Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-Kansas Quotes
January 17, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
OPENING STATEMENT ? “Obviously, in order to have chance for success in basketball, the first two criteria are to value the possession of the basketball, and yield nothing easy for the opponents. Those are the two areas that our young basketball team has not quite done yet.
ON TREY ECKLOFF ? “He is getting better. We attempted to take some charges today which is a good thing. He battled and learned. He did not block off a couple of times. We just have to keep working. I think that Trey is youngest player in the Big 12 history.”
ON POSSIBLE FRUSTRATION ? “We need to understand that we need to build this program from the ground up. We are going to take some lumps along the way. It is hard to look at the box score. We are just not there yet.”
ON LESSON'S LEARNED ? “
Kansas Head Coach Bill Self
GENERAL - “When we came out in the second half we turned it over two of the first three possessions. They made some shots with no time left of the clock. We always seem to struggle out here. We made some shots to separate ourselves in the second half. Their zone messed us up even though we practiced a lot against it.”
ON TEAM'S SHOOTING - “We passed poorly, evident by our 18 turnovers. But in the second half we became more involved. We shoot great from the field, but not from the free throw line.”
ON PLAY OF TYSHAWN TAYLOR -“Tyshawn Taylor had a rough first half, but picked it up in the second half. He put the game away for us in the second half.”
ON PROGRESS OF TEAM - “We're about where I thought we'd be at this point. We have good, young players, but we need Sherron [Collins] to have a good night and others to have a good night to be successful. I haven't done a good job with these guys. There are built in excuses, but our goal is to win. Last year's success helps lighten the pressure. I think I've coached harder this year than last year. If I allow them to be soft, they'll be soft. They are a blast to coach, but it's been frustrating. We have lots of struggles out here, we played really well, but we couldn't keep Higgins off the line. I thought Marcus [Morris] played well, other than turnovers. We had like 13 turnovers that were unforced. Cole [Aldrich] was good, and Sherron [Collins] won us the game by keeping it close in the first half. Maybe my halftime talks aren't so good.”
ON SUPPORT OF KANSAS FANS - “There had to be about 6,000 KU fans here, remarkable. It was a beautiful day for travel. Tickets were $30, plus I guess they had to buy a ticket-pack; that shows the dedication of the fans.”
Colorado Players
Cory Higgins, Sophomore, Guard
GENERAL?“We competed a lot more [than against Missouri] but it's the same old things every game, taking care of the ball and offensive rebounds.”
ON KANSAS' RUNS?“Their runs usually came off of our turnovers so that would be the easiest thing to stop, take care of the ball. If we would have got a good shot every time, I don't think they would have gone on those runs.”
Nate Tomlinson, Freshman, Guard
ON BIG 12 COMPETITION?“The level has obviously gone up. We felt if we executed we had a shot but we haven't done a very good job at that the past two games.”
ON THE LOSS?“I just had a terrible game and I take a lot of responsibility for this loss.”
“Knowing that we lost the game rather than them winning it is disappointing.”
Trey Eckloff, Freshman, Forward
ON GUARDING KANSAS C COLE ALDRICH?“Coming off a season where he was significant on a national championship team and now has another year of experience under his belt, he's a great competitor. Obviously, Kansas is the defending national champion versus the other schools we played earlier in the year says enough for how better he is. His level of talent is far beyond everyone else we have played so far.”
“Obviously I made mistakes, but I think we could go deep into the season before we find a big man as physical and overall skilled as him. It was a great learning experience for me to play against someone of his caliber.”
ON THE LOSS?“It shows we can stay with anybody. If we can stay with these guys, there aren't many other teams we couldn't stay with. It was just mistakes we made which are very correctable so we need to buckle down and fix those. Give them their dues but they didn't greatly outplay us, it was mistakes we made that cost us the game. It's obviously an encouraging sign; we just need to play all 40 minutes like we played the first 25.”
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