Everything Pat Kelsey said after Louisville’s win over Bellarmine

Pat Kelsey:

Louisville Coach Pat Kelsey: (Opening Statement) “There is a group of people that I acknowledged in the locker room after we broke huddle and that is the group that I want to get acknowledged for the impact they have on our program and that is our student managers and our graduate assistants. If you are an employer out there, hire them and thank me later. They are the best group of managers that I have ever been around. “They are crucial to the success of the organization.”

“In terms of the game today, I want to acknowledge Scotty (Davenport) and Bellarmine. I have the utmost respect for the program that Scotty has built. He is known in coaching circles as a kind of innovator, a savant if you will. They play a unique style that is their own brand. It is difficult to prepare for as they do a tone of movement and a tone of cutting. I just have a lot of respect for them. We have a couple of drills that are named for him – the Knights’ Shooting Drill, which is a ball penetration drill that I got from Scott. Scott was very good friends with my mentor, Skip Prosser, and we shared a lot of conversations over the years after we lost Coach Prosser. They were short-handed tonight without their leading scorer. I loved how our players responded from a really tough loss at home nine days ago. You always like to get back up on the horse after tough loss like that. And to have to stew over it for nine days, I thought our guys approached the game the right way. “We had great film sessions, terrific practices and came out and played really well tonight.”

(About responding after the Tennessee loss)

“I love our team. I am bullish on our team. I love to coach them. We said in the locker room that team has a really good chance to play at a high level. They responded to the loss in the right way and knew we had a lot of stuff to clean up and they did it. They are a together team. They enjoy being around each other. They played together tonight, and the statistics speak to that. There were guys in double figures. They shared the ball and there was a good assists-to-turnover ratio. I love coaching these guys. They have a toughness about them. They have a certain maturity about them. “I am proud of how they responded.”

(About having a shot clock violation early in the first half and what Coach Kelsey said in the huddle about it)

“Really early, we got a shot clock violation, and we got it all the way down to the end. I am sure it (what he said in the huddle) was absolute genius basketball coaching. I tell you; Jimmy Naismith was shivering in his grave with what I told them. To answer that, I really don’t know what I said. “I probably told them to go down and get a stop, but I really can’t remember what I told them specifically.”

(On what Koren Johnson and Aboubacar Traore need to do to get back on the floor and get healthy)

“Kader (Aboubacar Traore) has to have his bone heal, he fractured his arm, so that’s just a healing process. Koren (Johnson) has a shoulder injury, and that has to heal as well. Another person I need to acknowledge, because she doesn’t get enough credit, is – we call her ‘Kate the Great’ – Kate Creznic. She is our sports medicine trainer, and she is phenomenal. The work she does behind the scenes to get our guys healthy, deal with injuries, do recovery stuff. (Traore and Johnson) are in great hands, and they’ll continue to grow while they’re out. They’ll watch film and be extensions of the coaching staff and be valued members of the 25 strong until they get back. Until then, next man up.”

(Timeframe for both injuries)

“I don’t know. “You would have to ask Kate (Creznic).”

(On the benefits of bringing Kasean Pryor off the bench as opposed to starting him)

“The benefits of bringing Kasean (Pryor) off the bench? I mean, a benefit would be he is a really stinking good player. You bring him, a really good player, off the bench and that raises the level of play. There’s no major reason why he’s not in the starting lineup. Kasean is one of our best players. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. It’s just how it is, like playing time is earned every day throughout practice, you know all those things, those are earned behind closed doors in practice. Kasean is working his butt off and having a great approach and getting better every day. I got after him a couple times late in the second half, when he had a couple kind of lackadaisical defensive possessions, and I lit him up a bit in the timeout. I thought he played for as good as four minutes of defensive basketball as he has played all year. “We got 42 percent of our misses in the second half after only getting 20 percent of our misses in the first half, and I think he was a big part of that.”

(On Khani Roots getting more time and what PK saw from him)

“I thought Khani (Rooths) did some really good things. I lit him up a little bit in a timeout because we had him on 33 (Bellarmine’s Ben Johnson) and I thought he had like 620 points at the time. He got loose for a couple rhythm threes off some of their actions. I just said ‘Look, man, I’m putting a freshman on a kid that’s as hot as a firecracker, and I need you to stay locked in.’ I answered the right way, ‘You’re right, Coach.’ I thought I played hard. Obviously, he is ultra-talented, he has a very, very bright future. But that next man up mentality is like, not just Khani because obviously he’s a guy who is going to replace their role a little bit, but everybody’s role is going to change a little bit because you lose two very valued members of your roster. So, that is one of the fun things about coaching, obviously, not losing players and having players get injured, but it’s going back to the lab and figuring out and seeing what some of the adjustments that you have to make to compensate. That’s part of it.”

