Hard-working Snider paid dues, came up big

Mangok Mathiang sang with a cheerful voice, dancing and bobbing his head as he serenaded freshman point guard Quentin Snider. It was off-key and goofy, a tune heavily influenced by Mathiang's accent, which is a combination of Australian, Sudanese and a dash of the American he's picked up here over the past four years or so.

It's not uncommon for Mathiang to sing in the locker room after a win, or shout to his teammates in his best, full-on Aussie impression. But Wednesday's night tune was dedicated to a young player who hadn't been the subject of Mathiang's crooning in previous months.

Quentin Snider sat in his locker-room cubicle, grinning and shaking his head as Mathiang, a 6-foot-10 redshirt sophomore, sang. Snider, a freshman point guard from Louisville, had just played a key role in the ninth-ranked University of Louisville basketball team's comeback 69-56 win over Pittsburgh at the KFC Yum! Center.

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His numbers were humble -- four points and two rebounds in 15 minutes -- but they were important. The 6-foot-1 Snider was at the center of Louisville's 22-2 run that turned Pittsburgh's 45-39 lead into U of L's 61-47 going-away victory.

He splashed one jump shot, then, 90 seconds later, corralled a loose ball, dribbled through midcourt, pulled up on the fast break and splashed another.

Yes, this was the same Quentin Snider who hadn't made more than one field goal in a game since Dec. 30, the same Quentin Snider who rarely utters more than a few words in media interviews.

That same guy was oozing that enough confidence to pull up and pop a fast-break jumper in the middle of a critical second-half stretch. He even ran back out of the locker room after the game to do a "star of the game" radio interview.

"That was my first time," he said, grinning. "I was like, 'Oh, wow.'

"When I got that first bucket, I got more confidence in myself."

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Wednesday's performance didn't exactly come out of nowhere, at least if you ask U of L coach Rick Pitino or any of Snider's teammates. Pitino has raved time and again over the past few weeks about Snider, saying the former Ballard High star has "tremendous work ethic."

Snider said Wednesday that playing head-to-head against Louisville's star guards Terry Rozier and Chris Jones has taught him countless lessons.

"It's called paying your dues," Rozier said. "You've got to wait your turn. Q works hard every day. He never takes a day off. He never gets frustrated. Guarding Chris is tough, especially in practice. He works hard. He wants to be good. It came out tonight. He's learning. He's learning fast."

To the outside world, and particularly some antsy Louisville fans, the Cardinals' young players like Snider aren't learning fast enough. No one aside from Jones, Rozier, Wayne Blackshear and Montrezl Harrell scored a point in the past two games, and the anxiety about U of L's bench had reached a fever pitch.

Who knows if Wednesday's performance from Snider, who scored half of his team's eight bench points, will quelch those concerns.

But it most certainly warranted Mathiang's music, even if the song was woefully off-key.

Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).