What Kenny Payne, Louisville Players Said After 75-67 Loss vs. Lipscomb

(Opening statement):

Give credit to Lipscomb. They were very well coached. They run their stuff great. They are a very good offensive team which we knew coming in. We knew that if we allowed the game to become an offensive game then we couldn’t win. We have to defend. We have to impose our will defensively and play our defense desperately to come out of there with a win. For whatever reason, I am not going to say we overlooked them, but I am going to say that they were tougher as was evidenced by 40-26 in rebounds. I would say that they were more disciplined. We worked for two or three days on backcuts. We gave up at least 10-12 points on backcuts. They put us on our heels. We were never imposed our will. We were never the aggressors. I don’t know how or who you can beat when a team shoots 52 percent from the field in the second half and 39 percent from three. I don’t know how you win that game. If that is who we are, then it is going to be hard for us to win. We have to do a better job of practicing and preparing to play teams like this – with energy, fight and focus -- so that it is not a shock to our system when the ball is zipping around and we are behind everything. Give them credit, they are a good team. I watched the way they played Michigan. I watched the way they played Notre Dame. I knew it would be hard for us to come out if we didn’t focus and be desperate defensively and be disciplined defensively. We just couldn’t mentally get it. We couldn’t mentally play with the energy that we needed to fight for a win. We did some things well, but overall, with a team like that dominates you on the glass and shoot 52 percent it changes.”

(About less but costly turnovers)

“For me, I look at, for example, El was the only player that was attacking the lane. To El’s defense, if he is the only guy attacking the lane, and he is playing all the minutes that he is playing, sometimes he is doing it from a fatigued state. I need him to play, understanding that there are going to be times that you are just are driving the lane and they aren’t under control. Don’t feel like you have to win the game for us. Don’t feel like you have to make a play. It is going to come back to you. You don’t have to be pressed to try to make the play. So, he is the best case of a kid that is out there fighting to win the game. He makes mistakes. But you can arguably say that he is out there fighting regardless of his mistakes. I think some of them come from that and some of them come from carelessness. From maybe not being a good enough ball handler yet or a good enough passer yet that it takes to be a good offensive team. We constantly work on it. We have to keep plugging away on it.”

(About Lipscomb getting 18 layups)

“I just see that there are possessions that we work on -- if a guy backcuts you, he is running through your chest. The natural tendency is to be higher than him. But we are not denying so why would you be higher. The defensive game plan is when he cuts backdoor, he is running through you and you are below him at all times. When he catches the ball, we are pressuring. Two or three, or five or six times, we are high, the ball goes to the big fellow in the middle, they backcut, we are high and we give up a layup. Everybody was guilty of it. The one that I am most disappointed in was one of my captains, Jae’Lyn Withers. We talked about it and said it wasn’t good enough. Like how? You have been in college basketball for two or three years, you should know. You should know. I am not making any excuses for him, I am disappointed that he couldn’t make the adjustments. But he was probably the most guilty.

(About the lack of toughness on the glass and how to make the team tougher rebounding)

“I can tell you that we think our practices are tough. I wish I could say that we could practice an hour and 45 minutes, but most days we are going for three hours. I am not leaving that gym until I feel like we have addressed some of our issues as a team. I hate it that way. I don’t want to coach that way but we have to address the elephant within our team – turnovers. We have to address it. Rebounding. We have to address it. Passing the ball. We have to address it. Continuity on offense and spacing. We have to address it. Toughness and conditioning and playing basketball when we are tired. We have to address it. Again, I am saying this and I am saying by no means, that they are going to pick it up right away. They are not robots. They are humans. They are going to make mistakes. Some of this is new to them. But on the whole tonight, I am saying to them, winning and losing is not a choice. They players that make it, the teams that are great, they are not give up the backdoor. They are not going to not to hit somebody and allow a dude to get a rebound. They are not going to not sprint back. They know that it translates to winning. They are going to do all the things that it takes to win the game. They are going to follow the game plan. They are going to remember the plays. They are going to fight their behinds off to make sure that they come out and give themselves the best chance to win. We are not quite there yet. We have to get there because as we all know, the schedule is the schedule and it is not getting easier.”

(About finishing, how do you teach that to just kind of finish those plays there)

“All I can tell you is that we work on it every day. We work on finishing with guys getting hit every day. Sometimes, players, they’re panicking, so they try to get in with their body. The refs were talking about ‘Tell them don’t use their body and just pray for a foul or hope for a foul, we’re not giving fouls.’ Well, we should be the most athletic team. We don’t have to hope for a foul, I don’t want you to get me a foul to make sure we (get free throws), go up and finish it. Just over somebody and finish. I mean, you’re two feet from the basket and we don’t come up with anything. Brandon (Huntley-Hatfield), Jae’Lyn (Withers), Syd (Curry) at times, we are all guilty of it, it’s not just one person, JJ (Traynor too). When you’re that close to the basket, you have to finish.”

