Louisville coach Kenny Payne had a lot of praise for Pitt after tonight's game. Check out this quote:
"As you go through, and in my mind, I wracked my mind over what we could have done different, there’s something else that I have to say: we’ve played a lot of good teams in this conference, and guys, I’m just here to tell you that, probably the most complete, the toughest team that we’ve faced in this conference is Pittsburgh.
"Tough, fight, can score, can score a multitude of ways, they share, they share the ball, they talk on defense. When one guy is down, I hear four others talking to that one that’s down. When the play happened when the big guy threw Mike James to the floor, that’s what they live for. It wasn’t really a dirty play, and if it was, it’s competitiveness. And I watched their huddle as they huddled up after their play, and I saw what I want my guys to be. I want my guys to be tough like that, to fight like that, to be one like that. I can talk about what we didn’t do right; I can just tell you, we didn’t come to a fight. It was a fight, and we didn’t show up. And I blame myself for that, because I tried really hard to explain to the players exactly who you’re facing, exactly who you’re playing against. And out of all the teams that we’ve played, again, none better than Pittsburgh."
It's been a long, long time since another coach talked about the Pitt basketball program like that.
"As you go through, and in my mind, I wracked my mind over what we could have done different, there’s something else that I have to say: we’ve played a lot of good teams in this conference, and guys, I’m just here to tell you that, probably the most complete, the toughest team that we’ve faced in this conference is Pittsburgh.
"Tough, fight, can score, can score a multitude of ways, they share, they share the ball, they talk on defense. When one guy is down, I hear four others talking to that one that’s down. When the play happened when the big guy threw Mike James to the floor, that’s what they live for. It wasn’t really a dirty play, and if it was, it’s competitiveness. And I watched their huddle as they huddled up after their play, and I saw what I want my guys to be. I want my guys to be tough like that, to fight like that, to be one like that. I can talk about what we didn’t do right; I can just tell you, we didn’t come to a fight. It was a fight, and we didn’t show up. And I blame myself for that, because I tried really hard to explain to the players exactly who you’re facing, exactly who you’re playing against. And out of all the teams that we’ve played, again, none better than Pittsburgh."
It's been a long, long time since another coach talked about the Pitt basketball program like that.
