Iowa State - 83, St. John's - 82
RICK PITINO: Well, it was another tough game for us. When you play this type of schedule, you're going to be in tough games. The effort was great. The play was terrific. We just -- with the game on the line, we just didn't come up with the rebounds necessary to put the other team away.
But that's a credit to their incredible crashing of the offensive glass. So we take the loss because we couldn't come up with the rebounds. Unfortunate that we lost another good game.
Q. Two-parter, first to flash all the way to the end of the game. No timeout called there.
RICK PITINO: We had two timeouts, one for injury, and we ran the play we wanted the time before. We had two timeouts in the last minute. One for an injury and one they called it. That question is ridiculous. Go to the next one.
Q. Dylan Darling fouling out, how much did that play a factor in the closing minutes of the game?
RICK PITINO: As I just told you, it had nothing to do with -- the guards played excellent defense. They didn't come out with the blocking out on the glass. They got four offensive rebounds with the game on the line. It wasn't Dylan Darling. It was their ability to come up with the backboard and our inability to come up with the rebound.
Q. (Question off microphone)?
RICK PITINO: You don't look at the right stats. See, if you were looking at the right stats, you'd say neither guy had a rebound. That's what you would say. Not the shooting percentage. Would you give credit to the other team for playing good defense. If you wanted to say something that they didn't do, they didn't rebound. First part of your question is they played good defense; the second part is they didn't rebound.
Q. Rebounding including (indiscernible)?
RICK PITINO: I look at this way. We played a terrific basketball team, and with the game on the line, we couldn't come up with the rebound. I don't look at what individuals do when they give great effort. Both Joson and Ian give great effort. I give the other team credit for playing good defense on them. The rebounding, they've got to do a better job of, obviously.
Q. What did you think about -- in the last couple of minutes Sellers was your leading scorer, took a couple of shots that didn't go. Did you like those shots?
RICK PITINO: I wanted him to shoot the 3. He was open. He took a tough 2. For some reason, he's open and we want him to get more 3s up. And he's open for a glimpse, and you've got to shoot the ball. And instead, he goes into him. It's something that's a weakness on his part right now because we need him to shoot 3s.
They're plus six there. Statistically, it was a good game. When you break the game down, it was just -- four times -- it was our veteran players, two of the times, didn't come up with the rebound. You can't blame it on Joson or Ian.
Q. Not getting some of the defense --
RICK PITINO: You've got to create rebounding space. And we're not doing that. The offensive play is always going to push you in the back. So it's a car crash, who wins the crash? If they crash into you, they move you to the baseline. If you crash into them, you win. And we struggled with that fundamental all season. It's been a weakness of ours. And with veteran players as well. It's not the other guys that we look at, but we did a good job on their man offense. They were 5-for-27. They scored on the 3s. They scored on free throws, and they scored on lack of blocking out.
Q. Tomorrow you get a rematch with Baylor, the amazing Baja Mar Championship double-overtime game. What's it like to face a fellow national champion like Scott Drew?
RICK PITINO: First of all, I don't coach against Scott Drew, I coach against Baylor. And he doesn't coach against me, he coaches against St. John's. We have a totally different basketball team this year than last year, and so does he.
They're a very good basketball team. They shoot the 3 great. Carr's an outstanding athlete. But this tournament we knew we'd have three tough games. We just have to keep getting better.
We played Alabama really tough, played Michigan really tough, played this game really tough, and sometimes it comes down to not the missed shot, it comes down to a fundamental I look at, an underneath out-of bounds play, playing it incorrectly, or a lack of blocking out. Those are the things you can control.
You can't control sometimes a player passing up a 3 and taking a tough shot. That's just the moment, he's looking to score, he's trying hard. But you can control the things that you can control, like blocking out, like running balls into your hands, like throwing bounce passes instead of up top.
But we played a good game. We only had 10 turnovers in the game against a highly physical basketball team. Another reason why, in our scouting, is out of every time out, we did a very good job in this area, they trapped the ball out of timeouts.
And we just missed the shot. I wish we wouldn't pass up an open 3. I've got confidence in my guys. We worked very hard at that. So Baylor will be a good test, and whoever we play on Thursday will be a good test, if that's when we play.
Q. How would you assess your point guard play throughout the whole game?
RICK PITINO: Well, we made an adjustment putting Dillon Mitchell on their point guard and it helped us. And we put Dillon on the shooter. They'll force you into a switch sometimes, and they'll either take -- your 4 man will take the point guard on. Dillon's a little small, so they will take him to the rim.
So it helped us putting Mitchell on him. Listen, I have no gripes with the way our guys played. It's a disappointing loss, very disappointing loss for us. But we've got to do something. You can't lose the game by giving second shots up. You're not going to win games that way.
So we'll make the adjustments. They're a very good basketball team. They're a very well-coached team, and it's no embarrassment losing to them because they're very good.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports