The feeling is mutual
As Louisville, Michigan prep for battle, coaches exchange kudos
INDIANAPOLIS — Anything you can do, I can do better.
Any boldface compliment you lay on my team, I can match it and one-up it right back at you.
“If you said to me right now out of all the teams in college basketball, who are the two most difficult teams to play against with one day prep, it would be Michigan and West Virginia,’’ Louisville coach Rick Pitino said Saturday, alluding to “the genius about [Michigan coach] John Beilein.”
Then, Beilein countered, “He’s the hardest coach I’ve ever had to prepare for. How about that for a touché?’’
This is what happens when two 64-year-old coaching lifers have only one day to prepare for each other, which is the case as secondseeded Louisville faces seventhseeded Michigan on Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in a second-round game in the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region.
Pitino started it, moments after Louisville’s 78-63 first-round victory over Jacksonville State, comparing the Wolverines — who hit 16 of 29 3-point attempts in their 92-91 first-round victory over Oklahoma State — to the Golden State Warriors.
The Michigan contingent was not impressed with Pitino’s hyperbole.
“If it is sarcasm, I think he was saying we’re a good team,’’ point guard Derrick Walton Jr. said.
“First of all, it’s a huge exaggeration,’’ Beilein said. “I would not put us in that ballpark in any way.’’
Pitino, from Manhattan, is five months older than Beilein, who is from the town of Burt, north of Buffalo in western New York. The two can spin coaching tales with the best of them.
The last time these coaches faced each other, the stakes were high — the 2013 national championship game in Atlanta, won by Louisville. The key this time will be how successful the Cardinals can be in limiting Michigan’s longrange shooting.
“We have to make them do something else other than shoot the 3,’’ 7-foot junior Anas Mahmoud said.
The Wolverines, upset winners of the Big Ten Tournament after winning four games in four days, made 11 of 15 treys in the second half against Oklahoma State.
Michigan needed points to outlast the Cowboys. Walton became the first player to score at least 25 points, total at least 10 assists and five rebounds in an NCAA Tournament game since Dwyane Wade did it in 2003 for Marquette.
“They have as tough a point guard as there is in the college game, from a mental standpoint,’’ Pitino said of Walton.
Louisville (25-8) is looking to advance to the Sweet 16 for the fifth time in the past six years. The Cardinals did not participate in the tournament in 2016 because of a self-imposed postseason ban.
Michigan (25-11) turns the ball over less frequently (9.2 per game) than any team in the nation, a strength sure to be challenged against the Cardinals’ high-intensity defensive pressure.
Trying to thwart a Pitino team has been an assignment for Beilein ever since he took his Canisius team on the road to face Pitino’s Kentucky squad in the late 1990s. Beilein knows the drill, especially the part when Pitino heaps praise on the opposing coach beforehand.
“This is the part before they kick your butt,’’ Beilein said. “They try to butter you up a little bit.’’