Gophers HC Richard Pitino is 1-0 at Minnesota after a solid win over Lehigh.
Hey guys – as always, I type as they talk. I get more from Pitino as I can type on my computer…the players I do on my iPhone, this is not verbatim, but the general comments.
Richard Pitino:
• It was a really good opening debut, and certainly the high point has to be Elliott Eliason to get 17 boards in 27 minutes of play is amazing. He’s carrying us right now. They’re a good team, he’s a great coach.
• Mo is a loss, and every guy on the team will have to do a little bit to keep up. Oto will have to go from 3 to 6 rebounds. We support Mo, we love Mo, we can’t wait to get him back in Maui. We made the decision today and released it right before the game.
• Our front court has to continue to get better. It’s a hole that we’re going to have to fill. The guys want to do it.
• Our defense in the 1st half was phenomenal. We also did a good job of taking them out of what they wanted to do. Getting 11 steals is something that we pride ourselves on.
• Joey’s biggest thing is rebounding, and he will come around because he’s willing to try and get better. Only 1 rebound in a game was not good.
• To only foul 15 times is really good.
• I really like pick and pop format, guys that have ability to shoot the 3. Joey is a guy, like a few of them, we evaluated them late and we felt like he fit the way we play. He is going to effect the game every game, he may not score 20 points, but he works so hard and plays so hard. I love having him on my team.
• Pitino to Andre Hollins – the time to be passive is for last year. We need you to be aggressive. We said, “go get fouled,” he did a lot of good things defensively.
• Playing Joey and Oto is not ideal, but what is a weakness is also a strength. We just need to get everyone to believe it’s a strength, not a weakness.
• The guys’ focus was unbelievable during the game and practice all week. Respect every opponent that comes into our building. This is one of the best arenas in all of college basketball.
• I think it took me a couple of weeks at FIU to get a win and the monkey off my back. Norwood told me he’d fire me if we didn’t get the win tonight.
• The loose ball count – it was 8-4, we lost it. The long rebounds is the biggest issues, they shot 29 3’s of 69 FG’s.
• Wally is good, he’s going to be a big part of what we’re doing. He was available, it doesn’t mean he won’t come back and play major minutes on Tuesday.
Pitino said there is no truth to the rumor that there was a verbal dispute between him and Wally Ellenson.
Joey King
We’re all family in here and we support him through this process, but we just had to come out with who we had.
Our effort had to pick up, we gave it our all out there and we played pretty well
When we go smaller with me at the 5, it gives us a little quicker line-up.*
We’re going to have to keep getting better everyday so we’re ready when we bring in bigger opponents.
I’m just going to do whatever I can to help the team win, my teammates set me up with some bunnies.*
I try to never get too high or too low
Andre Hollins
On Elliott- He played amazing
I liked the way we responded tonight.*
Zone is a part of our game, sometimes you can’t press the whole game.*
We did everything, we worked as hard as we could, we have to get those*
We know our shots are going to fall, we’re just trying to play as hard as we can. An all out team effort.*
Elliott Eliason
It’s out job, we’re locked in to play games, we’re not going to lose our focus.*
It’s going to be tough, we’re going to have to work hard to make up for it.
We’ll be working hard on rebounding.
Joey’s an energy guy, he was doing great things, to come off the bench like that was huge for us.*
I had it in the back of my mind that Trevor got 18 rebounds, but couldn’t beat him.*
Our strength and conditioning coach is one of the best in the country, he got me in great shape.*
We’ve known we wouldn’t have Mo Walker for a few days.*