Colorado University Athletics
Colorado, Arkansas-Pine Bluff Quotes
November 13, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Associate Head Coach Steve McClain
ON THE WIN - "I thought we played with energy. I thought we played with passion and played through mistakes. When we would make a mistake, I wouldn't see guys getting down on him. I saw guys down there picking each other up. As I told the team, we did some good things and we did some bad things. You only play 30 games in a season, and every time you have choice, win or lose, and I thought there were some really good things, but like any team in the country we have some things to work on. No game is easy this time of year. Arkansas-Pine Bluff has their whole team back from last year so we knew they would com e in and be a good challenge. I give our kids credit for giving a good gap at half time and then finishing the game."
ON G ALEC BURKS -"It was the plan to start him all along. We keep telling this team it's not going to be about one person, but it's about the team. I think Nate (Tomlinson) did a great job of coming off the bench, but Alec gets a little better every day and that's what we talked to him about. I love his smile on the court, his enthusiasm for the game-he gets knocked down and he is laying on the floor smiling like "yeah I made the basket and I'm going to make the free throw.""
ON F MARCUS RELPHORDE -"I think he got a couple silly fouls early on. He was a little anxious on offense, but again that's when I go back to the fact that our kids play for each other and that's a good quality to have. If you learn to play through each other's mistakes, then good things will happen."
ON FILLING IN FOR COACH JEFF BZDELIK -"We were prepared all week, it wasn't like today I said let's change things. I think it was easy for us because of the fact that coach lets us do so much in practice. For the guys it wasn't that much of a shock. Our players handled it well. I told Cory (Higgins) before the game that I am going to coach to my personality and they see that every day in practice. I have always believed that if you don't have that passion, then how do you expect your team to? We talked to the kids about bringing energy and I wanted to bring that too."
Arkansas-Pine Bluff Head Coach George Ivory
GENERAL -"We had too many lost balls. We just weren't communicating. Colorado did a good job at executing their offense. There was overall a lot of free throw shooting in the game, we had 18 and Colorado had 40. They did a great job offensively."
Colorado Players
Cory Higgins, Junior, Guard
ON HOW THE TEAM PLAYED TONIGHT- "I think we had a lot of positives. We came out with the right energy. We forced a lot of errors on the other team, and got a lot of easy buckets and I just think it was a good starting point for us."
ON THE BALANCE ON OFFENSE- "Definitely, I hope everybody else can see that we're a much more balanced team this year and we're just all around better."
ON NATE TOMLINSON'S PLAYING TIME (32 MIN) COMING OFF THE BENCH- "That's great to have a guy, with all the experience he gained last year, coming off the bench. He's just going to add another spark. That just means we're not going to lose anything when he comes in."
ON HAVING ANOTHER AGGRESSIVE PLAYER (BURKS) ON THE COURT- "It takes pressure off everybody. When everybody is aggressive it just takes our team to another level. It's just great having guys that can bring that to the table."
ON WHO IS MORE ANIMATED, COACH MCCLAIN OR COACH BZDELIK- "I think they are probably equal, but it's different personalities. They're animated in different ways, I definitely enjoyed playing for coach McClain tonight and I hope everything is well with Coach and I hope he gets back with us soon."
ON HEARING FROM COACH BZDELIK- "He sent everybody a text just wishing us well and just giving us a few words of advice."
ON THE AFFECT OF PLAYING FOR ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH MCCLAIN TONIGHT- "He [Bzdelik] is our leader so when we heard that news it just probably pumped everybody up even more cause we knew we had to step up and we definitely wanted to make sure we didn't have a letdown while he was gone."
ON CONCERN OF NOT PULLING FURTHER AWAY IN THE SECOND HALF- "We know what we did, I wouldn't say it's a concern because we know what we did and we just know what we have to do."
ON NOT GETTING COMPLACENT WITH THE LEAD- "I think we have enough guys that went through the growing pains [last year] to not let that happen anymore."
ON MAKING 16 OF 16 FREE THROW ATTEMPTS- "That's a point of emphasis in my game, I think. Anytime you can get to the line its easy points and basically you've just got to focus and knock every one down."
Alec Burks, Freshman, Guard
ON PLAYING IN FIRST GAME- "I think I played good. I had little mistakes, but it's my first game, so I played through them and I think I did a good job."
ON AGGRESSIVE STYLE OF PLAY- "I take it to everybody, that's my mentality. I just think we played good, my team played good, and we got the win."
Marcus Relphorde, Junior, Forward
ON GETTING INTO FOUL TROUBLE EARLY IN THE GAME- "I just came out, I guess, too hyper and caught some early fouls and it's kind of hard to get adjusted, but I am just glad I have the first game out of the way and I'm looking forward to the other ones. We played hard and I'm glad we got this win."
