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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2012Kyle KuricRick PitinoChris SmithNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK LOUISVILLE – 50 COACH PITINO: Well, I think you can see how excited our guys are and how much the tournament means to us. We wanted to come in here and start to play better basketball. We started to get healthy about three weeks ago and started playing guys more minutes, and it was‑‑ our practices have been a lot of fun, even though we lost to Syracuse the last game of the season. It meant a lot to these two guys being seniors to win this championship, and they played every game. This game was very difficult, and we knew it would be, no matter how much we tried to push the pace. They know us as well as we know ourselves. We know them as well as they know themselves. Mick and I worked together, and we know the way each other think. We just‑‑ it's very difficult to play two teams that know each other so well an hour and 20 minutes down the road. It was going to be a defensive battle. We knew we were going to give up some lay‑ups because we were guarding the NBA line with our life, and prior to Chane going for a steal, we were able to blank them from the line. So we did a lot of really good things defensively. We knew it was going to take defense to win this game. We thought it was going to take offense to beat Marquette, we thought it was going to take defense to win this one. Q. You played great defense all year, now you're healthy, had a good performance this week. How do you feel about this team going into next week? COACH PITINO: Well, I told the guys just two weeks ago, I said look, we've got to get through the last two games, and we'll go change and go back to the way we normally play because we'll have some numbers. We still have a couple of guys that aren't ready to play the type of defense. Wayne is starting to get it, but he's still away from that. Kevin is struggling with it. But getting Wayne and staying healthy is a big thing for us because with all these timeouts, it is so long, you don't have to use your bench quite as much. So that's a good situation for us. Q. This is, I think, the first conference championship without a founding member. I guess some people might view it as a changing of the guard in the BIG EAST. From your perspective how different, if at all, did it feel to you? COACH PITINO: You know, I'm a traditionalist, and I'm very disappointed that teams are leaving, certainly. But this world today, like I told the guys, even in our town, our players felt it. We lost a couple of games, and people said, you can't score, you're not that good, and I said, guys, don't worry about that. Peyton was getting a lot of criticism. I said, Peyton, just kidding around to him, you go into New York and be MVP and nobody will even remember you played a regular season. I used the analogy of the Giants. I said do you think the New York fans can remember who the Giants lost to? All they remember is beating the Packers and moving on. That's the worst thing about your culture:  The gratification is so short, and the way they handle failure is so short that it's one game removed. My brother‑in‑law, who I lost in 9/11, always used to say your business is so much different than mine, and that was right before 9/11. He said, on Wall Street, we're only as good as our last trade. You guys have longevity. But not anymore. You get on a two‑game losing streak and you can't believe how much panic there is in this world. So we try not to get too high, not to get too low, and these guys didn't, and we always felt this tournament is a new season because it's a tournament and you get to play great competition, and the BIG EAST right now is taking on a whole new thing. It's disappointing that we're losing some teams, but on the other hand, we are inviting. I think you guys will be excited about Temple, and I don't know a whole lot about some of the other teams coming in, but it's just a change. Everybody wants change nowadays. Let's go to this league. You see Nebraska leave and go to this league, this one jumps to this league. It's bizarre how everybody just leaves. It reminds me a lot of when you watch the movies and you see people constantly, oh, I'm with you forever. I'm with you forever. I'm with you forever, and you see these mobster movies, all of a sudden in the Godfather I'm selling him out. It's only business. I can't believe it, it becomes business, and great analogy, but I always think of that when everybody is ready to jump. I say, why don't you like where you are. Somebody mentioned to me, you've been very stable the way you stayed at all those jobs all those years, and I looked at him and I said, "good point." Q. How special is winning the BIG EAST Championship to you? COACH PITINO: You know, it's special because I love coaching these guys. We have a very unusual group. It's a throw‑back. This young man here, he'll speak in a few minutes, I coached him for four years, came in as a walk‑on, was dying to go to Duke as a walk‑on. His goals weren't very lofty, and then‑‑ I said walk‑on about Duke, not about Duke. It goes from that to last week they were asking me do you think he could get a shot at the NBA. And I kicked him out of my office and said I don't want to think about it. He's really grown to that point. Chris has led a different life. He's been in with a very celebrated brother, and both of them have been great to coach, and they know what this means. Both of them, Chris had a great game tonight, and they've been knocked by the NCAA, and this meant a lot. This was a great starting point for both of these guys. We've got a great group. You saw how much enthusiasm they had for winning that championship. It means so much to them to win. Q. This is for Kyle: Obviously you guys have more games to play in the tournament, but what does this mean to you, especially given the growth you've had over your four years as a player? KYLE KURIC: It means a lot, but I don't really think about it as my growth. We had a real rough season, and coach talked to us about a new season, and we took it to heart and Peyton led us the whole way from the beginning, and we all followed him as a team. Q. Chris, they talked about not having that focus tonight. You guys had it the entire time. How do you continue it into the NCAA Tournament? CHRIS SMITH: Well, we continue it by just staying with the same mindset and growing on what we've built here. Q. Kyle, you mentioned Peyton. What difference did you see from him the last four or five days or was there something special? KYLE KURIC: You could tell he stepped into the role we needed him to play. The Peyton that we're all used to, you could tell he didn't want to lose and he wasn't going to let us lose. Anytime something happened, he would pick somebody, every timeout, he was always talking. He was very vocal. Q. Coach, Mick, when he was in here talked about his team and he sensed some overconfidence from them. Did you sense that from them? COACH PITINO: Well, we played great defense at their place, held them to 32 percent shooting, but they made 11 threes, and against Syracuse they made eight threes in the first half. Our strategy was very simple, we were going to show zone, play man but we were going to guard the NBA line. We were going to limit their attempt and if they did get an attempt, it was not going to be a good look. Prior to Chane going for a steal there, we didn't give them good looks, and they were 0 for 9, I believe, at halftime from the three. We knew they were going to go one‑on‑one. We felt good with Gorgui being back there. He's learned now to foul being back there. So we knew we had to win this game with defense. We played a heck of a game against them at their place and lost. We showed the guys why we lost, but we wanted to stop the three‑point line tonight. We've been winning off our defense. We knew, although both teams were trying to push the pace, we know each other too well, and you don't have time to innovate your offenses with one day prep. Q. Had you been able to slow it down‑‑ COACH PITINO: No, we didn't try to slow it down, we tried to run. Both defenses were great. Q. You've mastered every pace in this tournament. Is that going to prepare you better for whatever match you get in the tournament? COACH PITINO: Well, it's not the players' fault. We started out, we had a very difficult time practicing. We've had three knee surgeries, Peyton Siva was out a month, we've had five concussions, multiple concussions, Kyle missed two, three weeks. So we had probably more injuries‑‑ so we never had any continuity. And if I would have run and press and go crazy up in the‑‑ all I would do in the last ten minutes of the game is tire our own team. So we had to get to this point where everybody got healthy. We've got three guys wearing helmets in practice. Q. Are you injured, as well? COACH PITINO: Russ Smith bet I couldn't dunk, and I told him I could. I went up and grabbed the rim and scraped it, and I came very close to dunking. I just pulled it on the rim. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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