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NIT POSTSEASON

March 28, 2006

Rick Pitino

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

RICK PITINO: Well, South Carolina played great, and we were physically overmatched. You have to give them credit. Should be a heck of a final because Michigan and South Carolina are two teams that compete in the NCAAs as well as giving a great performance in the NIT. South Carolina is a terrific team. Obviously they have beaten Florida twice, almost three times and took LSU to the wire and a group of juniors and seniors that just physically dominated us on the front line.
Q. Dave was explaining to us that the style that you play and the faster pace, that if you don't create turnovers you might be susceptible to the kind of easy baskets that they got tonight; is that a fair assessment?
RICK PITINO: Not really. I thought their fast breaks, they were 7 for 9 in the first half, came off blocked shots and turnovers. I think with the exception of a missed time-out, that's what the breaks came off of. They really came off of run-outs off blocked shots. And that young man, the power forward, (Renaldo) Balkman; just a tremendous -- if you can get players like that, you're going to win a lot of games because just his effort level is so high, so long and he really bothered us.
Q. Things were going pretty well early and suddenly they weren't.
RICK PITINO: It was fool's gold, though and I tried to tell the guys on time-outs that we were not playing good defense. They were getting good looks, they were not going in, we were doing a good job offensively but we were unable to defend them off the dribble. We were unable to defend them off the baseline.
You know, it was good for us. Our guys worked hard. But sometimes it's a very simple game that they just overpowered us with physical talent, and it made me look at it and say, you know, outside of Terrence Williams and the obvious of Taquan (Dean), it was disturbing from a talent level standpoint.
So we're going to be playing a lot of freshmen next year, because we've got to get physically more talented where we can hold our own with teams like South Carolina and Pittsburgh on the back board.
Q. Did they play about as perfect a game as you could conceive, 60 percent, seven turnovers?
RICK PITINO: Yeah, I think they are playing great basketball right now. Their last seven out of eight games, they had to go on the road at Florida State and win, at Cincinnati and win, they almost went to the NCAA Tournament and beat Florida. So they are playing great basketball. They are all juniors and seniors, they are all very well coached. Should be a heck of a final because Michigan is playing good basketball as well.
Q. Their blocks, Renaldo and Wallace had four each, but it looked like you were surprised how quick they could get up?
RICK PITINO: A couple times we had wide-open jumpshots and he was blocking jumpshots. He is a very quick -- he is a pleasure to much what on film. I just love him. Dave Odom said he's like a college version of Dennis Rodman. He's just so much fun to play with that much energy and that much passion. It's not fun to play against, but I really appreciate that type of effort as a basketball coach.
Q. Your thoughts about this season?
RICK PITINO: I think it was a season that, you know, this is a -- it's a pretty simple game and I knew the answer from October 15th, on. I felt from the 15th on that we had a major, major problem from a toughness/talent standpoint on the baseline. We had young physically weak people that could not bang with the BIG EAST.
We got caught a little bit in the transition going from Conference USA to the BIG EAST. We'll improve off this season and get better, but we're going to have to do it what lot of freshman next year. But I'm hoping that the freshmen that we are bringing in can do that.
Q. Just looking at it in this game, how do you hope to defend them coming in knowing kind of their athleticism?
RICK PITINO: Well, you hope that the zone sometimes will negate it. But they did such a good job of penetrating, and they did such a good job of passing on the baseline, we got beat constantly off the dribble. It was just a matter of a team much more athletic than us.
Our style is a style being played by not the most athletic people, so we just got caught in that situation. But we want to build for the future and build a style for the future and hopefully guys like Terrence Williams and people like that, learn from it.
Q. The blend that you have next year with the kids coming in, just in general terms, do you think they are much more athletically gifted?
RICK PITINO: I hope so, because we're not going to win too many games. You don't know, Palacios has got to get much more athletic and hopefully he will rehabilitate. He had to sit out five months and get back to where he plays like he plays because that's what it is going to take for him to be a great basketball player at 6'7" and a half.
Q. Do you want to talk about Dean tonight?
RICK PITINO: Yeah, he had a great four years for us. He really did. He epitomized everything you try and teach. Plays hard all the time. He was cramping up a little bit tonight. He's had a great career. I'm hoping that he goes on and has a great NBA career. He really improved because he learned to play the point.
You know what, I tried to do that with Tony going he could not do it, and he could not do it, he was a what as I 2 guard. Taquan learned to play the point and that was great for him. He's a great shooter, he's a very strong defensive player, he's a great competitor and he learned to play the point position.
So although it was difficult for him losing Francisco and Otis and all of those guys last year, but he learned to play with guys that were not as talented as him and improve, and that's a good thing for him. It wasn't the best of seasons for him in terms of wins and losses, but it was really good in terms of learning the point. He had a great career. I was real proud of him. Thank you.

End of FastScripts...

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