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WILLIAMS WISHES KU-UK SERIES WOULD CONTINUE
Head Jayhawk says enthusiastic Rupp Arena crowd takes back seat to no one
COMPILED BY TCP STAFF
Here are quotes from Roy Williams and Rick Pitino after UK's 88-71 win over Kansas last Saturday at Rupp Arena:
Media: Coach, you kinda had a flat tire when the score was 63-62.
Roy Williams: I told the kids, everybody talks about last year's team.. .when the score was 63-62 I told the kids I couldn't have been any more prouder of that team than any group I've been involved with. To play in this atmospherea great college basketball atmosphereand to have it 63-62 and to be playing with the poise they were playing with, I just thought that that was outstanding.
But give Kentucky credit...
Media: Early in the ballgame your team missed many easy layups. After breaking out to an early lead your team didn't handle the ball too well.
Williams: No we didn't. We sort of got caught up in what I call a frenzy. We're going up and down (the court) so fast that we'd lose our poise, lose our touch on the ball. We missed seven layups on the break in the first half, either on the break or against their press.
Our idea was to try and attack their press, take it to the basket and get some layups. And if we didn't get a layup then we wanted to try and make them play a little bit on defense, try to see if we could control the tempo a little bit unless we got a great one. We didn't do a very good job of it and Kentucky did.
Again, I thought Sean Woods was just outstanding. Reggie Hanson hurt us. Jamal Mashburn is going to be a heckuva player. You can just go down the line. They've got good kids and they played their tails off.
Media: There is more media coverage here tonight than at most NCAA tournament games, which is some indication of what the general public thinks of the KU-Kentucky game.
Williams: I said this earlier, I would like this series to continue but I understand Rick's reasons. We're in a conference where we only have 14 conference games. They have 18 conference games. It doesn't allow him the flexibility that he wants to be able to recruit a young man and say 'We'll come back in your area.'...
Media: Your kids appeared to really hustle, especially at the beginning of the second half. You must have seen some things out there tonight to encourage you the rest of the season?
Williams: I saw a lot of things that encouraged me. We just lost our poise during a seven-minute stretch and turned it over. Seven minutes seems like an enternity to me. Against a team like Kentucky here in this atmosphere, the way they are playing, you can't do that and have a chance to win the game.
I was proud of our kids. I thought we were still playing extremely hard at the end. I just didn't help 'em out very much as a coach.
Media: Talk about Kentucky's press in the first half.
Williams: We turned it over 14 or 15 times. At halftime I didn't see an official total but that's what our managers had us for. We had worked against the press, but still, we couldn't simulate against the kind of pressure they put on us. With a press like that you know you're going to turn it over, but you're also going to get some easy ones. It's a trade off. We got some easy ones but we didn't make 'em.
We'd go down the court, on three straight possessions we missed three straight layups. That just gets them more enthused because it gets them in the atmosphere they want.
They (UK) are hard-nosed kids. A kid like Richie Farmer who loses 25 pounds, he loves the game of basketball. Those are good kids. Their pressure hurt us.
Media: What adjustments did you make at halftime?
Williams: Basically, we talked about having to do a better job on the backboards. I thought they hurt us on the backboards in the first half and a couple of flurries in the second half, too. We had to get back quicker, but at the same time we've got to take care of, if we don't get the great shots we want let's take some time and run our offense. In the first half we didn't run many of our plays and we weren't very poised. During the first 10 minutes of the second half we did run our stuff. I thought we were fairly effective with it. A 10-minute stretch (as Kansas had) can't win you the basketball game. A seven-minute stretch like they put on us can surely lose it for you if you're not careful.
Media: Terry Brown didn't seem to help out.
Williams: He didn't have a real good night. They did an excellent job getting out and getting a hand in Terry's face. Terry can really shoot the basketball. For us to be an effective team we've got to get good nights out of Terry Brown and Mark Randall, our two biggest scorers. We'd like to think we're a team that can hurt you in many different ways. We didn't hurt Kentucky in many different ways tonight.
Media: Was Mark Randall slowed down by his injury in this game?