(On figuring out the balance between attacking the basket and taking three-point attempts)

“Our mentality is to attack first and three create themselves. We don’t have a picked number; we don’t have a number of how many threes we shoot. We have a certain number of paint touches we want to get by playing downhill, and then when you get rid of those three, you step up and knock them down. “We didn’t shoot it great in the Tennessee game, but you’ve got to tip your cap to Tennessee and their defense, but we shot it well tonight.”

(What was the gameplan that resulted in such an effective shooting night?) “We say we want to hunt great, hunt great, hunt great. Those’s hunting great shots. We generate great and it doesn’t go in, I sleep like a baby. It’s a make, miss game. Sometimes it goes in and sometimes it doesn’t. But as long as we’re trying to generate great shots, high percentage shots. I didn’t think we generated enough of those against Tennessee, shots around the rim. We took what I call “Simone Biles” shots or high degree difficulty shots against Tennessee. We took too many of those, even the open looks we did have in that game we didn’t knock them down. “I’d not like to talk about that game (Tennessee) anymore if we could, that’d be nice.”

(What did you learn from watching Bellarmine tonight, that might influence future strategies?)

“I’m a hoop junkie. I just love, love, love watching basketball and film. Every game you dive into, because there is a million ways to skin a cat, a lot of different ways to play. I always keep my notebook and make notes of whoever I’m watching whether that is Morehead State, Tennessee, or whoever. You can always learn, coaching we are all a bunch of thieves we are always trying to steal things. Scotty is a terrific coach and by watching his scout the last couple of days, I obviously learned a lot and it was an honor to compete against him.”

(On Reyne Smith)

“Reyne is way more than just a shooter, there’s no question. He is a basketball player. He is a very reliable defender, solid. I don’t think he gets enough credit for his defense. He’s tough as nails. “He does all the little things: solid rebounder, good playmaker, obviously a terrific, elite shooter.”

Scotty Davenport:

(Opening statement)

“In coaching, you’re defined purely by winning and losing. It’s a very objective measurement. What I saw this team do for their teammates – (Jack Karasinski) – the leading scorer – had to have a treatment procedure today just after 12 pm What I saw them do – and for a teammate, we had a very serious medical emergency, I ‘m proud of them – it was incredible. There are tears in our locker room right now. Do you know what their message was after the game? ‘Look at your mom and dad – look at one if you have one – and tell them you love them tonight. Those kids are winners. They are winners. And they fought. We ran out of gas. The last eight minutes it was an 18-point game – I thought it was closer than that until the last four, but give them credit where credit is due. Our goal is to make them shoot 3s off the dribble and they make three 3s the first half off the bounce, those were on us, give them credit.”

(The last time you started 0-5, you went on a run and ended up winning the Atlantic Sun championship – do you take away from a night like tonight)

“In reality, when we were Division II, every game counted because in Division II, other than the Elite Eight it’s all played on home courts and you are striving from day one to be a host. At our level, you are playing for the conference tournament because that is the AQ. Today is November 19^th – it is just a totally different mindset as a coach. Did we learn tonight against athleticism and phenomenal spreading of the floor and great intense rebounding? Forks. Did it eliminate us from anything? No. When we were Division II, you could have been at a risk of losing potential home court advantage when you get into the postseason play. It is the difference between a Power 5 league and a multiple-bid league and a league that is a one-bid league. The ASUN has never had two teams in the tournament. So you pick their heads up. We are off tomorrow mandatory, and you coach your socks off Thursday, Friday and take off to play Bowling Green Saturday afternoon. “You have to have a plan – and I don’t use the word ‘culture,’ but ‘plan’ to me means our program has a plan and we do.”

(When might Jack might be back /what is the background behind telling each other to love their parents)

“Jack (Karasinski) has been fighting a bad back, and our trainer Brad Bluestone has worked, it’s unbelievable – he had a program where, for example, he (Jack) didn’t practice Sunday after we played Saturday night, he didn’t practice Thursday, he practiced Friday played Saturday, off Sunday, off Monday and he just never got any better. “He had a procedure today at 12:20pm and we are very optimistic after the 24 hours that he will get a little bit of work in on Thursday, and hopefully he can practice no contact on Friday and play Saturday.”

“As far as the team, it is too private. It’s just a call any coach or parent would never want and then to be there for the young man. I can tell you this; it started at 10:38 am he left Louisville between 12 and 12:15 pm – it was over three hours. Left to come back… he was on our walk through at 2 pm and never laid his head down and he ate pregame meal with his team. Couldn’t be more proud of him and then he took the locker room over. There are grown educated college young men in there whose hearts are ripped out for a teammate. In this day and age caring is a phenomenal talent and those kids in that locker room care and I am proud they care. Our world will be better because of them.”

(On Ben Johnson)

“He showed phenomenal determination. I’ve never done this is as a coach – I won’t say how many years – I had him take his jersey off and pass it around the entire locker room, because you could wring it out. But that’s what leaders do. They lead verbally, he leads by example. That was a phenomenal performance and he never quit a second. “I have seen great players and he was – the greatest leadership comes from within and we had it in that locker room tonight.”