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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2012Gorgui DiengRick PitinoPeyton SivaNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK LOUISVILLE – 64 COACH PITINO: I've lost sort of my voice. I'm going to let Gorgui give the introduction and opening remarks. GORGUI DIENG: I can't do it.  What do you want me to say? COACH PITINO: Tell them what you thought of the game. Tell them you thought it was brilliantly coached. GORGUI DIENG: It was a very physical game. We played good defense, but we got down in the backcourt. I hope that's not going to happen to us tomorrow. PEYTON SIVA: It was a well coached game, a very well coached game. COACH PITINO: Serious. Our guys did a fabulous job because when we played them last time we played two overtimes. I think 7 of 11 games have been in overtime, you think about that, how scary that is. The amazing thing is the last time we played them, including two overtimes, we got out five times on the break. We were banged up obviously with a lot of injuries and we were willing to play that style. Tonight we weren't. Tonight we got ahead 11 of 13 times on the break for 19 points, and we shot a very high percentage. But in a matter of a game we had 20 assists, which is really, really good, played good defense. So real proud of our guys. We've wanted to get to this championship game again. We lost it last year in a very close battle, and now we get the opportunity to play for it again, and it's a great opportunity for the players and all our fans. Q. Just specifically offensively, what was happening maybe better tonight than it has in the past? COACH PITINO: Well, we were trying to obviously push the pace. We were trying to mix it up, and any time we got in a jam, we wanted to go inside to Gorgui because they don't trap the post and he did a very good job tonight of going to a variety of different moves, especially his jump hook. He's becoming a terrific player, and we're very fortunate to have him in our program because he's one of the most popular guys on the campus because he's such a terrific person. So he's really improving. I'm real proud of him. He plays real hard. And the sky's the limit to how good he can become down the road when he gets stronger. Q. I think it was about eight minutes into the game you guys were down 15‑9, you called a time‑out, and I don't know what was said in the time‑out but you responded with a 20 to 2 run. COACH PITINO: Well, a couple things. We were playing really good defense but we were giving up second shots. I said Gorgui can't cover Cooley by himself. The obvious thing they were doing is run pick‑and‑rolls and get him in foul trouble. If we get him in foul trouble today, obviously tomorrow it's difficult for us to win. We did it the other night. So I put the two mosquitos in the game with Russ and Peyton, and they just bother people, they just gnaw at people, they just really, really get under your skin, and that really gave us a big lift defensively. Q. Kind of piggybacking off that last answer, I think you held them almost 13 minutes without a field goal. Can you talk about stifling their offense? COACH PITINO: Well, we were putting good man pressure on it, and I thought Russ Smith did a tremendous job of leaving his man and helping Gorgui out. He kept saying to the guys in the time‑out, I've got Gorgui in the low post, and he did a really, really good job of that. I think Peyton is really changing pace, which is something he wasn't doing. He's doing a great job of changing pace and finding people. So our offense fed off our defense and our defense fed off our offense. Q. This is a question for Peyton and then Rick. Could you describe the ways that the BIG EAST Conference tournament makes a team ready for the NCAAs? PEYTON SIVA: I mean, Coach P told us before we got in the BIG EAST, just forget about the regular season, that we're starting a new season now, we're going to start fresh, and everybody really bought into that. Everybody really bought into defense on this team, and everybody was really feeding off that. We're just taking it one game at a time right now. BIG EAST is really a tough conference, like right now I'm beat up. I'm going to go hop in a bath after this. But it's tough. Like Gorgui said, Jack Cooley is strong, we've got Yancy Gates tomorrow, and it really gets us prepared for the NCAA Tournament because of all the different defenses we see. COACH PITINO: I think it's a special treat. I think my players are all rooting for Syracuse in the locker room saying they want to get a third shot at them.  I said, you guys are sick. There's something wrong with you. It's not the team because you all know how good Cincinnati is, they beat us. It's the fans. You have to play a road game. So any time you can get Connecticut and Syracuse out and you can play a championship in a neutral site, it's really good for you. So Gorgui kept yelling for Dion Waiters to score, score, score. I said, son, you've got to realize we've lost to them twice now, let's play without 16,000 people. And the interesting thing is how many people they'll bring to Tobacco Road. That will be interesting. There's not many Syracuse alums on Tobacco Road. Q. Talk about Gorgui. COACH PITINO: He led the‑‑ we were struggling with the backboard and he led it. He played great last night. He's a great player, and we're very, very fortunate. They're just great guys to be around, and he's a good leader. He gets down when he doesn't play well like anybody else, but he never lets it affect the next day of practice or the next game. The most important thing he's learning right now is not making silly fouls, and he's changing his pace all the time, and that's making him a much better basketball player. Q. How much better have you gotten this year? GORGUI DIENG: How much better? COACH PITINO: Answer them. Tell them your weight when you came in. GORGUI DIENG: When I got in here, I