What Kenny Payne, Mike James Said After Louisville's 75-53 Loss at Florida State

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Traveling to Florida State for their first true road game of the season, victory still eluded the Louisville men's basketball program, as the Cardinals fell 75-53 to the Seminoles to extend their winless start to the to the Kenny Payne era.

Here's what head coach Kenny Payne and forward Mike James had to say following the loss:

Head Coach Kenny Payne

(Opening Statement)

First of all, I thought that credit goes to Florida State for playing a really good game. The big fella in the middle, I don't know how many shots he blocked, but he affected the game even on the ones that he didn't block. He was a force in there. Our game plan coming into the game was to get the ball in the lane, and create offense for us. Not to drive to score but to drive to make the extra pass. It probably was the most assists we've had this season at 14, which was pretty good. But then there was another piece to it. The other piece is, they out-rebounded us. The other piece is, they out-competed us. We have to take that personal and address those issues

I thought in the first half, we did some good things defensively. But then as we got tired when as the game went on - obviously, they're playing at their home, their home court. You have to be focused, you have to concentrate, you have to fight. When I look at the stats, I see minus-22 for (Mike) James, minus-21 for Brandon (Huntley-Hatfield). Two points and six rebounds for him. Syd (Curry), Jae'Lyn (Withers), El (Ellis), I need more production from our leaders to help us get through tough road games.

(On still having the same issues after nine games)

For me again, I see the 14 assists, and I can say, 'okay, they tried.' But the recurring theme to me is when they go on a run, and we come down and no pass in a three, or one pass and a three, or a turnover and they make a basket, or a bad pass or pass to the inside hand knowing that they're pressuring us. We start the half, Brandon throws it and says Rose (Roosevelt Wheeler) didn't step over to come get the ball. Those things are frustrating for me. I know that they are learning, but they have to step up if you're gonna win in Division I, high major basketball. You got to fight, you have to concentrate, you have to focus, you have to know your job and do your job.

(On how discouraging it is to see them not executing plays or sets)

Very discouraging. To be honest, I wish I knew the answer, because some of these turnovers, some of these miscues, for me, I've never really seen before. I'm trying to free them and say I need you to play with confidence. I don't need you apprehensive about playing a team that's going to pressure you. Basically, this is the way Florida State plays. It's the best game for players, because they don't want you to run offense. They want you to play free flowing, they want you to get the ball and try to run offense against something that they're not allowing you to catch passes. In my mind, I look at the game and say, 'okay, the strategy was let's create a spacing and let's attack them' Let's attack the big fellow, get them away from the basket and drive the ball. But you have to know you can't drive the ball to score. You got to drive the ball to create for a teammate. I hate to keep saying it. We're beating a dead horse. But we will continue to work on it. We'll continue to push, we'll continue to try to figure it out, try to get more confident, try to get more competent in what we're doing and knowing our jobs, try to be tougher in stepping over and catching passes. Not panicking in traffic and just throwing up a shot, staying connected on the inbounder so that when he gets screened, you can fight over the screens. Instead, we give up three or four layups on that. There's a lot to it. We just got to continue to understand.

(On Sydney Curry's brief stretch or production, and if he can see some progress)

You know, it's hard for me to evaluate Syd. I know that he wants to play well, we do a lot of conditioning. That has to be the first priority. In order for Syd to have success, he has to be in better shape. He has to play with more energy. That's something that we've been trying to address and trying to address. He spends time doing extra conditioning on top of the conditioning that we already do. But when I look at Syd, and I see that play, I need 25 minutes of those plays that he made in that one minute span.

(On the balance between El Ellis driving to pass and taking advantage of wide open paint looks)

For a natural scorer, obviously, your first instincts are to try to score. I need that to be his first instinct. We tried to simulated this in practice by saying, 'this next five minutes of the scrimmage, I just want you to facilitate. I want you to create shots for your teammates.' Buy into that. There are days in practice where he does a good job. But when you are pretty much the one player that gets the ball in the lane 60, 70% of our possessions, that's hard. Over time, you get tired. So two things: One, I need him to recognize where the defenses are, to not process the game. You use your instincts and read the game as your instincts come. I'll give you an example. We run a middle ball screen with the five man, their big guy. He comes off. As he's coming off, instead of attacking the big, he goes sideways, and he dribbles two times in front of him before he attacks. Then it's going to be clogged up. If you come off the screen full speed, and trust your instincts, and look to attack the legs of the big guy, you will find that you can get around him. When he did that, he created three or four shots that we needed. When he didn't do it, we got a turnover or we didn't get the pass that we needed. We didn't get downhill. He didn't read it correctly. That's the first part.

The second part is everybody knows that El is leading us in scoring, so they're going to collapse on him, trap him, double team him. So he has to do a better job of reading how the game has been played versus him. That's a lot, and it goes to why great players don't want to be on a team by themselves. They want to play with other great players so they don't have to handle and deal with all of that by themselves.

(On giving Fabio Basili the early playing time that he did)

I thought today Fabio, the first time he went in, he was excellent. His energy was great. He created, he listened, he drove the ball down. One time he dumped it off to Rose who got a dunk. Fabio's an interesting kid in the fact that he's very confident. He plays off his instincts. He's gotten better, he's starting to listen a little bit. In no way am I going away from Hercy, but I need guys that can come into the game and play with a fire. Bring some desperation, bring some assertiveness, be the aggressor. Don't always look to be on your heels to make sure that you're not making a mistake. You can't play this game like that. You have to play this game with reckless abandon, but being smart. As my old Coach Denny (Crum) used to say, be quick but don't hurry.

Forward Mike James

(Photo of Kenny Payne: Melina Myers - USA TODAY Sports)

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