ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 13, 2025

Pat Kelsey

Noah Waterman

Terrence Edwards, Jr.

Spectrum Center

Louisville Cardinals

Postgame Press Conference

Louisville 75, Stanford 73

PAT KELSEY: First thing I want to say is, I want to acknowledge Kyle and his team at Stanford. They played a whale of a game. That was a heck of a college basketball game. We just played them a week ago, maybe less than that, and give them a lot of credit for how they responded to that loss, the adjustments they made, how hard their kids played. They played their hearts out. They competed.

They deserve a lot of credit. I wanted to say that first and foremost.

Obviously, being down 15 points with 11 to play is the epitome of your back's against the wall, and I've been saying all year long how lucky I am to have such a veteran-laden team, so much leadership within our team. I didn't have to say much in the huddle. How these guys responded to that adversity was amazing, and I'm very, very, very proud of them.

In the first half, I really think Stanford was the aggressor. I think they were the harder playing team. We challenged our guys at halftime to -- we pride ourselves in our rebounding, in offensive rebounding. We challenged our rebounders to go attack the ball, Noah being one of them, and he did a great job on the glass. James Scott, I thought was a huge catalyst. I think we had four offensive rebounds in the second half. Ended up with like 12 and 9 or 12 and 10. That's what Noah had. I think J'Vonne Hadley was making tenacious hustle plays. He was being a menace on the ball.

Then obviously, Chucky and Fat made huge plays, Terrence, his voice was louder than anybody in that huddle at that 11-minute mark and just made some dynamic plays for us that really ignited us and sprung us to a victory.

I'm proud of our guys. We've got to recover quick. We're going to find out who we play about midnight, and guys are going to get back to the room, rest up, and we'll start preparation for our next opponent right away.

Q. Terrence, you took the shot there towards the end. Noah, you were down there fighting for the rebound. Can you both kind of take me through that final possession from your perspectives?

TERRENCE EDWARDS, JR.: I could say credit to Stanford. They came out in some weird thing where they jumped Chucky and kind of took us out what we was going to run. We was able to stay poised, and like Coach said, our guys in the second half was like dolls on the glass. So I knew I had to get it up. Like James Scott told me, put it on the rim, I got you. He was telling me that the whole first half, and we was kind of playing how we were supposed to play.

Once we trusted him, he was able to get 12 and 10. So that was great leadership from him for being so young and trusting him.

Yeah, we just got it on the rim, James Scott, Noah and J'Vonne was down there fighting, and they was able to deflect the ball to Chucky, and Chucky just do what he do.

NOAH WATERMAN: Kind of like he was saying, we had a little play drawn up, and then they kind of jumped us out of that. We weren't ready for that.

I thought his shot was going to go in. I'm going to be honest, I believed everybody on the team, so I thought it was a buck. But we always got to crash the glass, and it was definitely big time, James, just who he is. He always gets offensive and defensive rebounds. He's always big for us like that, and he tapped it right to Chuck, and like he said, that's Chucky.

Q. When you got down 15, it looked like you were able to do some things offensively. Looked like you got really aggressive. Did they do anything defensively different or did you read that because you got two straight baskets and chances at and-1 and you really start taking the ball to the basket strong after that?

TERRENCE EDWARDS, JR.: I can say it shouldn't take for us to be down 15 to come out and play like that. That's how we play from the jump. Got to give credit to Stanford. They came out and hit us in the mouth, and they switched out some things we didn't go over that happened so quick we couldn't talk about.

Like Coach said, just credit to our team. We know what we want to do. Once we have a goal set with the team, and the culture is going to take care of itself. We just stayed together. Nobody argued when we was down 15. We just stayed together. We knew we was going to walk them down some type of way.

Q. For the two players, Coach said he didn't have to say much in the huddle and praised the leadership of the veterans here. What was the communication amongst the players when you guys were down 15?

NOAH WATERMAN: I mean, Coach always tells us just stick together. Play us, 40 minutes. Everybody knew that. I felt like we weren't worried even when we were down 15. We have a veteran team, and we were just telling each other, hey, let's just be us, let's not worry about the baskets, let's not look at the scoreboard. It's all about being us for the next 11 minutes.

That's what we did, and we came out with the dub.

