Transcript: Pitino's NC State preview
Louisville coach Rick Pitino spoke to the media on Friday, updating the status of small forward Wayne Blackshear (more on that here) and previewing his team's 4 p.m. Saturday game vs. NC State.
Here's the full transcript, with the video at the bottom:
Opening statement: NC State has as much athletic ability as you'll find in the ACC. They're quick, they're long, they're big, they're great in transition. Just finished watching the Virginia game and it could have gone either way at the end of the game. (NC State) missed a layup that would have tied it. So they're a very difficult team to prepare for because you can't concentrate on any one area; they can beat you so many ways. They shoot long threes, they have a terrific post-up player with a 7-8, 7-9 wingspan, 300 pounds, and then they have a great guard in Cat Barber and guys on the wing who can shoot the three. It should be an exciting game because both teams like to run and transition defense will obviously play a big role.
On Wayne Blackshear's hip pointer: He's not ready for contact. I would say he's about 60-70 percent back, according to (trainer Fred Hina). Whether he'll play tomorrow, I'm not sure. The normal thing, 'Oh, he'll play,' I would lean the other way. It's a hip pointer and they're not easy. He still was grimacing with certain moves. So we'll either go a number of different ways, but we'll see what happens.
On if Shaqquan Aaron would replace Blackshear: Not really. We may have to slide Terry over to the three because he rebounds so well. That could be, but I'm not sure. We'll try (Rozier) in practice today to see if he can learn the plays at the three spot. The one thing Terry will do is rebound. Shaqquan hasn't shown any great prowess for rebounding, and neither has Anton. We know Terry can.
On what U of L loses with Blackshear out: Wayne doesn't rebound that much, so it's not like we're missing that much rebounding. Wayne just gives us all the other things we can't replace -- the physical nature of the way he plays.
On NC State attacking Louisville's void if Blackshear's out: They're tough in every area. They have a great low post game, great dribble penetrators, they're very fast, they're long.
On NC State's defense: They play hard defensively, they're very active and Cat Barber is one of the best I've seen on film with drawing charges. He was that way in high school too. He'll take two slides and it looks like a freight train hits him. He goes flying over when you barely touch him. He's great at drawing charges and he's got very quick hands with incredible lateral movement as well.
On Chris Jones's response to being benched in the second half: He's fine. Everybody has a bad game. Chris has made a tremendous change for the better since he's been here. We call it being a Louisville man -- respecting everybody, playing hard, have great integrity and all the things we preach that are all over our walls, he's trying to become.
His last hurdle is, when he's not playing well, to not blame referees, control his emotions and understand it's the person in the mirror. Or, what I tell him, the best way sometimes is give credit to the other team, the defense they're playing on you, because what our players don't understand because we prepare so hard, they don't understand what's on the other team's blackboard. Especially in the first five minutes of the game, because the great players don't try to score ... like the Durants of the world don't try to get 10 points in the first five minutes.
Everybody knows they're going to try to lean on Durant, lean on Westbrook or lean on LeBron. So they create movement to get an offensive rebound, to get out on the break, and they let the game come to them. Chris started to force things right away. He doesn't understand they took the Virginia tape and said, 'This is the way we're gonna play Chris Jones.' He hasn't figured that out yet, that every opponent is different, and let the game come to him.
At one point in the game, he had a wide-open three, didn't take it, ball faked, so you think, 'okay, he's gonna go in and get the mid-range shot.' But didn't want it; he ball-faked and then took a step-back challenged three. These are things, he hasn't come full cycle yet, but he's getting close. He's been playing great and he had an off game, so rather than get emotionally upset, he should have said, 'Hey, they're playing great defense on me, it's not my night.' But he hasn't evolved into that person yet.
On the Pitt game: I think the will to win was great. I think this team is getting very consistent, one of the more consistent teams. They take care of business the same way every night. They don't always play the best basketball and we have our challenges like every team has, but they're very consistent.
