Rick Pitino played ‘four white guys and an Egyptian’ to not embarrass Savannah State
Louisville defeated Savannah State on Monday night in a game that looked like it featured a Division-1 NCAA team playing a local high school. The final score was 87-26. It took Savannah State nearly 16 minutes to score a single point, and Louisville led 41-7 going into halftime.
It could have been worse. There was very little Rick Pitino could do to keep his team from embarrassing the opposition. He alluded to that with an incredible quote after the game.
“I don’t like to see any team struggle like that. I really don’t,” Pitino said, via Jeff Eisenberg of The Dagger. “I mean, we played four white guys and an Egyptian. We tried everything.”
He wasn’t kidding. Pitino played 15 guys in the game, including three walk-ons and 7-footer Anas Mahmoud, who is from Egypt. He sat his starters early in the second half and ordered his team to stop executing their usual full-court press defense. Pitino also said after the game that his team will learn nothing from Monday night’s game film and that he felt bad for Savannah State.
Playing keep-away for 20 minutes would have been even more humiliating, so Pitino did what he could. Savannah State ended up shooting 10-for-51 from the floor.
GIF via Bleacher Report