(About what Lipscomb did that caused the team to struggle)

“I would like to be able to shoot the ball like that. They have shooters. I love the fact that they are very well-coached on passing the ball. Most people think good offense is good shooting. I believe good offense is good passing, which leads to good shots. I think they’re an excellent passing team, I think they move well without the ball. Very rarely do you see a guy just isolating, the ball is moving at all times. They have no ball stoppers. They bought into the system, and it works. You know, when you have better players, you have to change up a bit because you have guys that are gifted enough to make a play as opposed to playing off the pass the way they do. But there are things that they do that every team wants to do. When you pass the ball like that and cut like that, and you have a five man that really is comfortable and embracing the role of finding his teammates and taking joy in it, that’s what a good team is.”

(About confidence for the players this year, and this was coming off back-to-back wins. Is it concerning about effort and toughness in a game like this)

“I can say this, I wasn’t really pleased after the Florida A&M game. I thought that we did some good things, but I thought that we didn’t compete, we didn’t impose our will the way we needed to, we didn’t focus. You know, the turnovers, you can’t draw them up, they were unforced. Had nothing to do with Florida A&M, we just panicked. How can that be? You know, so listen, it’s not going to get any easier for us, it’s going to get harder. We go to North Carolina State, they’re a very good team, and we just got to find a way to get a win and fight and play good basketball.

(About El (Ellis) was limping off at the end of the game, was playing 40 minutes but was there an injury or something with him or was that just fatigue)

“I don’t really know. I did notice he was limping at the end as well. I asked him if he wanted to come out, he said no. Then played with energy. He gave us all he had, he played hard. Got the ball, shot a lot of free throws. I need a bunch of guys playing with that effort and that energy. I can live with the mistakes if I got six or seven guys playing hard, playing together, just fighting to try to get a win. We are going to make mistakes, but don’t let our mistakes come from being tentative, being fearful, being non-confident, being non-aggressive, on both ends of the floor.

Forward Jae'Lyn Withers and forward J.J. Traynor

(For either one of you, you were within four points with a few minutes to go. Can you explain what went on after that?)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “Our defensive focus and intensity wavered for a hot second. They separated.”

JJ Traynor: “I agree. Defensively, they got some back cuts and got some action off of ball screens. We’ve got to be tighter on that. We didn’t really execute. We’ve got to make some more free throws.”

(Jae’Lyn, Coach Payne said he felt that there were times you didn’t fully take Lipscomb seriously in this game. Some of those back cuts and things paid for it. Was that was the case coming off of two wins where you didn’t fully prepare as well as you needed to for Lipscomb?)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “There were some casual moments perhaps in practice and shoot around, which he (Kenny Payne) might be referring to. Something he always says is that we can’t afford to be casual. We have to be locked in and focused at all times in order to win.”

(Kenny (Payne) was talking about how he’ll run three hour practices until he feels satisfied that the needs have been addressed. What’s your guy’s reaction to running practice for so long and do you feel like the needs are being addressed in those long practices?)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “They (the needs) are being addressed. Our attention to detail and focus and casualness is probably the piece that he (Kenny Payne) is more so waiting on.”

(A big factor in this game is that they made 18 layups. I think they made 11 for 13 in the first half. You guys are a bigger, physically stronger team. How do you explain their ability to get so many easy shots?)

JJ Traynor: “I felt like with the back cuts that led to a lot of layups and dudes is hugging their man and shouldn’t be not in help and that led to layups. Their (Lipscomb) big guy was getting it at the rim and working it at the post and that led to some more layups. And transition as well.”

(Coach talked about guys struggling to finish at the rim. Can you figure out or pinpoint what that is? Is that a focus thing with struggling to finish sometimes through contact at the rim?)

JJ Traynor: “Guys have got to explode more. They (Lipscomb) weren’t very athletic as a team. We have to get better at getting to a spot and jumping over top of them and finishing. We didn’t use our athleticism to get above them. We just stayed on the same level.”

(About the athleticism piece. With the size advantage that you guys have, how do you pinpoint the struggles on the backboard?)

JJ Traynor: “That’s just effort honestly. Effort and seeing the ball. They (Lipscomb) were attacking the rebounds harder than we were and it should definitely be the opposite. On our end, I think we missed 34 shots. We should have more offensive rebounds and gave a bigger effort in that.”

(About the mindset around the difficult schedule.)

JJ Traynor: “We really wanted this win really bad so we could feel a lot better going into those next two games. NC State is a really good team. We just have to keep working and keep fighting and things will turn around.”

(Is it surprising to you that 11 games into the season we are still talking about effort and making effort plays 40 minutes in the game?)

Jae’Lyn Withers: “It is definitely surprising with how deep into the season we are. We definitely had a lot of moments this game where we didn’t show a lot of focus and resilience as far as effort plays and communicating. It wavered once it became more of a tight game.”

JJ Traynor: “I feel like our effort is there for the most part. I think it just our attention to detail and staying locked in. That’s the part that is surprising and that we’ve got to work on.”