The Pitino Press

[NC Cat]

Thinking back on the game yesterday, I can't remember a single UK turnover in the backcourt. And that's with UL pressing most of the game and UK using two freshmen point guards almost the whole way.If the press can't force a rookie backcourt into TOs,what good is it?Has the all-out press now gone the way of the wishbone in football?

[Will Lavender]

I'd like to say that the press is a relic, but there was UT last year causing all kinds of problems with theirs.

Pitino did very little trapping yesterday. It was essentially a token thing.

But really, I don't think UofL has very good defenders. Defense, like offense, is a talent. It's about work ethic, of course, but there is also an art to it. Ask Chuck Hayes. Louisville is a terrible half-court defensive team (I've seen the likes of Georgetown and Ohio U. tear them apart), so why would their full-court defense be any better?

One thing I noticed is that they're physically weak. I've watched the game twice, and the second time especially I saw that we were just blasting the Cards toward the end of the game. They were missing free throws and bending down while we were sprinting up the floor for dunks and almost perfect from the stripe. Edgar Sosa is probably having nightmares about Ramel Bradley right about now, as Smooth absolutely tore hiim apart in the last 15:00 or so minutes. (Watch it again; watch how active Ramel was defensively. LOVED Smooth's game yesterday.) All that training and conditioning Pitino is known for is pretty much a distant memory.

And you've got to give the Cats some credit: we just executed well against it. We had a good gameplan to break it. I thought Sheray Thomas particularly did a terrific job of bringing the ball up. And D. Jasper is just so much bigger than UofL's small, thin guards that they could do nothing with him.

[wildcatcrazy]

Did you see the stat that Louisvile had ZERO fast break points. Amazing--but I am afraid the game says more about them than it does about us.

We may have been the best of two teams that are not very good yesterday--but lets enjoy it anyway! (It is, after all, U of L)

[NC Cat]

Good point about conditioning Will.In the postgame interviews, Tubby was talking about wanting to wear them down. I had to read it again to make sure I was seeing it correctly. Tubby planningto wear down a Pitino coached team speaks volumes about the kind of condition our kids are in and the and of depth we have.Kudos to Holsopple!

[Will Lavender]

NC Cat wrote: Good point about conditioning Will.In the postgame interviews, Tubby was talking about wanting to wear them down. I had to read it again to make sure I was seeing it correctly. Tubby planningto wear down a Pitino coached team speaks volumes about the kind of condition our kids are in and the and of depth we have.Kudos to Holsopple!
The difference between this team physically and last year's team is flat-out UNGODLY. It's like some of these kids -- Bradley and Morris to name two -- are completely different people.

This is one reason, I think, we're having such success defensively. I'm going to go back to my earlier point: Ramel Bradley was so far up in Edgar Sosa's jersey yesterday Sosa will have to use stain remover to get him out. And we were also punishing them a good deal when they brought it inside. This is one reason they -- and IU last week -- were having such a problem shooting in rhythm.

It's called fear. We didn't have it last year because we were so weak. This year, I've seen some of our kids with a swagger. We're punching people in the mouth (metaphorically, of course) and they aren't liking it.

You have to do that if you don't have that much talent, which we don't. And of course our defense isn't going to keep up this torrid pace. But we're so much more physically in control of games this year than we were a year ago.