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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2007David PadgettRick PitinoTerrence WilliamsNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK RICK PITINO: For some reason we always have great games with West Virginia. I don't know what it is. Overtime to go to the Final Four, and last year at West Virginia came down to a real close ballgame. They are very difficult to play against, and our guys did a great job of concentrating tonight defensively. We hit a drought offensively. We were just missing shots that would normally go in for some of our people and they didn't and that's a credit to their defense. What I told the guys in the first overtime and second overtime, this is a dream, guys, you get to play overtime in Madison Square Garden and we all heard the speech that David Padgett gave the other night to play in Madison Square Garden. Listen, have fun, you'll always remember a double overtime game in Madison Square Garden and if you win, you'll really remember it. So they dug down and we had to play a lot of guys minutes tonight that we would have liked to have substituted before. Their system is so difficult to defend, we had to go with some key players. Q. What did you draw off the end of regulation, did you expect them to go all the way? RICK PITINO: Well, normally we want to make one pass but there wasn't enough time. You know, everybody's afraid to foul, and Sosa did a great job of getting us to the rim. I had to beg him to pass the ball a hundred times. He wants the ball. He's a very confident young man and made a great play, just a fabulous play. Q. You brought up the scoring drought you went through, they go on an 18-0 run to go up by one point and then you go up by one, what are you telling your team right there? RICK PITINO: Well, I think the road made us a tough basketball team. We won six games in the BIG EAST on the road this year, so we don't get down. We have droughts from time to time, but we don't get down about it. We just hang in there. We told them, they have had runs against everybody to come back in a game, be it Providence, be it Pittsburgh, be it UCLA. They have runs against everyone. So we just don't get down about it. We respect our opponent. Just hang in there and the guys did. They had a lot down the stretch. Q. What were your thoughts on the second overtime? RICK PITINO: I just think that our guys are risk-takers, not that they weren't. We weren't afraid to fail. We took big shots, Padgett took a big one. Guys were very much at ease and had no fear of failure. Q. Dave, when they made their run to take that one-point lead, how big was your hoop to get the lead back? DAVID PADGETT: Yeah, we've been in a lot of games kind of like this, especially with West Virginia. Like coach said, I think playing on the road was really good for us this year because we've played in tough situations before. We just knew, we kept trading baskets, we knew we had to get a couple of stops. As long as we kept being aggressive on offense and being as active as we could on defense, we knew we would be right in the game. It was back and forth but we made some big shots down the stretch? Q. David, talk about the atmosphere that's been around Louisville basketball, you come into this tournament as the two seed, talk about all of the excitement that's been going around. DAVID PADGETT: Yeah, feels kind of like how it did two years ago when we went to the Final 4. Knock-on-wood, we're playing really well right now. Everybody is giving us tremendous support and the fans -- we had a lot of fans there tonight and it's great to see that. You know, we're just playing well right now and it's just a great time of year. It's the best time of year, tournament time. So we're just going to try to keep it going as long as we can. Q. How much confidence is it playing in these close games the last few weeks did that give you tonight and did it help you relax out there? TERRENCE WILLIAMS: It was kind of easy because we've been in this situation before, going on the road to market and UCONN and south Florida. Every situation you face, you're going to be in that situation already. It was just Coach telling us to be calm, we've been in this situation before and be confident in your shots. Playing those six games that we won on the road, it helped us tonight because it got to the time where you can't be nervous out there. You have to play basketball. Q. Can you comment on how your game has developed, you had that big deflection late in overtime, just doing the little things and not getting frustrated? TERRENCE WILLIAMS: I give credit to Coach P. The main thing; you don't want to not do the little thing and then when you watch film, you get yelled at. So the big thing is to do all the little things. So I knew on reversal if I drive to the middle, center has to help so D.P. would be right open which he was. And then the ref sees the ball so I just try to hit the ball. It's just little things and I don't want it get yelled at in the film room -- RICK PITINO: I don't yell anymore. If you want me to yell, go back to my Providence days, that was yelling. TERRENCE WILLIAMS: Main thing is you want to win the game, so the main thing is you do any little thing you can do to win the game. Q. Can you comment on Clark's performance? RICK PITINO: Yeah, I didn't think I could play Earl and Derrick together. Very tough to play freshmen against West Virginia because you have to stop the 3, you have to stop their back doors and you have to change your defenses. We kept just changing on makes and misses. If you let West Virginia get comfortable on anything they will pick you apart. Earl had to be the link right now that we would go in. We don't have Palacios, so we go with him. He's improved dramatically as the season has gone along. These two young men are iron men. They play a lot of minutes. David, I didn't want to play him that many minutes, but I needed somebody who really has a doctorate in basketball, and he does, with the exception of that underneath-the-knee bounce play. DAVID PADGETT: A couple more than that. (Laughing). RICK PITINO: So I needed his mind out there and they are very smart. Both of these guys really understand the game of basketball, and they coach Earl throughout the course of a game but this was very difficult for Earl and he came through with shining colors. Q. The toughness to want to take that shot at the end of regulation, was that something that Edgar has, you either have it or you don't? RICK PITINO: He epitomizes what you've heard for the last 30 years with about a New York City point guard. People say he's a New York City point guard. Well, what does that mean? A New York city point guard means he has no fear of anything, he's going to play with a lot of emotion and a lot of passion and more than anything else what I think it means is he's faced the best competition, whether it's on the playground or AAU or at his high school. He played at Rice High School under the worst conditions sometimes and they had to go in and he played for a great high school coach. He's been through it all. He's very big at those moments and wants those moments. End of FastScripts |
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