Here’s what Chris Mack had to say after his first Kentucky-Louisville game
Here’s everything Louisville head coach Chris Mack said after U of L lost to Kentucky, 71-58, on Saturday in the Yum Center:
Opening statement: “I’ll start off by giving Kentucky credit. I thought their team played well. I thought they’ve turned the corner a little bit from the beginning of the year to now. They’ve improved dramatically. I thought our kids played hard. I thought we played hard. If you told me before the game we’d be about even with them on the glass, we’d keep our turnovers to around 12 and the inside game wouldn’t necessarily cause a ton of concern in terms of getting ducked in and their fours and fives had monster night around the rim, I thought it’d give us a chance to come down to a one or two possession game. So you give those guys credit. I just don’t think we played very well – especially offensively. Again, I thought we played hard. I thought our kids competed. I think those statistics we harped on a lot before leading up -- 50/50 balls, not getting ducked in, being able to take care of the ball, but offensively we were out of sorts. A lot of that has to do with their length, their athleticism and not just from the point guard position. Obviously he’s (Ashton Hagans) a hell of a disrupter. I thought even in the beginning, PJ Washington a couple of times, he switched on the our two-guard and he causes turnovers, he blocked a shot from the perimeter. Hopefully this becomes a lesson we can learn from. We have to be a little bit more patient, probably more my fault than anything. I haven’t done a good enough job for us to figure out how to play deeper in the shot clock. And you have to do that against what I consider an elite defensive team. Hats off to those guys. We were playing down 10 the whole game. The whole game. Can you get a couple of stops? Can you generate a couple of open looks that you knock down where the game goes from 10 or nine to four? Now maybe there’s a little game pressure, but we could never do that. A big part of that is us and probably a larger part of that is our opponent.”
On the game plan of guarding Kentucky’s Tyler Herro: “Well, they’re very, very set-play driven. They try to put him in positions in they’ve put him in all year where he’s dealing with a pin down. He made some floaters in the lane and he hit some shots that we knew he was more than capable. I don’t think his percentage relays the fact that he’s a good shooter, but we knew he was. You could see that in their foreign trip. And obviously coach (John Calipari) has the confidence to continue to go to him. We have a little bit smaller guards. I thought he rose up a couple of times and knocked shots over us. Give him credit. I don’t think I’ve seen a game where he’s made two 3s in a row all year and he did tonight. He’s a good player.”
On the lack of offensive execution: “Not making shots, you’d like to make some. I thought, again, a few of them got blocked. We’ve got to test your IQ on that. If you’re taking a shot that’s getting blocked… they’ve got incredible makeup ability with their athleticism. Execution was very poor. Kentucky had a lot to do with that. Even our entry passes… we’re catching the ball 37, 38 feet from the basket and a point-to-wing pass and that needs to be on the wing, not at 37 feet. It just totally puts you out of sorts. Whether it’s a ball screen, or screening action it’s so far away from the basket, it’s irrelevant at that point. And that happened like four or five times. On the plays that we did execute, give their guys credit. They called out screening actions, they did a really good job of taking away some of the set plays that we were able to execute. When that breaks down, you have 15, 18 seconds on the shot clock, we have to be better at getting in the lane and creating for one another. There were times we did a really good job, but not enough times over the course of the game.”
On the 1-3-1, did you practice that?: “Yeah, we practiced it. It’s a curveball for our team. Our problem wasn’t defense today, it really wasn’t, it was offense. We were trying to get maybe something that led us defense-to-offense, maybe we get a deflection, maybe we get a couple of open court layups. I’ll be honest, they got some wide open 3s against our 1-3-1, they just didn’t make them. Now if we go down to the other end and that nine-point lead goes to five, maybe that’s funny feeling and, again, that’s the game pressure we couldn’t put on them tonight.”
Twenty three-pointers taken, is that a number you’re comfortable with?: “I don’t care. I just want to get a good shot every time down the floor.”
Did you feel like a lot of those were good looks from a three-point range?: “I would say that the majority of them - I don’t want to say majority – it’s really hard to tell when it’s live. I thought a few of them, obviously when you get your shot blocked, you’re not talking about two or three seconds on the shot clock where you really don’t have a whole lot of options. That’s a wrong decision. It’s not a good look, no matter how good of a shooter you are, you have to know that. Their length and athleticism, their ability to challenge a shot is a little bit different from other teams that you play. Those weren’t good looks. I thought we got some good ones… not as good as Kentucky got, especially against our zone defense. I’ve really got to watch the tape, but my overall impression was I just felt like we were a little bit impatient, because it’s hard to crack that nut to get in the lane against a team that’s got great athleticism and great length. The times that we did, we made the right play, and we shot-faked, we generated some decent looks. But you’ve got to be able to do that for an entire game with our team.”
It was a big emphasis that Kentucky was a big-time offensive rebounding team. You only gave up five second chance points. It seemed like Steven Enoch really dominated the interior…: “I wouldn’t say dominated. You lose by 13, you didn’t dominate anything. I don’t want to say that we lost the game, but the momentum went to Kentucky, when we didn’t offensive rebound, in the third four-minute segment of the game. Their kid [Jemarl] Baker, off the bench, who is a good shooter. The third shot in that possession that Kentucky got, he drilled a three from the top of the key. Again, I tell our team all the time, if a team can’t get second or third shots, after a while, that puts a lot of pressure on that first shot. They tested us in that third four-minute war, as we like to call it, and we failed that test. I think for the entirety of the game we did a really good job on the glass. But the game swung because the lead was three, four, or five, somewhere around there. You eliminate that second shot, maybe we score, I don’t know. Maybe get our shot blocked, who knows. They punked us in that three- or four-minute span, now it’s a 10-point game. And that’s what it was the whole game. Nine points, 11 points, 12 points, nine points, we could never get over the hump. That was the separator, giving up those offensive rebounds during that time.
Were you surprised at the intensity of the game?: “No, I just feel like we didn’t do our part to give our fans some juice in the stands. They were great. I’ve been in those games before where you don’t ever cut it to four or three and now the fans can get behind you. We cut it from 11 to nine, they were on their feet. So, rivalry game, regular game. We didn’t do enough to put pressure on our opponent, today, to make them feel a little differently, then they felt all game.”
With the non-conference schedule over, how would you rate your team so far?: “I don’t know. We’ve got to bet better. We’ve got a heck of a week coming up.”
You thought Kentucky had turned the corner. Where do you see their ceiling, at this point?: “It’s hard for me to say, because I haven’t seen all the teams that are going to battle for it all. When you play that many freshmen, they are at the tip of the iceberg in terms of their potential and getting better. You could see, they got punched in the mouth early in the Duke game. They didn’t respond very well. They took ill-advised shots; a little bit like us. That sort of, at least what I’ve seen over the last three, four, five games, sort of been a thing of the past. They’ve done in two environments that aren’t their own. I think they are going to have the defensive presence to be in every single game they play. If they have guys that do what they did today, in terms of, [Tyler] Herro shooting the ball like that. The only thing that they are going to be missing is a little experience. You know how that is down the stretch.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2018 at 6:38 PM.