Colorado 80, Penn 57

CU HEAD COACH RICARDO PATTON

GENERAL-"That team is much better, Penn, than they showed tonight. I thought we really had a good defensive job. I was most proud of how we tried to play some defense. It was a solid team effort. They (Penn) had some good outside offensive threats and this is a good team. But when you are shooting the ball well and getting after it defensively, you have a chance to play with anybody."

"We have shown the ability to blow good leads. We talked about that at half and we did not want that to happen. I thought we did it (won) on the defensive end. In the last seven minutes, we played some good defense and had some good stops. To me, that was the play of the game-the defensive stops we had."

ON STEPHANE PELLE-"He was almost going to the bench prior to the (last weekend's) Charlotte game. We needed him to play to his potential and he was playing like a freshman. He has stepped up to the challenge, and met the challenge. That's what guys have to do. The last few games he has really stepped up, as we term it, "played like a man." That's what we need of our guys."

"If he continues to play with a lot of the energy he plays with, he will get some boards and have some good production."

ON COLORADO'S PROGRESS-"So far I am encouraged with the effort and attitude we have displayed. Certainly we have a lot to improve of. But it all starts with effort and attitude, so I think we are on the right pace."

PENN COACH FRAN DUNPHY

GENERAL-"(Colorado) made some shots early and we just let them go from there. We didn't do a good job at all offensively and then we go to the other end of the court and combine our offense with bad defense. We can't do that against quality opponents. We did a couple good things offensively, but then we can't come up with the field goal. This game came down to poor decision making on our part."

ON FATIGUE-"I didn't see us really getting tired at all. This is a veteran team...they know what to expect when you come to a place like this. Again, it was poor decision making that made us look like that. We missed two easy dunks and a lay up, but we don't attribute that to fatigue. It was just (Stephane) Pelle, (Blair) Wilson and (Michel) Morandais kicking our butt. We all wish we can blame it on the altitude, but we can't."

ON UPCOMING GAMES-"We have a couple good games ahead for us. We just need to regroup. We will have our hands full against Southern California."

COLORADO PLAYERS

JUNIOR GUARD BLAIR WILSON
ON THE TEAM'S IMPROVEMENT-"I think we've gotten a lot better the last couple of games, especially the last five games. It's exciting to be playing well at this part of the season."

ON PENN'S SECOND-HALF RUN-"We knew that they would make a run. Whenever you're down by that many points you have to make a run. Stephane (Pelle) hit a couple of big shots back to back. We didn't let what happened in Charlotte happen here."

ON CU'S THREE-POINT SHOOTING-"It opened up the game early on. I think we had four guys hit threes in the first half. On the flip side, we didn't allow them to shoot outside, and when they did, we put enough pressure on them to make them miss a lot of shots."

SENIOR FORWARD STEPHANE PELLE
ON PLAYING WELL AGAINST HIGH SCHOOL TEAMMATE UGONNA ONYEKEWE-"It happens, we play physical, sometimes things don't go the way some people expect it...I wasn't shocked, we played good defense."

ON HIS IMPROVED PLAY-"Attitude, whatever you want to call it, there was an adjustment. I know that I've been playing passive, really passive early on to the point where you could tell my confidence went down and I wasn't even trying to make a shot. I took it upon myself after Patton said something in the locker room, that kind of pumped me up a little bit."

ON THE TEAM'S IMPROVEMENT-"The team that we're on right now, you can see the difference. Our defense is better. We know we can put the ball in the basket, but when we need to play defense, last year I'd say we couldn't stop anybody. It's still early, we haven't reached the Big 12. The Big 12 is a whole different basketball level, but right now I'd say we're getting what we want to get. Our defense is getting there, we're stopping people when we want to. Especially against a team like this, some people might think that they're not that good, but we've seen the scouting reports and they're a good team. More than likely they'll win their conference and go to the tournament."

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