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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: PHOENIXMarch 24, 2012Chane BehananRick PitinoRuss SmithPHOENIX, ARIZONA Louisville – 72 Florida – 68 COACH PITINO: Well, I said yesterday that for me it's not difficult playing against a coach that I love so much. And I've done it before. But tonight it was very difficult because of the way the game ended, because they outplayed us, for 32 minutes they outplayed us. And it really hurt inside. As much as I felt like celebrating, it really hurt because he did such a masterful job of coaching. That being said, this is the second time this has happened to me in my coaching career. In 2005, to go to a Final Four, same circumstance, we played West Virginia, a little different at that time because we only had 7 players, Otis George was the 7th guy, couldn't practice with a stress fracture. Played West Virginia, they hit 11 3's in the first half. We never practiced man, couldn't play man. If you know about John Beilein and his back‑door offense, three‑point offense. I went up at halftime and I tour up the 16‑page stat sheet. I said, guys, I'm sorry, we're not prepared. We don't have much time, but we have to play man. We've got to press them because it's not working. So it's going to come from the heart. And we won in overtime. And the same exact thing happened tonight. We could not stop, they were putting four guys on the perimeter, we could not stop their 3‑point attack. They're one of the best shooting teams I've faced in a long, long time. They're just awesome at it. They move the ball. They're brilliant at it. We switched to man. And Billy made another great move. When we switched to man, he kept putting Gorgui defending the pick‑and‑roll at the end. We tried switching it, blitzing it and nothing worked. Finally we had Chane, every time he ran up, Chane would leave his man and Gorgui would go to Chane's man, and it finally worked and we got our run at that time. Florida was brilliant. It hurts to see Billy lose. But I've been proud of a lot of teams and I've said this team reminds me of the '87 team. I've never wanted a Final Four more in my life than in '87. Just to ease the pain that we were going through at the time of losing a son and distract my wife and family from that moment. And I never wanted a Final Four more than for these guys. They give me every single thing they have in their bodies. And they're just the most incredible group to coach. And now they're going to get this experience. And the only thing I've asked them to is not to be satisfied by going. Q. I think you were down maybe by 10 or 11. You had a breakaway like a layup, you missed it, got fouled. I think Russ or somebody actually tried to say, hey, got to do that. Can you tell me what you were feeling that very moment, where you were? CHANE BEHANAN: Yeah. We was down. Throughout the whole regular season we've been through these type of situations. Back versus Vanderbilt, Memphis, overtime with them. I think we had the experience. We knew what to do in that situation. I was just feeling ‑‑ I kept looking at the clock, telling myself we've been in this type of situation. Don't let down on the team. Even though the four fouls I had with six minutes left, I kept with it, and positive teammates behind me and telling me, they're going to come to me. They've got my back on defense. So that's all. Q. Can you just talk about Siva goes out, you're in, talk about the last four minutes? RUSS SMITH: Man, I was actually pretty nervous because this is one of the first times that I really handled the one in like a situation that was so serious. And it could have potentially cost us the season. I was very nervous. I had to find a way to calm myself down and get the job done, try and get Chane the ball, because Chane was going to get some great looks and just run the offense. That was the only thing that was going through my mind. Q. Coach Donovan was just talking about you and he was talking about how you were dangerous when Siva went out. And I have it in front of me, he said Russ Smith is sometimes crazy. Is that a compliment and what do you think of that? COACH PITINO: Russ‑diculous. RUSS SMITH: If Coach Donovan calls me crazy, then I guess I am crazy. Q. When coach picked up the technical foul, four shoots, four free throws, but when coach picked up the TL, did that fire up the bench? RUSS SMITH: After the technical foul I remember Kyle grabbed everyone together and said, listen, we're going through adversity. We're down 11 or 12, might it be, calls aren't going our way. They're hitting ridiculous shots. And let's just get some stops, because we're facing adversity. And we've been here before. And ever since then, we took off. And came out with the victory. CHANE BEHANAN: I thought the same thing. I was on the bench at the time. And I saw Kyle do the same thing, grab everyone together. I looked at Coach P, and he was in his face, and let him know. I don't know what he said to him. To be honest, I didn't even know he got the technical until I saw everybody back behind the half court and Walker was shooting the free throw. I thought it was going to turn the game around ‑‑ to be honest, I'm not going to lie, I thought it was it after that (laughter). Q. Getting back to the technical foul that you picked up. At that point in the game did you feel like you needed to do something to inspire, light a fire underneath your team, because it seemed like there were some calls going