Pitino postgame: "We can become a good basketball team, once we get healthy"

*On Siva -- "Peyton's hurt, but Peyton goes down... I've been coaching too long, but I've never seen a man fall down as much as Peyton Siva. He averages, no lie, 15 times per game, he's down on the ground. Against Connecticut, he set a world record. he comes out of his shoes, he falls down. We finally realized why sometimes he dribbles off his foot: he's got size 13 1/2 shoes. For a six foot guy, that's a little large. His feet are pretty big."

*On when Rakeem Buckles will return -- "I have no idea. This doctor who did the surgery on Rakeem Buckles is one of the premier doctors in the nation. But he must have trained under Ronald Reagan, he's so conservative." (cue laughter)

*On the challenge of playing at Notre Dame -- "We're working on it now... Tom's probably the most powerful ADs in the business. We're going to play them, we're just working on rescheduling [the game] right now. At the Yum Center." (cue laughter)

*On the effect of injuries -- "Defensively we have to get better. We were playing terrific defense. Terrific defense. Now we're letting teams shoot too high a percentage. We had people in the thirties, people in the twenties three-point wise, but injuries can do that to you. Injuries can really affect your defense.

"...We've lost the best players on our team. Gorgui's one of the top two 5 men. Preston's the top 2 man, best player on the team. Rakeem's the best 4 man, and Swop never played. So we'll losing the best players. But the guys filling in, they're trying their best."