Louisville had an impressive showing on Wednesday night when they beat Florida State 84-65. Here are comments after the game from Rick Pitino, Donovan Mitchell, Quentin Snider, and Damion Lee. Transcript of Pitino’s comments are below the videos.
Opening Statement
“Except for the last two minutes, it was a great performance by our guys. Just overall better on offense and defense, we had something like 50 paint touches offensively, I think it was 57, and that is a record for us. So we did a lot of good things tonight. Florida State was a very dangerous ball club. They have a lot of offensive weapons, a lot of size but our guys rose to the occasion and played a great game.”
On what stood out the most in tonight’s performance
“I think Quentin (Snider) and Trey (Lewis) were both great, I think they both played a great game. I thought Nanu (Onuaku) was big on the backboard, I thought Jaylen (Johnson) played great, it was a good game and did a lot of good things. I thought Damion (Lee), although he did not have a good shooting night, was very active on defense. Prior to the last two minutes we played great defense, we had them in the 30 percentile and then we gave up lay-up upon lay-up.”
On what he liked from the defensive perspective
“I liked everything except a few non-blockouts where Ray (Spalding) ducked out of the way instead of clearing out and getting the rebound. Overall it was a great performance by our team.”
On what has been the difference defensively the past two games
“I just think we are getting better and better at all phases of the game. Our ball movement is good, our recognition and what is going to be available. I thought Quentin was brilliant tonight. He knew the clock and did a lot of great things and I was really, really happy with him.”
On Donovan Mitchell’s dunk
“It was pretty special, all of a sudden he came out of nowhere. Now I have seen him do it before but that was a pretty darn good one, it was explosive. When he jumps off two feet, my God, he can get up. ”
On scouting/recruiting Mitchell
“He made a play … I told Kenny (Johnson) ‘we got to have him.’ He made a play where the guy took the ball out of bounds on the left sideline, a little bit higher than the hash mark and Donovan went like this (*points left finger in the air*) and he was on the right wing across from the guy. They just threw the ball up from the other side of the court and out of nowhere comes this guy and just dunks the basketball. My mouth stood open, the whole gym stood up and went crazy. I said to Kenny, I think we gotta get that kid. Then he started, really doing some other things we liked. He’s going to be a terrific basketball player. Deng (Adel) right now, you can see it he’s a little nervous he hasn’t played but he’s going to be fine. He’ll get over that nervousness and he’ll be a good player as well.”
On upcoming road games
“We’ve got two big road games coming up. Virginia Tech led Notre Dame the entire night, I happened to be watching it, and they lost it at the end. Two different teams, Georgia Tech has two guys built like Chinanu Onuaku, very strong low post game, very physical in everything they do, and Virginia Tech brings as much energy as any team we’ll face in the league. We have two very difficult road games and we have to be ready for them. This was a brilliant performance by our guys again, two great performances back-to-back. “
On offensive rebounding
“We’ve done it all year, we’ve been a good offensive rebounding team all year.”