On Anas Mahmoud becoming more physical: It all depends ... if you're playing against Kentucky or Duke, Anas can't play. But if you're playing against Pittsburgh with 6-8, 6-9 guys, even though they're strong, he can use his length. It all depends on who you're playing. He'd have a very difficult time with the young man from NC State. Now, that doesn't mean we won't try him. All these freshmen -- I'm not sure about Matz yet because we haven't played him too much -- but all these freshmen are going to be very, very good basketball players. All of them. Jaylen Johnson is going to be very good, maybe the best of the lot. They're all going to be terrific, but it takes time because they're either physically weak, poor fundamentally, they don't have a great work ethic yet. They all have different stories, so when all those things evolve, they're all going to be very good. This is a very good class. You wouldn't think that because of the amount of minutes they play, but that's because of Chris, Terry and Montrezl.
On if Mahmoud is getting stronger:
Well he's a lot stronger in the weight room and he's 207 pounds now. He came in at 189. All we can do right now is stop him from losing weight. We give him shakes in the morning with 800 calories and at night with 800 calories and this is all nutritious stuff because it's put together by our nutritionists, so it's all healthy things.
On Mahmoud's ideal weight:
I think 230 would be great. I think Gorgui got up to 240. But, you know, I think by his junior year he could be 230. What we'd like to do next year is get him up to 218, right around there. It's the lower body. Like, if you look at Mangok's upper body, he's really muscular, really built. But his lower body is the reason he doesn't have any weight. So it's something we can do. But Anas can play two positions. He can play power forward, because he shoots it and passes it — he's a great passer. You haven't seen it yet. He's a great passer. When we put in our high-post action, he's like a David Padgett, who can shoot. Now, he's not David Padgett yet, back in his heyday, but he's like that. He really understands how to pass the basketball.
On Quentin Snider:
You know what's amazing about Q, he has not fear at all. Like I said to you many times, he's the only player on the team that from the first time we started practice in August till now never had a bad day of practice. Now he's played bad defense, but not due to a lack of effort. So he's the one guy that has given great effort every, single day, and not taken a day off. So it's pretty good for a freshman. So you see his improvement. And he really has no fear out there. He came in, you'll notice, he's penetrating right away, he's looking to do things, he just, I know he's going to be steady. He's not going to get us into trouble. Chris was getting us into trouble in that game. He was not going to do that.
On scouting conference opponents:
When we prepare for an opponent, we'll watch every conference game. If it's 16 tapes — we all have different things to look at. I look at the overview, Wyking is looking at their man offense, Kenny is looking at their press offense, Mike Balado is looking at how they're going to attack a match-up zone. I'll look mostly at our offense and how to attack their defense. And we'll put it all together. I'd never done it that way until the last three years, and it's worked out the best of any time before. It's the best system that we've had, because everybody is totally tuned into every opponent, not just their opponent. It's been a great system for us.
On passing that info to players:
One thing you have to understand is -- you have to have slippage. You know, they're not going to get every little thing, so repetition is the key to that. Like tonight, we'll just show them an edit of their zone offense. Last night we showed them their man offense. You try not to go more, I always tell the story about Hubie Brown, with pros, said you can't go more than 16 minutes. And we always go 10, 15 or 20. He had it down to 16. I said why? He said the pro athlete can't pay attention for more than 16 minutes. So we try to take Hubie's thing and go no more than 16 on edits, all the things they do, and individual players. Then tonight, before we have our snack, we watch a half of a game, so they get a total feel. So tonight we'll watch the second half of the Virginia game, so they have a good feel.
On game-day prep:
We have our walk-through. Then we take all our edits, right before the game, of everything, and they probably pay attention to about 70 percent of it, because that's a long edit, but it's repetitive, and they're getting all hyped up, their mind is starting to wander, but they're paying attention, and they'll get about 70 percent of it. Now, Montrezl gets it all. And believe it or not, Chinanu gets, he's a Montrezl waiting to be. He's very, very good with scouting for a freshman. A very, very intelligent kid.
On a New York Times story about the Arizona State students and how elaborate the lengths they go to to distract shooters:
You know, it probably would distract people. On television it's distracting. I'm not sure about the free-throw shooter. Is it working statistically?
They claim it is.
I think everybody in our arena is too busy getting a cocktail. All of a sudden, I come out with two minutes to go (till tip) the place looks empty, like we're going to have 7,000 people in the building, then by the time the starting lineup lights come on it's jam-packed. I mean, I always say, this is the thirstiest city in America. Led by our SID.