The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB-Louisville Postgame Quotes
2/5/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 5, 2005
Louisville head coach Rick Pitino
On the victory at a sold-out Bartow Arena:
"There are a lot of difficult crowds in the nation, but this is as good of a home court crowd as you'll find in college basketball. It was a very difficult game for us. I'm proud of our guys that we could withstand all of this and still come away with a victory. This environment was very difficult. We've gone into some really tough places. At Florida, at Cincinnati and now at UAB. They're difficult places to play as well as (teams) being very well coached. A few years ago we would have no shot at winning this game."
On the Blazers as a team:
"Our respect for them is off the charts. They're tough-minded and if you don't play every possession against them, they can have runs that just put you away. If you take a bad shot, they make you pay more than anybody in college basketball. Maybe UAB and North Carolina make you pay more than any teams I've watched this year."
On UAB head coach Mike Anderson:
"I don't' know how old Mike Anderson is, but he looks like he's twenty. He's one of the best young coaches in the game. He's done a wonderful job with this program. He has a great coaching disposition and I really admire him. UAB is very lucky to have him."
UAB head coach Mike Anderson
On the game:
"It was a tough one tonight. It was right there for the taking; a play here, a play there, a loose ball here, a defensive stop there and if we could have gotten to the free throw line, maybe that would have helped as well. But, I'm proud of our guys. I'll take the blame on this one, I just couldn't get our guys some rest when they needed to. When Ronell (Taylor) went down, I thought that really hurt us in terms of a guy that could create something. You've got to give Louisville credit, they're deservedly the ninth-ranked team in the country. They made some big plays tonight. We had our chances and I thought the fans were great. It was an awesome atmosphere and I knew it would be. They got a chance to see a very good basketball game between two teams that were pretty good."
On the injuries to Ronell Taylor and Derrick Broom:
"We had been very fortunate this season in terms of injuries, but that's part of the game. We had a tremendous effort by our guys and I told them that I'm very proud of them. I can honestly say that our guys played their hearts out. They left it all on the floor. The difference between a few plays and we would have been right where we wanted to be. But again, this was a very good Louisville team."
On Marques Lewis's getting into foul trouble:
"When you look at Marques' numbers tonight, he was four-for-four, made the one free throw he had and he had rebounds for us. He gives us a presence. He's playing some of his better basketball right now and to me that makes a difference. In the second half they were really able to guard our perimeter guys, because the inside was null and void. We had to be able to create from our defense and attack and try to open up the floor and get some attacks to the basket and try to get to the free throw line. It's a tough loss, but at the same time, it's only one game. I always say you can never get too high and you can never get too low. We're in the conference race and we're still in the hunt for something."