TERRENCE EDWARDS, JR.: Like Noah said, we got great coaches. So once we lead like that, it makes it easy for them. Just draw up what they draw up and try to fix things. I feel like in the first half, they did some things that we had to just fix and play our style on defense, blow things up. But they had counters for that, too. We were just able to stay together, like Noah said, nobody argued, nobody left. Everybody just stayed together and hold each other accountable.

Q. You said at the 11-minute mark, I can't remember if you said it was Terrence or Chucky that was really vocal. What was their message that they were vocal about?

PAT KELSEY: Well, it started with, the politically correct term was, a little aggressive counseling by PK for about the first 30 seconds. But I didn't have to say much after that. They kind of took over the time-out.

We just always say no matter what the scoreboard is, whether we're up 15 or down 15 at those media time-outs, it's 0-0. We just said, we're playing uncharacteristic, our discipline is waning. I don't think our communication was great on the defensive end.

Then they came out of that and responded, and it was some of the best defense we've played of the entire year, just getting those stops and guys stepping up and making plays.

Proud of them for their resolve and how they fought. Down the stretch, we were up seven, whatever it was, with two minutes to play and had a couple empty possessions and a turnover. But we were just fortunate. I've been doing this a long time, and I've been beat at the buzzer before. The basketball gods tend to even them out at some point.

Somehow that ball slipped out of hands and landed in Chucky's hand and he shot like a papa shot shot, it went in. I always say, just like Noah Waterman made one earlier in the year when we played Eastern Kentucky, Chucky is going to tell his grandkids about that shot.

Fortunate to advance. We're going to play a really good team regardless of which team wins tonight, and we've got to prepare.

Q. You won ACC Coach of the Year. Take us through your thoughts on that. Afterwards, there was a lot of comments back and forth about maybe other people should have won it. Do you pay attention to that kind of stuff or what's your thoughts on it?

PAT KELSEY: No. I don't pay any attention. Obviously, there's a bunch of coaches in this league, several that could have very, very, very easily won that award. My mom did send me the one little graphic that, I think it was Duke sent out, but I read all the stuff that they had on there, and I was like, holy crap, that's pretty impressive, maybe he should have won it.

I don't know. Those don't matter. All that matters is fighting with this team to try to win a championship. We're very fortunate to advance, survive and advance is what they say in tournament play, and we're fortunate to do it.

Excited to find out who we're playing. It'll be a sleepless night, but it'll be complete adrenaline.

This is the most fun time of the year. March is college basketball time. College basketball lovers all over America saw a thriller tonight, and again, we're fortunate to advance.

Q. We got the players' thoughts on the final few seconds, but I wanted to get your thoughts and what was going through your mind as the clock started to tick down to zero.

PAT KELSEY: Well, like the guys said, they ran two guys at Chucky, right, so we had, like, a play designed to Chucky lead the play and try to get him -- they're no dummies. They know Chucky is our go-to guy, so they trapped him, got it out of his hands, threw it back to Chucky. They ran at him get. So got the ball to Fat, Terrence. We call him Fat. He's been one of the best guards in the league over the last six, eight games. He's averaging like a million points, and he was a huge catalyst tonight.

I feel just as comfortable having the ball in Terrence's hand, and then he shot a tough contested shot. To be honest with you, I agree with Noah. It looked good when it left his hands, and I'm thinking no way we're going to win on a double clutch, top of the key hot contested shot, and sure enough, we didn't.

But then the ball pops around and -- the other thing that went through my mind when there was that little scrum is oh, my gosh, we cannot foul. We foul 90,000 feet from the basket, they go down there with .4 seconds on the clock, make two free throws and it's over. The ball kind of squirted out and landed in Chucky's hands, and there wasn't anybody within four feet of them. Literally, it was just like pop-a-shot, I don't even think he jumped. It was just like a little push shot. It left his hands, and I knew it was going in. It was a little bit surreal. The guys start running all over the place.

I just kept my composure. I didn't know they were going to check the clock, whether it went in or not, whether there was going to be more time on the clock. And they looked at it and said, bucket good, game over, and it was crazy.

But those are tough, man. Thinking about those kids in that locker room at Stanford and Kyle, who's a class act, that's a tough way to end your season. I've been on the other end of it, like I said. But we're very fortunate and lucky and excited to advance.

