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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: PORTLANDMarch 14, 2012Kyle KuricRick PitinoPeyton SivaPORTLAND, OREGON Q. Were you about the only guy who was rooting to get placed in this subregional? What does it mean to come back out here and get a chance to play? PEYTON SIVA: Yeah, nobody really wanted to come to Portland, you know. It really didn't matter to me. If we came to Portland, I have a lot of my family members can come. But if we didn't, hey. But it's great to come back to the Northwest and it feels good. Q. Davidson was just talking about how they basically are going to play their game. They're not going to try to slow it down. They're not going to try to force the pace. How refreshing is it after having so many teams during the season try to slow you down? KYLE KURIC: It's good.  We played both paces if we have to. We watched a lot of film on them and know how they play. They push the pace a lot. I don't know if it benefits us or them, it doesn't really matter. We have to zone in and stop them. Q. This might be a little out of line, but I'm going to try it anyway. Peyton, assuming you guys win on Thursday, you will play the winner of either Long Beach or New Mexico. And you guys played Long Beach State this year, beat them by 13 points at your place. Having played Long Beach State what do you think their chances are against New Mexico? PEYTON SIVA: I think Long Beach State has a great chance against New Mexico because of their style of play, they're very aggressive. And led by a great point guard, Casper Ware. I really haven't seen a lot of New Mexico, we haven't played them. I know that Long Beach State is really long athletically. Q. You said that it was nice for friends and family. Who is able to come see you, any of your old teammates, from Seattle, family, who's coming to watch? PEYTON SIVA: A lot of my family from Seattle are going to come up tomorrow to watch the game. It's pretty exciting for me to see them all come, especially my mom and my dad will also be here. I'll have a lot of family and a lot of coaches, and friends coming up here from Seattle to Portland. So it should be fun. We should have a pretty good crowd. Q. All year it's been talked about, the last two years, the first game and out. Now is a chance for you guys to change that. How much are you looking forward to this and is there any pressure at all? This is for both you guys? KYLE KURIC: We've had downs with the best, but we're not looking at that. A couple guys haven't experienced it. But moving forward we're excited not just to get in the first round, we're excited to play in the tournament. For guys that haven't played in it, they're just excited to get their first taste of it. PEYTON SIVA: We're just happy to be here and blessed to be here. And just one game at a time. Davidson is a tough team. And it will be a great challenge for us to play against them. But we just focus on playing each day and not worry about what happened in the past, what happened in recent time again. Right now it's just Davidson that's on our mind. Q. How do you think your run in the Big East tournament might help in your confidence in the tournament? KYLE KURIC: It will help us, but to a certain extent it won't at all. That was the past. Davidson is a whole different team. Nothing like we've played in the Big East. But it gave us confidence and got us playing the way we need to do. We need to focus on Davidson and stop them. PEYTON SIVA: The Big East tournament was a great tournament, but that's over. Just like the regular season, that's over, behind us. We've got to move forward from that. We can't have anything hang over from championships. We've got to keep moving forward and focus on the next one. Q. You know that being in the situation as the higher seeded team in the tournament that when things start to get close the crowd is going to turn against you and be rooting for the upset. Since you've been there and been through it how can you prepare for that potential situation as far as the crowd atmosphere for tomorrow's game? PEYTON SIVA: You've just got to play your game. You can't let the crowd affect you one way or another. You've got to continue to go out and play, whether the crowd is against you or the crowd is for you. Just like playing any other home game or road game. If you play a home game, crowd is going to be for you. An away game, the crowd is going to be against you. You have to continue to play for yourself and play for your teammates. Q. What makes lower seeds so dangerous in this tournament, and especially the last couple of years? COACH PITINO: Well, I think ever since you've seen the defections of one and done basketball players, I think that the lowest seeds get people to stay together and they build continuity. They build a great culture for winning programs, like Butler and Davidson, people like that, that aren't losing players in one or two years. And so after you get by the one‑ or two‑seed and even the two's are in jeopardy, it's anybody's ballgame. Q. All season you've talked about this veteran group needing to make a run at the tournament because of the last couple of seasons. Do you feel like they're ready, especially after the run they made in the Big East tournament? COACH PITINO: I think basketball is a game of match‑ups. We can all say the right things, but it comes down to match‑ups