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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2007

Rick Pitino

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

RICK PITINO: We sort of ran out of gas in the second half, and Pittsburgh made big shots and it's a credit to their victory. It was a good tournament. We're playing good basketball but we just ran out of a little gas. I don't know if it was the double overtime last night or not but we executed really well the first half. Our defense just wasn't crisp. We wanted to take away the 3-point shot by them and try to get Gray in foul trouble and we did our job in the first half, just did not do the job in the second half.

Q. You just mentioned it, you shut down Pitt in the first half in terms of 3-point shooting. Four 3-pointers by Antonio, two consecutive to start off the second half, you called a quick time-out, what are you telling your team in that time-out?
RICK PITINO: We certainly have to get over the high screens. The toughest job with our basketball team is adhering to scouting. It's the toughest thing. It's not the skill level. We have a very difficult time paying attention to scouting because we've never had it before. When you say a young basketball team, that's what it really is. They are physically talented enough to play, even a guy like Derrick, bringing the ball down, this is a slap-down team and all of the little things that scouting brings about, our players have a difficult time with. That's where young teams fail is in little things and we didn't do our job in the second half of getting over the screens and adhering that, but hopefully we learned a lesson going into the tournament.

Q. Seemed like turnovers -- not as good as they have been?
RICK PITINO: Yeah, in the second half especially, when they went zone, we didn't attack the zone as ferociously. You have to attack a zone. You can't just passively throw it around the perimeter and play beat the clock.
We did it to get back in the game, but we didn't do it when they went to it when Gray went out of the game.

Q. Speaking of the zone, is it unusual, I know Pitt did it a little last game, but is it unusual to see them playing a zone defense and does it make them tougher when they are switching defense because they usually don't do that.
RICK PITINO: I think it makes any team tougher because you have something else you can go to. They did it a little last night so we expected it.
Every zone has its weaknesses where you stay in it too long. The key to playing zone defense is mixing it up, unless you have guys like Hakim Warrick and guys like that who are extremely long on the wings, playing zone all the time is difficult.
Playing man all the time, if you get in foul trouble, you have to have something else that you can go to defensively and they have something else that they can go to right now.

Q. Talking about not making it to the free throw line in the second half.
RICK PITINO: They did a good job of shutting down the interior. They know we're strong. You have to give credit to the defense. That's good scouting. We had to go inside to outside. They took away the inside. You've got to give them credit. With the exception of a few rushed shots -- you know, one of the confusing things that happened the whole tournament, too many guys, they are always used to that white line. Too many of the guys are playing the white line rather than the blue line, and I think it's confusing, you see it with all of the teams changing shots from the NBA 3 because they look at the line rather than stepping to the blue line and we did that a few times as well.

Q. You talked about you're a young team; now that you're heading into the NCAA, are you concerned maybe about a little emotional hangover from losing here?
RICK PITINO: Well, we didn't think we were God's gift, so I don't know what you're talking about. We are very happy with the season we're having. Without Palacios, we're playing four freshman, we won six road games, we are very happy. We were hoping to win a championship here but we didn't think it was an obvious sweep. Maybe you know something about my team that I don't know. I don't know what you're alluding to.

Q. They haven't been through this whole process before --
RICK PITINO: That remains to be seen. Why did we win six road games -- what we have to do is adhere to the scouting report and adhere to the all of the little things and when we do that -- that's a sign of youth. I think we're going to be excited on Selection Sunday about being in the NCAA. A month ago, nobody was making plans to go to the NCAA, so we are very excited.

Q. What seed --
RICK PITINO: Next question.
If I knew that, I wouldn't be coaching, I really wouldn't be here. If I knew -- ask Joel Lanardi. How would I know? Really, in all honestly, how would I know what seed we are? I asked to be part of this committee and they refused and would not allow me to be part of it. Being that, I'll wait until Selection Sunday. Where do you think we'll be?

Q. 6, 7.
RICK PITINO: We're going to be 6, 7, guys. So write that down.

Q. Sosa out, talk about the way he played?
RICK PITINO: I didn't think he was playing too well. That's why I kept him out.

Q. What was he not doing?
RICK PITINO: He was not making other people better.

Q. I know that your focus is on your team, but when the opposing coach has a situation where his big guy gets a quick third foul and then a quick fourth foul and he leaves him in, how does that impact, if at all, any decisions you make?
RICK PITINO: Well, they did the smart thing, they put Kendall on our five-man and put Gray on our four-man. We still want to go strong to the glass and take it in.
He's been getting in foul trouble a lot and has to be careful on offensive rebounding to get inside position. I think they are getting used to playing without him because they have been, and tonight, if you say you shut out Fields and Gray and you lose, that's just our inability to execute. We didn't do a lot of things defensively, we didn't force turnovers, we didn't get deflections and create steals. When I see that, I see a tired basketball team a little bit and I don't know if it's tired physically but more emotionally. David wasn't on top of his game, Sosa was not on top of his game and sometimes double overtime games do that to you.
But that's no excuse. You have to give Pitt the credit for winning.

End of FastScripts

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