Q. This is your first year at Louisville and also the first year for a lot of your players. Has it been kind of an advantage that a lot of the players you've got are fourth and fifth-year players that maybe have made plays like this somewhere else and now when you need them to make them, for you, at the end of the year, they're able to step up and do it for you?

PAT KELSEY: Yeah, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure statistically we might be one of the most -- the oldest teams in America, the most veteran, most experienced teams in America. We've had our fair share of adversity with injuries and things like that, and our rotation is much shorter than it was earlier in the year.

But we recruited winners, guys that are battle tested, guys that come from winning programs, guys that came into our program at places that were very, very well-coached.

I've told people in the Louisville media several times, like, the first workout we had on June 6th, it was pretty clear that we had a very, very high basketball IQ team. I started talking about concepts and putting stuff in and they were like, got it, got it, got it.

It is, it's a smart, savvy team and a bunch of winners.

Q. Reyne sat out again tonight. I was trying to get your thoughts on how he's been doing since we last spoke after the game last weekend, and do you foresee him playing tomorrow maybe?

PAT KELSEY: I mean, it's literally day-to-day. Obviously, he wants to be out there so bad. He's as tough of a kid as I've ever coached. The type of ankle sprain that he has, kind of the high ankle sprain type, they're no fun.

He's getting treatment, basically, around the clock, and then each day we see how he progresses.

Got the word mid-afternoon that he probably couldn't go tonight, but I don't know. You've got to ask the medical people. But we don't know. We'll see.

Q. You were down 14 or 15 points and then you were up eight with a minute 30. What's the conversation at both of those points on your sideline?

PAT KELSEY: Well, I think there was one time-out in that little 1:30 where we had a chance to get organized, talk about what we were doing defensively, what we were going to run offensively. But we handle those situations better than that normally, being able to get stops, take care of the ball, execute, put the game away.

But you give them credit. They didn't lay down. They continued to fight, made a couple really tough shots, got an and-1, got a turnover. They were gritty today. They didn't lay down. When we got up eight, they continued to fight. We were fortunate to have the shot go in at the end.

Q. As best we can tell, James Scott pokes that ball out of there if he did, and if he didn't, it's the kind of play he makes anyway all season. What does he mean? He keeps getting his hands on balls and 100 other things.

PAT KELSEY: We're that type of team. We've got a lot of guys like that. I mentioned J'Vonne, how hard he played in the second half, Noah. James is beloved, I think, by our fan base because they really respect guys that hustle, guys that play hard. James has a motor that never, ever stops. He leads the country in fists given. That's a Dean Smith thing. Like, when you're tired and you're exhausted and you can't play anymore, you turn to the coach and you give a fist and that means, Coach, get me out.

Most people don't want to come out of the game, but he plays almost until he blacks out, and he looks over and his knees are wobbling and he goes like this. Hey man, we've got to get James. We got to get him out. So he's out. And then he's out, and then he's out for about 30, 45 seconds. He looks at you, I'm ready. I'm ready.

He's everywhere. He's like Inspector Gadget arms. He tips the balls. He gets offensive rebounds. I think he leads the country in dunks. Then he's just such a student of the game. When we do all our scouting, right before the game, we do one last preview of personnel of the other team, and we'll pick a guy in the room, and we got to No. 42, and you pick James.

I had to cut him off or we would have missed the jump ball because he was going through every single nuance of that kid's game. That's just how James is. He's kind of a basketball savant for such a young player.

Q. You mentioned the game with Noah beating the buzzer. I'm wondering, where does this one rank for you in terms of best finishes? I don't know how many other buzzer beaters you've had throughout your career as a coach, but where does this one stand out to you?

PAT KELSEY: Yeah, it's the latest one, so it's the one I remember the most. It was pretty darned special.

I've had several other ones where I got beat, several other ones where we made them. But we've had two really fortunate -- heck, we talk about Noah tonight, how he really stepped up. He's had a tough year, tons of injuries, broken thumb, four pins in this thing. Then he gets behind a bunch of guys in the rotation and his minutes are really, really limited. Then when we needed him the most, he really, really stepped up.

But man, you talk about this great season that we're having, it could be totally different if that ball doesn't go in at the end of the Eastern Kentucky game. You talk about down and out, we could have very, very easily lost that game. Noah makes that shot, and then Chucky makes this one tonight. Hopefully, there's more luck in the genie bottle moving forward, too.