and how you play against a certain style. And you won't know that until the night that you play the game. So it's all conjecture. Q. Is there any benefit, you've played these NCAA tournaments in your backyard, is there any benefit getting this far away? Does it matter? COACH PITINO: Rather be in the backyard, to be honest with you, only because it's a long trip, it's a five‑hour trip. We're almost in the Pacific Ocean. But it's long for Davidson. It's long for IU. It's long for a lot of people. It just so happens that there aren't many West Coast teams this year that could have taken advantage of this great city. So it surprised us, to be honest with you, but once you get here, it's a great place, great arena and we're excited to be here. But it's a five‑hour ordeal. But we're happy to be here. Q. What specific challenges does Davidson present to you? COACH PITINO: Well, Davidson is a unique basketball team. I've not seen anybody we faced this year, maybe with the exception of Long Beach, that runs on every single possession. They don't slow it down one possession unless it's a sideline, coming out of a timeout situation. So they are as up‑tempo as any team we have faced this year on a consistent basis, the whole game. So they shoot it at multiple positions. They have two player of the year guys. They're both outstanding basketball players. Good size. In order to be a great shooting team you have to be a great passing team. And they're also a great passing team. Q. They have five guys that average double digits. It's so hard, you can't key in on one guy. You touched on it there, but how do you approach that? COACH PITINO: Well, the main thing, anytime you play a team like that is you have to disrupt their passing ability. It all starts with pressure on the basketball. If you allow them to pass the ball around, they are going to pick you apart. And certainly they have that ability. As I said, they're great in transition. And they're a team that's together, but they also have everybody back next year. So they're going to be good for a while now. And they had an outstanding season. Watching them play Kansas early in the season, and I just happened to watch that game, was ‑‑ outside of I think one time in the game, they led almost start to finish. And that was in Kansas City. So for a young basketball team with great continuity to go out and do that speaks volumes for them. You see the teams in their league, they understand, it's a very underrated league. It's a terrific coaches' league. And they understand Davidson. And they all speak with great respect about Davidson. We played Charleston early in the year who beat Davidson at home, and we were life and death to beat Charleston at our place. So it's a very good league, very underrated. Q. Do you see Indiana and Louisville resuming a series here at any time in the near future? COACH PITINO: I said to Tom, whenever he's ready and he gets back to where he wants to be, we'd love to play. So it's strictly his call. I'm sure he's got enough tough games on his schedule that may or may not want to do it. Certainly we'd love to do it. But his program is back. I said to most of the Louisville media at the beginning of the year they would be back this year, there was no question in my mind they would. I'm really happy for Tom and happy for IU that they are back. Because they had to do it the old‑fashioned way. They started with a decimated program, no players. And they did it the right way. They did it with fundamentals, they did it with proper recruiting, they did it with integrity. So it's back and it's back for good. Q. Bob said you guys have known each other for a long time, playing in the park together. Give us something about your relationship, what you remember about those days. COACH PITINO: Bob was a good high school basketball player. And he actually taught my sister‑in‑law at Holy Trinity, where my wife also went to school. He was a young teacher at the time. I've known him a long, long time, when he was coaching high school basketball. Always had great respect for him. He's not only a tremendous basketball coach, but he's a tremendous person. He's just a great guy. Great for the game of basketball. Always been one of the premier coaches in the game. And his team plays that way. His team plays like a well coached drilled team. It's great to rekindle from playing against him to now coaching against him. Q. Is there additional pressure the last two years on this team, many of these veterans not having won an NCAA tournament? COACH PITINO: Didn't you just ask that question? I thought it was the same question. Q. You didn't really answer it. COACH PITINO: There's an obvious reason why, we're not going to put pressure on them. If you'd like to ask the players and put pressure on them, go right ahead. Q. They said they don't feel any extra pressure. COACH PITINO: Isn't that exactly what I answered to you? Q. You don't want to answer the question. COACH PITINO: We don't feel any pressure. We just treat every game as if it's ‑‑ what do you want me to say, we're shaking in our boots? What would you like me to answer? Answer for yourself, because we're just going to play every game. We'd love to go to a Final Four every year. So every team is different. Like I told you in my answer, it's not about whether you can forecast whether you're going to move on, it's match‑ups. We can't say to you, Oh, yeah, we're