What Chris Mack, Mason Faulkner Said After 79-70 Loss at Florida State
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Louisville's recent woes against Florida State continued onwards, as the Cardinals dropped their fifth straight against the Seminoles on Saturday night for their first ACC loss of the season.
Here's what head coach Chris Mack and guard Mason Faulkner had to say following the loss:
Head Coach Chris Mack
(Opening Statement)
I'll start off by saying that Florida State I thought played lights out, especially early on. Better than they've shot the ball really, in a while. I thought they played downhill, they're terrific in transition. Though we kept our turnovers fairly down for the game, not so much in the first half. They got some two-on-ones and three-on-twos, and they're just such a hard team to stop in transition. Our inability to play any type of defense in the first half set the tone the wrong way. In the second half, I thought some of our reserves guys like Sydney (Curry) and El (Ellis) and Mason (Faulkner), Dre (Davis), they came in and made some some plays, and we were much better on the defensive end. Felt we had a few looks where we couldn't quite get over the hump. We'd cut it to three, cut it to four and we'd have an open, really good generated shot. Just open from three for the guys that we want shooting it, and just couldn't find those ones to go in. That's basketball. But if we defended like we did in the second half in the first half, then it might have been a much different game. Caleb Mills is a talent. We knew that coming in, and he certainly proved it. Thank heavens he was in a little foul trouble, or he might have gotten 50.
(On the difference of "fire" between the first and second half)
It was certainly our defensive effort that allowed us to get back in the game. I thought they missed some easy ones early on in the second half, but then I thought our defense stiffened and didn't allow anything. It's really frustrating. We actually came out with a decent start, but the decent start wasn't what it needed to be on the defensive end. We were sort of trading baskets those first four or five minutes, and that's not hard enough on Florida State. Fixed it at halftime, but obviously you got to play two halves against a really good team at their place.
(On playing a bit of zone defense in the first half)
We watched a few of their earlier games, and Florida State is so athletic, and they play downhill so much. A few of the games they played against zone, they were a little bit more stagnant. They seem to pass the ball around the perimeter, and take the three without really threatening the rim like they would in man-to-man. We've worked on it. It's something that we have in our pocket. We haven't really used it a whole lot this year. I think we've used in a couple of possessions, but they scored so quickly you probably couldn't tell we were in zone in other games. I thought it was fairly effective, but they hit a couple tough shots in it. Anything that we did in the first half wasn't very successful on that end of the floor
(On El Ellis' performance)
El's talented, there's no doubt about it, and he's gonna continue to earn opportunity on the floor. He'll stretch that opportunity, again, being able to play on both ends of the floor. He is giving it much better effort. He's got a lot to learn on the defensive end of the floor, but he's getting better. He had a box out in the first half that was non existent earlier in the year. He had some really good plays in the second half, he's learning. On the offensive end, we know he's got the ability to get in the lane. He can finish. This is a very difficult team to finish against because of their size. He can shoot the ball, and he's got confidence, no doubt. But he's got to continue to up the defensive end, and you can't have those careless turnovers that every once in a while come up. He's done a really good job last two games of being a more mature player, and really taking advantage of the opportunity to earn trust from his teammates and his coaching staff.
(On his message to the team after getting good shot selection, but shots aren't falling)
To keep generating them like we were. To end the half and to start the half, because of Florida State's very unorthodox switching everything, being on top, challenging at the rim with three and four guys, and running past close outs, it's not something that everybody sees. I thought in the end of the first half, we went too much ISO ball, and just watched the ball handler, and we started to do that in the second half. It took a timeout to explain to guys like, "do you know the offense? Yes. Then run the offense and find those opportunities within the offense. That where we can get in the lane, land under control, shot fake, pass fake, back cut." We really started to do that. We looked for one another. We made the extra pass. We got much better shots the last 15 minutes of the game. Offense wasn't the problem for this game, it might have been for a small stretch. It was the defensive side of the ball that killed us in the first half.
Guard Mason Faulkner
(Photo of Chris Mack: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY SPORTS)
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