 if he has a better look. Then we saw on Saturday what Louisville does if all three of those options aren't available. Rozier was cut off and doubled by Virginia, and the screener became the best option with three seconds left. Pitino said he would've been comfortable with Mangok Mathiang or Anas Mahmoud in that setting, but not Chinanu Onuaku.

Conference tournaments and why Pitino likes them: Pitino said he's always loved conference tournaments because he loves the competition.

"I think it prepares you for the NCAA," Pitino said. "The more games you play, the more I like it. You get more experience watching things, working on things."