going to go to the Sweet 16 or go to the Final Four when we're playing Davidson. Unless I had a crystal ball I couldn't give you an answer to your question, it's all conjecture. Try a third time, just change it a little (laughter). Q. Apparently there's no direct flights Louisville to Portland. How did you guys get here? Talk about your five hour. COACH PITINO: We had a direct flight. We had a private charter with our band and our cheerleaders. It was okay. Look, I've coached eight years in the pros. I think there's so much excitement to get here, that you don't mind it. Like I said, it did surprise us after winning the Big East because ‑‑ only ‑‑ the surprise only came because we were told that if you're hosting a tournament, which we were, they would not put you on ‑‑ they would put you on a different day. So that's the only surprise in this. So we didn't think we had any chance of coming out here and playing on a Thursday. We thought we were going to play on a Friday. Q. At the same time Louisville has not been out west ‑‑ a couple of times to Vegas, once at Stanford. COACH PITINO: We lost at Denver last year. Q. How about the last time you were here, I think your first season you played in this building. Do you remember anything about that game? COACH PITINO: I do. Are you related to him? (Laughter.) Yes, we had a bad night. I do. But I also remember coming to Portland where we were down 30 going into the fourth quarter and Patrick Ewing and Mark Jackson and all our starters had ice on their knees and they said, Let's get on to the next game. I think it was the Lakers or Phoenix. And we started pressing, went to second team and came back and won the game. So I have fond memories. I choose to remember that, even though it was 23 years ago. Q. How do you acclimate your team for a 10:40 a.m. tip off? COACH PITINO: Well, we practiced this morning at 8:00. And we got them up early and 8:00 early, just the same as we would do a pregame meal. Not a whole lot more that you can do than do that. If I was coaching the old team, I had that Earl Clark and Derrick Character, I would be frightened to death. But these kids are pretty good. Q. How would you characterize your season to this point? COACH PITINO: Well, we had, because we won the Big East championship, it's been an outstanding season. We've had a lot of diversity in terms of injuries and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. We had three players in practice that wear helmets every day because of multiple concussions. We've had three major knee surgeries and injuries, two ACL's and a fracture of the patella. We have Peyton Siva out a month, Kyle Kuric out two weeks. That being said, we still won 22 regular season games and then won four in the tournament. So where we are, we are very excited about what we accomplished. And we'll really looking forward to playing tomorrow. Q. I know it's a business trip, but tonight are you guys going just to have dinner at the hotel or are you able to take the kids out a little bit to relax? COACH PITINO: Yeah, we're planning on water skiing about 4 o'clock (laughter). Q. Dan Monson said a little bit ago that he had trouble getting his Southern California kids get through the rain and get out of the hotel and get to the arena. Is there anything as far as like the weather is concerned, the gray and the rain that is affecting anybody's mood or is it just push through it and get to it? COACH PITINO: I worry more about Davidson's fast break and the way they shoot the basketball than I do about the rain. Like I said, Portland is a great city. Portland, Seattle, are two great cities. And we're excited to be here, to play. And it's a pro arena. You're not playing in a dome. The only thing is the trip. But Davidson made the trip. IU made the trip. I think Long Beach may be the closest, and they're 900 miles away. So there's nothing wrong with it. I think it's great, actually, because you're just focused on basketball, that's all you're concerned about is Davidson. Kidding around, there's really nothing else to do right now for the players, because they've got to eat, watch film and focus in. There's really not a whole lot to do. Q. What was different in the Big East tournament that you saw and how much did that affect your guys' confidence? COACH PITINO: Well, I think we decided about two weeks before the season ended that we were going to play a different style come tournament time. We were trying just to get ‑‑ many parts of the season, I could break it into five different parts, where we had to survive because of all the injuries. So at the end of the season we knew we'd be healthier than we've ever been. And I knew we couldn't implement what I wanted to against South Florida because they haven't allowed anybody to run against them. And then I knew we couldn't do it at Syracuse on senior night with the largest crowd ever in the dome. We were trying to get through those two games in a positive way and try to win. Then we went into the Big East and said it's a new season, we're going to implement this style of play. We're a lot healthier than we've ever been. That's pretty much the difference. As far as confidence goes, I think this has been a confident ball club when everybody is healthy. I think they lack confidence when people have been injured. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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