weighed like 187, 197. And I started lifting more, eating much better, and my sophomore year I weighed 244. Then it was too high, then I lost probably 10 or 15 pounds. But I think he changed my whole game. Like I can tell I was kind of‑‑ I don't want to say soft, but I wasn't physical at all. I just got on the court and played. But he changed my whole game. He makes me like stand up, and like I say, he changed everything. I think he's going to make me look like a better player my junior year or my senior year. Q. So far in these last games, you guys have led the script pace wise and every aspect of an opponent. How do you see tomorrow night, that game possibly being played at a different pace? GORGUI DIENG: Like I always say, like my teammates, it's not like we're playing. We're just trying to follow the game plan, trying to execute well, play good defense. And I think if we play a better defense every game, it doesn't matter, we're going to win. Q. This championship game tomorrow is going to be the first without an original BIG EAST team. Given this crazy year we've all followed, do you see any significance in that? COACH PITINO: Yeah, I think Conference USA has come to the Big Apple. Look, some of us who were born in New York City and can't fathom Syracuse being in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The strange thing about it sometimes is certain schools don't need money. It really doesn't matter. You can't use‑‑ all of you say money is the reason, and it really is not the reason. We're the No.1 revenue producer in college basketball by $11 million according to Forbes last year. We made 40 and Duke was second at $29 million. So with that in mind, when we make decisions of what to do with our program, it's based on all our athletes and our alumni. So Tom says, okay, he polled all our athletes about how much they love the BIG EAST, and 90 percent of them said they love it. Although we're going to miss Syracuse and obviously they have so many alumni in this area, I can't fathom the why part of it. Now, everybody says fast break. Well, we've got a better fast break conference now, so John has done a brilliant job with that putting it all together. Memphis will be very exciting for the league, Temple will be very exciting for the league. I think we're really going to miss Syracuse because the side of their court says New York's College Team. So we're going to miss them. Pitt and West Virginia were great for our conference, but putting Memphis and Temple in place of those two, you're replacing two great traditions with two great traditions, but we're going to miss Syracuse. Q. What does it mean for a point guard for a guy that's a perfectionist? PEYTON SIVA: It's very tough playing for Coach P, but it's fun, especially when you put in the style of running and getting out of a break. During the season, we played a lot of slow ball and it really wasn't working for us, and he pulled us aside and told us we're going to run Coach P ball. It's really fun to get out there. He said it's going to be more rebounds, more steals, more assists, more points. As players, we love stats, so it's a great program, fun little system to play, and I love it. It's tough sometimes, but at the end of the day, he gets results. Q. With so many injuries this year, it was kind of mix and match with missed practices. How complete is this team right now? COACH PITINO: What Peyton alluded to, we always would run and press, but we had to survive this year. We were really scared that we couldn't practice this year. Peyton missed over 30 days. Kyle Kuric missed two weeks, and then we had three major or knee surgeries, two ACLs and a microfracture. So we lost everything at once. And then two of our players, Kevin and Wayne Blackshear didn't become eligible until December and January, so we were just trying to play slow the first time just so we could try and win games. And the guys did a great job. And everybody was saying, well, you can't shoot, you can't‑‑ well, we couldn't because we had no bench. We had to survive. And now that we have a bench, we have gone back‑‑ I said, look, all we have to do is get to the postseason. We weren't going to speed South Florida up, and we could not run up and down in the Carrier Dome with the largest crowd ever their senior night, and it wasn't prudent to do that. So I told the guys, look, we're going to go back to what we planned in the summertime in the Bahamas to running and pressing. We've got guys that can come in, and it certainly helps Peyton's game tremendously, and it helps Kyle Kuric's game because they can be playing in the half court. So we are still going to have to play some half court basketball, obviously, but we did a fabulous at that job tonight. The guys worked really well inside to out. They screened well. They run their pick‑and‑roll well, so that's why we shot 50 some percent. Q. Is there any chance you're going to get an infrared tie? COACH PITINO: Well, we were worried about Syracuse getting to the finals because of what we would look like next to them. I'm real proud of Mick Cronin. We've got two guys in the BIG EAST that I've had the pleasure to work with, Kevin Willard and Mick Cronin. Both took over devastated programs, both brought them back, and Nick is a tremendous teacher, great worker. He has tough kids that play their tails off. It did not surprise me that they won tonight at all because they had a lead on Syracuse last time and lost and I thought they learned a lesson. Mick had to weather the storm of people second‑guessing him and saying you are not turn it around. Very similar to the Tom Crean situation what he was left with and look at where he stands today bringing this program back to the championship game. I know our guys are really looking forward to playing a championship game, and we're really excited about that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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