Jamie Dixon’s Post Game Comments

Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon.

Opening statement

“Well, we obviously felt pretty good with about 12 minutes left. I thought we were doing some good things. I thought we came out of that halftime and really went out aggressive offensively, started getting stops, getting rebounds, getting loose balls and got going offensively with transition. We got going and finished around the basket and took good shots, but after that we didn’t get any stops. We didn’t get any rebounds. At one point we were up four on the glass, we end up losing by ten somewhere down that stretch of about 12 minutes we lost out on 14 rebounds, so you’re certainly not going to win in that situation and it got away from us in that regard. We had 10 turnovers for the game. We want to be just below that, but you’re going to have a few. A couple of them were key. I thought Louisville hit some tough shots too that we guarded pretty well. But it is extremely disappointing because I thought we came out and did some good things, especially some adjustments in the first half and at halftime and really were aggressive offensively and just played more aggressive attacking. But it got away from us the second half.”

On Montrezl Harrell

“I mean, he had a big game against us last game. It wasn’t really too surprising. He hit a couple jump shots, maybe a few more than we anticipated. Sometimes we had him take the shot, but 12 rebounds and it seemed like he got to the loose balls. It seems like he became the most physical guy out there the last 10 minutes or so. He obviously played very well. I think we have very good players, but he certainly made some big plays especially down the stretch.”

On not matching Louisville’s intensity

“I thought our shot selection was very good. We forced some shots. At times when things don’t go well, we miss free throws. We let those things affect what we do in other areas. We certainly didn’t respond in a very good way once things went the other direction and when we got outrebounded like that. I thought the free throws were big. I thought that kind of killed momentum when we got something good but when we got to the line we didn’t make free throws, and those hurt us too. You could point to all different things and come up with reasons, but it was a game of runs and certainly they had the run at the end that clearly put us away.”

On the team being fatigued

“You know I looked at the minutes and it looked like – when you lose a lead like that, and you finish like you do, and you get outrebounded – you look at the fatigue and you think about those things. But we kind of spread the minutes out as good as we have. Obviously, our perimeter is not where we want to be. I guess we had three guys out from what we anticipated. There’s some unique situations going on there but I thought we were in position. We were playing those same guys in the first half and the first eight to 10 minutes of the second half and we seemed good. Maybe I should have got Jamel (Artis) out a little bit more, got him less minutes. But I thought otherwise I thought we had the minutes pretty good if you look at the numbers. You know, I think Harrell went 40 and Rozier went 38. They were the guys who made the plays for them.”

More on Montrezl Harrell

“I thought he hit some tough shots. He hit some jump shots. He made his free throws. He had two offensive rebounds. It seemed like a few more, but he was around the rim and finished well. Sometimes we had trap situations and he was able to get out of those. That wasn’t a good sign for us where a guy can score on the trap around two players. He finished a few of those over us, around us, and through us. That certainly can’t happen in those situations. We had talked about it, but he made the plays.

On his team

I’m proud of our guys in the second half and how we came out and attacked and went at them and got that lead. It is within us, but as the game wore on and the rebounds, they made their free throws. We didn’t. You can’t only shoot 57% from the line. They shoot 83% and you can’t expect to win on the road, and give up 50% from the field. It was a combination of things, but hopefully we can learn from that and understand what we have got to do. We fought into some foul trouble early with different guys. I told our guys we have to get ready for Saturday. We can feel sorry for ourselves and point to all of these different reasons why, but we have to get ready for Saturday. We have got to be prepared to play well in our home game.”

On Cameron Wright

“You know, it was a game-time decision. He shot around a little yesterday and was just going to see how it went today. He did shoot around today and just felt he couldn’t go so, it was his decision. He did shootaround yesterday as I told you guys. He went through the skill work and got some shots up. We didn’t think he would go full contact, but once we got to today he felt he couldn’t go and hopefully we’ll see where he is come Saturday.”