against your squad during the course of the game? COACH PITINO: It's the second time I've gotten a technical by that official. The first time I yelled Kyle, would you get over to screen. He thought I said, call. In that game I was just yelling at Peyton, why would you foul, he's falling down? I'm yelling why, why? Why would you foul? And he gave me a technical. I probably deserved it, according to him, because I was out of the box. But I've gotten two T's from him, without ever yelling at an official. We were, at that point in time, fighting as hard as we could fight in that basketball game. And we thought we could score as the game moves on they weren't shooting real well. But when we started switching everything and getting the right switches they started struggling a little bit. And in the second half I'm not sure, you can correct me, I don't think they made a three in the second half, am I correct on that? 0 for none. We had to switch defenses at that point. And our guys wanted to go to a Final Four in the worst way. I kept telling them, you can get in the game, just play aggressive man to man and go to the low post, go inside. And then Russ‑diculous gets a little carried away, and he hasn't played that position much. But Peyton made a really bad second foul, really bad third foul. And a really bad fourth foul. No rhyme or reason to make them. He was playing great. They couldn't stop him in terms of getting in the lane. I was yelling why at that point, didn't understand it. Because he did foul him. Q. Coach, talk about your bench play. You outscored them by 17. Russ had a big 19 and 9 rebounds from your guys off the bench? COACH PITINO: Well, you know, Russ has taken his game from ‑‑ I kid around and call him Russ‑diculous, taking a page out of Lin‑sanity stuff, but he is ridiculous, because he really came here averaging 32 points a game in high school. Goes to a prep school, because he's not recruited. He has a unique ability to score, but he has no clue how to play the game (laughter). So the first thing we had to do is, okay, Russ, let's go from eight ridiculous shots a game to five to three. Now let's get ‑‑ because we're going to the Final Four, to one, two. And he's done that. So he has bailed us out of more situations this year with his play. Because we don't have a great one‑on‑one team. Guys that can take you off the bounce and score. Peyton can take you off the bounce, but no one else really does that. So Russ can do it. It's just that you can't fathom what he's going to do when he takes you off the bounce. That's the difficult thing coaching him. He's learned so much and improved so much and has bailed us out of so many situations. Q. What about getting Behanan established in the second half, did you think they were going to have that much of a problem? COACH PITINO: I was upset at Chane. I kept getting on him because of his D. He was really playing bad defense, letting his man go around him. And I told him, I said when Prather ‑‑ from the scouting report, Prather flops in the low post every time. It's on every film. Now, it's a legitimate charge, because he's great at going down. So I said, Chane, we're going inside to you. He's going to flop. So crab dribble, where you dribble below your knees and you avoid the contact, get to your spot, he won't stop you. Well, he immediately charged into him. I told him, I said, son, that's what scouting is all about. Then the next time he made a perfect crab move, made a great shot on the baseline, really wanted the ball, really played terrific down the stretch when we needed him. Very surprising for a freshman. Q. Do you have any idea what will happen to the state of Kentucky if Kentucky can win their basketball game to win the Final Four? COACH PITINO: The one thing I've never been in my life ‑‑ we had a good regular season, and I don't think the majority of our fans really appreciated our terrific season. They looked down the road and they only lost one game. I keep trying to tell our fans, we're not Kentucky, we have no desire to be Kentucky. We think they're excellent. We think they're great. I coached there. It's great. Great tradition. We want to be Louisville. We have a different mission. They have a different mission. We both want to get to a Final Four and win a championship. But there's so much petty jealousies, when I was at Kentucky we would never get jealous of Louisville in any way possible. We were just appreciative of being in Kentucky. The measuring stick, because they're doing so well, our fans never appreciated a really good season that was decimated by injuries. Decimated. There were times we couldn't even score. If that happens, it would be awesome. Awesome for the state. But we would say, the way I look at Kentucky and the way I look at their coaching staff, I marvel at excellence. I respect excellence. So I've got great respect for excellence. But I don't get into these petty things, Kentucky/Louisville. To me it's nonsense. I never got into the Mets/Red Sox or Yankees/Red Sox. I just appreciated being a Yankee fan. And I appreciate the excellence. I really felt bad this year for Murry State. I thought they were a great team. Real proud of their kids and what they accomplished this year. So if it happens, it happens. It would be great for our state. And I'll look at it as being great for our state. But on both sides. There will be people at Kentucky that will have a nervous breakdown if they lose to us. You've got to watch. They've got to put the fences up