Williams: No. Even if I did (think that) I
wouldn't say that. That would take away from what they (WK) were able to do. I really don't believe he was at all.
Media: "You said you wanted to let Woods beat your team. But, that didn't mean for the UK guard to penetrate like he did.
Williams: That was bad terminology (on Williams' part); I wanted Woods to be the one to try and beat us, I didn't want him to be the one to beat us. But he did.
I've seen tapes of their three games and what he loves to do is to penetrate and then pitch out to the three-point shooters. In most of the games he hadn't gone all the way to the basket. What we wanted to do was to sort of contain him and keep him in front of us. Then, when he gets to that 10- to 12-foot range, then we've got to stop him.
Adonis (Jordan) getting three fouls bothered him. And we tried some other people on him. One time he just blew right by us and laid it in. We wanted to make sure and keep him out at 10 or 12 feet.
Sean is a good kid and really likes to get the ball to those other guys. Tonight he was able to take it himself.
Media: Comment about the Rupp Arena crowd.
Williams: I've been in some pretty good places to play college basketball and this one takes a backseat to nobody. I love our fans at Allen Fieldhouse; they're incredibly loud. That's what it was (like) tonight. That's what college basketball should be aboutthe band is playing; the cheerleaders are dancing; the crowd is going crazy, even if they are screaming at the coach. That's all right, too.
It's a great atmosphere to play in. I think Rick enjoys coaching here and those kids enjoy playing in this atmosphere. We have the same type of atmosphere back at Allen Fieldhouse, but we weren't playing there tonight.
RICK PITINO'S COMMENTS
Pitino's opening comments: Rick Pitino: We had to make a decision
this week, a very important decision, how to play Kansas. They are one of the best passing teams, executing teams in the country. They get super position and Randall is one of the best post-up people.
If we played the defense like we did against Cincinnati, where we doubled-down and X cut, or even at Notre Dame to a certain degree, then their three-point shooters, namely Brown who was shooting 53 percent, would have big nights. So we worked very hard this week on post defense and bodying cutters. And, Reggie and Mashburn, I told them in all the years I've coached that that's the best defense I've ever seen from any individualReggie Hanson. Mashburn was almost second because you have no idea how difficult it is to defend (Kansas)...
That was the best individual defensive performance I've ever seen.
Sean Woods gave us spectacular offense because when you play against a Kansas or a Carolinathey are big denial teams you've got to put it on the floor and create things. Sean did that.
This year I wanted to play mostly man-toman just for a learning experience so we can build into the future. I never expected us to play this well, this early defensively. Tonight, a very good team shot 43.9 (percent). Turn it around on offense, the way we're executing we shoot 52.2 and that's going three-for-16 from three-point range. So I can't be any more pleased with this basketball team.
I'm kind of taken back by all this, with the way they are playing. I just can't say enough for Reggie Hanson...Reggie had to stay out of foul trouble. He had to discipline himself to jump at the right times to stay out of foul
trouble, and that's not easy.
Media: Is it putting it too strong to say that Sean had a redemption tonight?
Pitino: I didn't think he needed a redemption tonight. We're a team, we don't look at individuals. Sean, in a couple of games went out there thinking of scoring. Tonight he really didn't think about scoring. He knew they were going to overplay him, and he could drive by his man and not have any help defense. He really focused on the scouting report tonight and took what the defense gave him, rather than making up his mind beforehand.
Media: Talk about what John Pelphrey does for your team.
Pitino: Well. John Pelphrey is a mini Larry Bird. I don't mean to ever compare him with the stature of Larry Bird. But all the things you see Larry Bird do for a basketball team John Pelphrey does for Kentucky. If you look at stats, I've said this, when you've got the best passer on the floor when in trouble go to John Pelphrey. I told them that in the huddle. So he's special, special basketball player. I wish I had three or four more like him.
Media: Talk about your offense. Pitino: We were mostly a motion team where we make a lot of passes. The way Kansas and Carolina play that get way up in their triangle and totally over-play. What that doesit makes it difficult to enter but allows you to dribble by a man without any help. So we told them to creat movement.
Anytime I told Sean, John Pelphrey or Reggie 'go take 'em,' we've got confidence in them and their ability.
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