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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: BIRMINGHAMMarch 23, 2008Terrance FarleyRick PitinoJerry SmithBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and take an opening statement from Coach Pitino and then take questions for the student-athletes. COACH PITINO: We played a good game against Boise and tonight we played a great game. Both at offense and defense, we had two turnovers at half time. We really didn't turn it over at all in the second half until the final few minutes of play and everybody on the team did something really well. I'm real proud of our guys, real proud to be in the Sweet 16 and we're excited to be going to Charlotte. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Jerry David Padgett talk a lot about scouting reports? First, how well did the coaches do with the scouting report, concerning the turn around and B, how well did the players do executing it? JERRY SMITH: The coaches did a great job. They prepared us well and we really focused in on everything. Coach said the main thing would be concentration. With a great team like Oklahoma, and we tried to pay attention to every facet that they would do. Q. The celebration at half-time was obviously a lot more intense than at the end of the game. What kind of confidence did y'all take into half time? Did you feel like it was pretty much over at that point? JERRY SMITH: Well, with a great team like Oklahoma, you can never feel like the game is over. They're such a powerful team. They can come back in a heart beat and we didn't want to do that. We wanted to stay after them. Q. Can either of you talk about -- you guys played a lot of players, looked pretty deep, you have to play a team out there, Tennessee, that's also pretty deep. Can you talk about your depth matching up with others around the country? TERRANCE FARLEY: We don't really try to worry about how deep they are. We try to concentrate on what we need to do to finish the game off. We know they're a good team, more like a great team. But I'm sure we can compete with them. We got a great matchup at each position. JERRY SMITH: Tennessee is a great team. We know that. But we're just very excited about the Oklahoma win and going to the Sweet 16 in Charlotte. Q. Jerry, coming in to the tournament, there was a lot of talk about how you guys had lost two games in a row, I know those were to two pretty good teams. Did something click in the time before this tournament? It looks like you guys might be playing your best basketball? JERRY SMITH: I definitely think we're playing our best basketball right now. Like you said, we lost to two great teams. And they were playing, they just out-played us, I guess, those two games. But we're clicking right now, we're really focusing in and we are here to win. Q. Could the players talk about what it's like when you're on a run like you had in the first half and it's 23-2 and you're getting steals, and getting dunks, and just the momentum that that brings to the bench and to the players out on the floor. TERRANCE FARLEY: Not only does it bring momentum to the players on the floor, but it gives us great confidence off the bench too. Like take example for myself, I came in to the game really pumped because we made this huge run and I was really proud of my guys about that and there was no other feeling like it, to tell you the truth. JERRY SMITH: Just got the momentum going, and everything's feeling great. Don't want to let it die down. Q. You were a freshman the last time ya'll went to the Sweet 16, how different is it for you this time around? TERRANCE FARLEY: Oh, as a freshman it wasn't really, we were close as a team, but this year being the older one of the group and we're a lot more closer, it's a lot more special. Hopefully we'll just make a run. And I wish us the best, so. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, guys. If y'all would like to head back to the locker room, that would be fine. Take questions for coach. Q. Follow-up, just as with the players, that run the 23-2 run was really pivotal and I mean is that what you were looking for to maybe use your pressure to try to turn them over and take control of the game early? COACH PITINO: It starts with good shot selection. That's the key. Because you can't press unless you shoot a high percentage shot. We obviously don't press on misses. So it's important that you take, it starts with the execution offensively, but offensively and defensively we did a beautiful job tonight. I really can't find a weakness in the way the guys played tonight. They did a tremendous job. They didn't turn it over, they went inside out, made high percentage shots, made the extra pass, and then turned around and played fabulous defense both man and zone and pressed very effectively. Q. You said you played good against Boise State, great today, do you think this is the best game you've played all season long? COACH PITINO: No, I really don't. I think we played really well tonight. I think we played great but we played early in the year you all know how good UNLV was, we played really well, beat them by 18. At Pittsburgh, Marquette -- we played a really tough schedule. Now I think that you can say this is the best because it means the most. It means a trip to the Sweet 16. So without question this is the most meaningful game that we have played. Q. You've been through this tournament many times, is there a sense that this team is peaking at the right time or a sense that they're head hitting on all cylinders right now? COACH PITINO: I thought we were peaking last year. And we just, it's just like the question that was just asked about the last two games of the season. I thought we played great in both games. To play Georgetown on Senior Night for the conference title, playing to the mat and to the wire, on the road. Played a great 40 minutes against Pittsburgh, played a very poor five minutes in overtime. We played two great games. That's why I didn't understand the question about the two losses. If you have two blow-out games against home week competition what does that matter. If you study the game of basketball and see you're playing really well it's not going to affect a team negatively. And that's what I told the guys after the losses, you played terrific basketball. We played a terrific game against Texas A & M last year, only difference with us is we give credit to our competitors when they beat us. And that's exactly what happened. We just gave credit to Pittsburgh and Georgetown and got on with ourselves. But we were peaking last year at the right time and we're playing good basketball right now. Q. Free throw shooting aside for Terrance Farley, what was it like to see him give you some big minutes in the first half and just to perform like that in a big game? COACH PITINO: We got a lot of confidence in Terrance. He's really improved his low post game, and I'm not afraid to use him in crucial situations. So, outside, you're right on his free throws, and especially the one that I thought it was really unfair of the police because it's -- you see how many police we have here. They opened up the arena doors just as he was getting ready to shoot and forced it wide right and if they would have kept that place shut he would have at least hit the rim. But the wind came up, everybody was trying to let people out, but that was really disturbing on their part. He told me he was okay after the miss though, he was okay about it. I said, "I know you're okay, hit the rim." Q. Will you talk about your defense against Oklahoma, I don't know if they have seen that too often, up and down the court, in fact, there's too many games these days that go 50 to 48 and you played up tempo. Why we don't see more of what you do. COACH PITINO: That was probably asked of me 25 years ago. And the answer is, it's very difficult to do because the players have to really sacrifice at all positions and it's not easy to do. It takes very focused players. Tennessee plays that way, we play that way, Memphis plays that way and a lot of teams in the country play that way. It takes dedicated basketball players to give that much energy at every level of the court. So it's a credit to the players who work so hard to play that style. Even my first few years at Kentucky we had -- we didn't have the best pressing teams, we had guys that I could beat in a foot race. But they still gave everything they could as a team that lost to Duke, with the exception of Shawn Woods and Jamal Mashburn. That was a gifted team, but they pressed their tails off and gave everything they had. So, I'm real proud of the way our guys gave their energy, it's exciting to see you feed on it, you get easy shots and the good thing about this pressing team this year is that we don't give up a whole lot with our press. We press with really good intelligence. We run and jump a lot rather than run and trap. So you're not getting caught leaving the basket naked and 2s on 1s and 3s on 2s. Q. Obviously, it was necessary to win the game. But with Scott's shot at half-time, was that neat for you to watch? COACH PITINO: It was. We put him in to get a corner shot. He made a lucky prayer there. But it is fun because Will's a very good shooter, that was a lucky shot but he worked real hard all season and even a young man like Preston Knowles gives us a big lift for the amount of minutes that he plays and but, yes, that was -- it like it was going to be our night when that shot went in. It looked like everything was going well for us. It was one of those nights. THE MODERATOR: Okay thank you, coach. COACH PITINO: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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