on bridges. There will be people consumed by Louisville. While I think it's a great honor to play a great team. I think it's a great honor. There's no jealousy on our part if they get there. I respect excellence, and they're certainly an excellent ball club. Q. You said on the podium short of your kids this is your proudest moment. In what way is this more proud than even your bigger achievements? COACH PITINO: Because, you know, sometimes you lose confidence because of your questions, sometimes. You say, are we that bad? And I was walking out and my wife said to me, isn't Seth Davis a friend of yours? I said, he's a good friend of mine, I take him golfing. Someone said he tweeted I guarantee you that Florida will win. I said, honey, that is the greatest news, outside of Digger, that's the greatest thing that can happen to us.  He's never right. He's the guy that goes to a racetrack for a week and goes 0 for 45. It's awesome. I didn't think we had a shot until that happened when I was walking out the door. What happens is you can't lose confidence. I kept telling our guys we're going to the Final Four. Win the Big East tournaments, we're going to the Final Four. You'll get a piece of the Final Four when you win the Big East tournament. And they did. I've had great confidence in this basketball team and its character. And the reason I'm so proud is because it's tough to explain in this day and age the character of our ball club. Two years in a row we're the highest grade point average in the Big East. They're not great students. They just fight incredibly hard. I'm driving home and they all get together, once a week different guys had their Bible study together. And it's just such an unusual thing. That's why I said people think that they remind me of the '87 team because of overachievement. It had nothing to do with that. They remind me of the '87 team because of their humility and the way they carry themselves. Russ Smith was like Darryl Wright back then. He was the MVP of the '87 region. They all have the similarities. We didn't expect to get there then, it was such a total shock. None of our guys believed we'd get here now, so it's a total shock. That's what they remind me of, just as people. Q. 2005 you could look out in that locker room, you had a lot of guys that could shoot and pretty tested group in Garcia and Dean. This group, Gorgui has not been playing that long, and Chane is going to have to get it done for you, and Siva you wound up losing to fouls. Talk about what they've overcome the whole season, not just today? COACH PITINO: You know, when a team outplays you like that, like West Virginia did, it's really difficult. West Virginia and John at the time Beilein and Billy Donovan, they're so well coached and so well drilled. We knew we were going to have trouble going into the game with their defense. We were hoping that we could score a higher percentage. But they shot 66 percent in the second half. And I look at this basketball team and not one time this year ‑‑ we lost to Providence by 31 points. You all know what happened. You all say my players are tired. How could we be tired, we haven't practiced. I was pulling an Allen Iverson, we don't practice, everyone is injured. The truth of the matter is, I just told the guys, look guys, I've coached eight years in the pros, I see one game every year in the NBA. You're playing great and all of a sudden you put in a bad clunker. Hubie Brown said there's no reason for it, you weren't in the game, forget it. I said, yeah, but ‑‑ he said just drop it, it won't happen again. It happens one game a year. We never worried about that. We never concerned ourselves with the multiple injuries. We just stayed focused. Just stay focused on it getting better. And Chane got better. Gorgui got better. Peyton changed his whole game in the postseason. And everybody improved. And that's all we were after, whether it was a believable thing that we could get here right now, because I tell you, Davidson, I went against the four best coaches I think I've coached against in my 35 years. Bob McKillop, Steve Alford, Tom Izzo and Billy Donovan. I have never gone against four teams as well coached in my life span of coaching as those four teams. So our guys did it against really well drilled teams that have very good competition. Q. Another team from the '80s, the '83 NC State team, they weren't that good but nobody could knock them out. Is there something parallel with your team, too? COACH PITINO: Well, I think if you look at us on paper and you watch, the other day we had open practice and I turned to my son and said, I think we're like 2 for 50 shooting open drills (laughter). Gorgui was the only one that made one of the two. I think if you look at us on paper you're not impressed. But when you have to play against us and your legs are giving out and in the last five or six minutes in so many games. One time we were down 18 with five to go against a well coached Marquette team and we won. The beauty is not in the eyes of the beholder when you look at our basketball team. But you can see the potential. You can see how good Chane Behanan is going to be. You can see Gorgui Dieng is going to be one of the premier centers in the game. You can see Russ Smith is tough to guard. You can see Wayne Blackshear, a McDonald's All‑American, some day is going to be terrific. So we have ‑‑ we're just young and we're growing. And Kyle and Chris have been steady. But what you all see, we've heard all year from everybody. You know how many times this year ‑‑ I don't read the newspaper, and we've got the best writers in the business. We have great writers, they really are, I don't read them for a personal reason outside of that. You know how many times I go out and nice people come up to me this year, and I was happy getting through and winning 22. They said don't listen to them, coach, don't listen to them, coach. I said don't listen. I said what are you talking about? And they'd walk away. Finally I turned to them and said we won 22 games this year. And he came up and said people up the street only lost one, dad. So I got the point at that point in time. But we were very happy with our regular season. And we're obviously delighted to win the Big East championship. And now it doesn't get any better than this. I am so proud of them. Q. You referenced your son. And I know there are coaches, other coaches who have gone to the Final Four. I'm wondering what the experience is like when you get to share that with a family member? COACH PITINO: Well, I have a very unique family. Unfortunately in our lives we've had a lot of difficult times. My wife and I, we've never recovered to this day ‑‑ we always say it all the time, we have a great time together. It will never be as good as when Willie was alive. My sister‑in‑law and her three children, who are all New Yorkers, moved to Kentucky five doors down. Because of all the problems we've had in our life we're a very close family. The most incredible thing happened yesterday, a good friend of my brother‑in‑law, Willie Minardi said to me, Rick, you're not going to believe this, one block away. What is it? There's a bar called Coach and Willies. I said get out of here. He said I'm dead serious. Yesterday after the press conference we took pictures and sent everybody that knew Willie. And I told the guy the story and tonight after this, there's a balcony up top, and we're taking all our people who knew Willie. It was so incredible that moment. These type of moments, like '87 and everything else, just to see your family smile. And we're going into that bar tonight and I know my wife, myself and children, will cry a little bit looking at the name Willie, but it eases the pain when you have your family together at times. And the elation is unbelievable for us. I see them out on the court so, so happy and it gives me chills inside. Q. What's it mean to you personally at this stage of your career to go to the Final Four and also after the extortion deal, the two years you've been through? COACH PITINO: Well, you know what happens sometimes? People don't really know the truth about what really happened sometimes, but you've got to go through the process and the legal system. I said I'd really like some people to know the truth. And the lawyer said, just go on with your life. And I did. And a lot of times the last two years I took a lot of grief from a lot of people saying a lot of things. And I never thought in my life I could turn the other cheek and just walk on. And I did. And some of the most ugly things I've heard, I just took it inside. And today as I look back on it I'm real proud that you could turn the other cheek. So for me personally it's a great moment. I really now wish it didn't happen against Billy. And I really had no problem, because I played against my assistant coaches, because I love him so much. But he knows that. And the first thing he said to me and walked out, I said Billy, I feel bad, I feel terrible, man. He said, are you kidding me, coach? I am so happy for you. That just didn't happen in this world. I've had six children and I really consider him a 7th, because everything I've dreamed about a player improving, whether it's Gorgui or Nazr Mohammed or whoever it may be, it was always the bar of Billy Donovan. He was raising my bar. Because what he was and what he became I've never seen the likes of in my lifetime. Because he ‑‑ his body transformed. His game transformed. He became unguardable and gave all of us the biggest thrills of our life when he played. I get so much credit at times for transforming his body and doing this with him. Billy Donovan made me as a coach. I became the Knicks coach because of Billy Donovan. Q. Kind of to a lesser extent you've talked about Kyle Kuric kind of making incremental improvements in the same vein. Around the 8 minute mark he gathered the guys on the floor and had a speech about overcoming the adversity. Can you expound on what Kyle has meant to this team and for him to speak out in that situation knowing that he's kind of a quiet guy? COACH PITINO: Well, before the game Richard took a bunch of clips of Kyle's best plays in terms of hustling intensity. And while the other guys were out shooting Kyle watched them. And Rich told him he needs to play this way. I didn't know Kyle did it.  To be honest with you, I'm the most shocked person on the earth that it was him that did it. Because he really doesn't do those things. So he stepped out of character at a much needed moment and showed that type of leadership. A young man like Chris, the reason I wanted him to take down the net at that point in time, here's a young man that lives in the shadow of his brother all his life. And lives for these moments that never come to reality. I wanted him to understand how much we appreciate Chris Smith for what he did to the program. Those guys meant a lot to us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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