Bigger dance hall, swankier dance partners, but the shoes are the only thing FIU coach Richard Pitino wants as a major change for tonight's game with No. 5 Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center.
Pitino said he spotted the South Beach model adidas at a summer AAU game. The adidas rep at the game welcomed Pitino's request that FIU get some and Pitino decided they would make their FIU debut at the Louisville game. (Thanks to Joey de la Rosa for contributing his shoe and a steady prop-holding hand to the above shot).
Otherwise, he wants to keep everything the same as most games, despite the fact they'll be playing in front of 10 times the crowd they usually face and FIU's highest ranked opponent since No. 1 UCLA in the 1995 NCAA tournament.
"It's an opportunity for us to get better," Pitino said after Wednesday's morning shootaround. "Regardless of who we're playing, that's been the goal from Day One when I took this job. Let's get better every single day. This is another opportunity."
Louisville shouldn't be familiar just to Pitino. FIU players should recognize the Cardinals' high pressure style.
"It's funny because we play the same defense as they do," Pitino said. "When we're going over scouting, I'll tell them to get into Louisville's "White Press." All of a sudden, they're playing harder and it's more aggressive. I want to tell them, 'Guys, that's our defense, too! Play that hard every single time!' So we may switch the name of our press to "Louisville' instead of "White" to see if it'll work and carry over. It's good for them to see those guys playing the same style defensively, showing them that we can do it, we've just got to play a little bit harder."
SWIMMING
I know I'm usually up on the swimming thing and I knew about this one yet it still slipped through the cracks. Sonia Perez broke the FIU record in the 1000 freestyle with a 10:11.36 at Nova Southeastern's Sharks Invitational, won the 200 Individual Medley, the 400 IM and the 1600 free.
So the Sun Belt awarded Perez her second consecutive Swimmer of the Week award and her third of the year.
RECORDS REQUESTS
Called in our lawyers this morning. What I've asked for doesn't take long and in an information age, should take a few minutes. Pop a colada and get it done.
That is, it shouldn't take that long if said records actually still exist...
