Rick Pitino Quotes on Basketball (19 Quotes)

T-Will did a very good job of passing the basketball. I think he's going to do a lot down the road what (former Cardinal) Francisco Garcia does. That's the best part about his game is his passing.

It's a big challenge. Marquette is playing great basketball. They're very impressive. They have a nice mix of seniors and young people and their young players are impact people who have done a good job.

Louisville, another popular office-pool pick, led by a measly point, 33-32, at the half. The Cardinals did win, 68-62, but not before trailing by a point in the final minutes. One might think there's a big difference between Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisville, basketball royalty the last 25 years. But there's not much of one. I told them during halftime, ... that if they think they're going to pull away from Lafayette they're mistaken. I told them it was going to come down to the final two minutes.

He knew I enjoyed the relationships of college basketball. All along, he was the wise one.

This is not Conference USA. That was a finesse, fast-break type league. This is a football league in a basketball league. We let them push us around on the glass. You've got to put pads on and get ready to go.

College basketball today is about perimeter play. The days of a dominant center, like Patrick Ewing, are gone. Today you don't keep centers in college basketball. They go pro. ... I really think the idea that a perimeter-oriented team can't win it is way overblown.

I think we showed tremendous guts and heart down the stretch. Getting behind against Richmond was the worst possible scenario on a basketball court. You get behind on a team like that, and it's an uphill battle all the way with the treadmill level on 10.

The one thing I learned about well-coached teams like this that control the ball is, don't worry about it, their style of play is going to win out. Just be fundamentally sound and don't get anxious and foul. Contain the basketball and rebound and that's what we did.

For Louisville basketball, we don't like coming off a Final Four and having a season like this.

They're very difficult to play against because they space the floor with five guys on the perimeter. And although they shoot and pass great and have a terrific system, what makes them so difficult is containing the basketball, because you can't be in total ball-you-man help position because of what they do offensively.

Our message the whole week has been, we're going to be in this type of atmosphere seven or eight times this year. It's a very strong home-court advantage, as strong as it gets in college basketball.

That was a very physical game. We allowed them to push us around on the glass. This isn't (Conference USA), this is a football league in a basketball league.

If we took care of the basketball a little bit, we actually could have won the game.

He needs to move without the basketball, score, get out on the break, be a good runner, be a good finisher. Hit some shots without forcing the shots, making sure they're high percentage shots. Defensively, he can do some things offensively, he's very limited.

Williams goes down seams and finds people. He's so clever with the basketball, and they're big-time finishers because they have the size to finish.

The whole NIT we're playing great defense, that's what we're trying to stress. We talked about, we can't hang our heads because we had injuries, we can't hang our heads because we're young. If you can head to the NIT Final Four, it means you're playing good basketball.

Hicks is inch-for-inch, pound-for-pound the toughest player in basketball. We played really good defense against a good ball club.

It's my wedding night, and we're in a posh New York City hotel ready to ... you know ... when I get a call, ... It's Jim, and he's down in the lobby and he wants to meet with me. He tells me there's this kid named Louie Orr in Cincinnati that we just have to land, and he says he needs me to get there and seal the deal. I tell him, 'Jim, it's my wedding night.' He was single at the time and totally consumed with basketball, so I guess he didn't understand.

I am really not pleased with the improvement that we are making. I think our guys are having a very difficult time putting together 40 minutes of basketball. Yes we are playing a lot of different players. Our fours and fives have to play bigger, they play too small. They have the size to play big, but they don't play big with their intimidation of challenging shots.