LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -It’s a lesson Rick Pitino has carried with him for three decades, one he learned as a young coach at Boston University when he was just an up-and-comer looking to make a name for himself.
The then 25-year-old coach kept worrying about how good his young players were, and he feared frontloading the schedule with a series of relatively easy home games just to fatten up the win column would do little to prepare the Terriers for conference play.
So Pitino asked around, looking for a little guidance. The answer from the basketball people he trusted was simple: hit the road. Nobody says you have to play in your own zip code the first six weeks of the season.
“They kept telling me, if you want to develop a great program, a great team, take a young team on the road into a hostile environment a couple times and you’ll find out what you have,” Pitino said.
More than 30 years later, the advice is still paying dividends.
heduled a cross-country road trip in November for a rare true road game against UNLV. On a team featuring eight freshmen and sophomores in the rotation, Pitino didn’t want the Cardinals’ first experience on life away from Freedom Hall to be at Rupp Arena on Jan. 2 against Kentucky.
While the 20th-ranked Cardinals fell 76-71 to the Runnin’ Rebels, Pitino hardly seemed bothered by the outcome after watching his team rally from a 19-point second half deficit to tie the game before falling in the final minutes.
“I found out they’re willing to not give in, they’re willing to stand up and fight every step along the way,” Pitino said.
And the Cardinals found out they still have plenty to learn.
“It wasn’t fun, that’s for sure,” said freshman forward Mike Marra. “It was a little overwhelming.”
Which is exactly what Pitino was hoping for, a game that would prepare the Cardinals for what lay ahead while giving them a reality check in the process.
“We did everything but get a win,” he said. “It was probably the most hostile environment we’ve faced since I’ve been here, which is a good thing, because that’s what we wanted.”
Besides, the defeat gave Pitino an opportunity to put his team back through the grinder after four relatively easy wins to open the season.
the end off another grueling two-hour session. Now, he’s exhausted.
“We’ve lost our breaks,” he said.
Partly because the Cardinals have lost guards Peyton Siva and Preston Knowles. The two will likely sit out Wednesday’s game against Stetson (2-4) with minor injuries. Pitino expects both of them to return in the next week or so if not sooner, but their absence gives him an opportunity to test Marra and fellow freshman Rakeem Buckles.
“These guys, they don’t have too much fear,” Pitino said.
Particularly Buckles, who will get the first start of his career on Stetson because of his spirited play against UNLV. The 6-foot-8 forward had 10 points and 11 rebounds in 21 energetic minutes while making the kind of hustle plays that earn major points with his coach.
“He had three guys over his back on one play and still made the bucket,” Pitino said. “I think he mixed it up very well in a very intense environment.”
Now comes a month at home to work out the kinks. Louisville plays its next eight games at Freedom Hall before heading to Rupp and the kind of atmosphere that will make what the Cardinals experienced at UNLV seem like a quiet study group at the library.
That’s fine with Pitino. A small taste of adversity at this point in the season is fine.
d Pitino knows he needs plenty of time to fix them.
“We need a lot of work at the defensive end, both from the perimeter as well as inside,” Pitino said. “Our press needs a lot of work. Our hustle and effort are there, but our fundamentals from a defensive standpoint are not there.”
UNLV shot 55 percent in the first half against the Cardinals, eventually building a 19-point lead before Louisville came back to tie it. The rally came up short, but that was hardly the point.
“They could have easily lost that game by 20 points and they would have come home a defeated basketball team,” Pitino said. “Instead, they came home with a defeat on the schedule, but they’re not defeated. They would have questioned themselves if they didn’t fight back and take that game to the wire.”
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