Colorado, San Francisco Quotes
December 01, 2009 | Men's Basketball
ON THE ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO - "We just need to continue to share the basketball, and not turn it over. If you do that, you will put yourself in position to get great opportunities to score. I know that offense is a variable, but we have some guys who score. So if we are unselfish and the spacing is good, and the appropriate cuts are made and we don't' turn it over then we will get opportunities to score efficiently."
ON THE OFFENSE - "Players make the offense, the offense does not make the player. In order to play offensively, you have to be able to score at every position, and in the past couple of years we haven't had that. We have always had a couple of players on the court that teams have not had to guard, and that makes it hard. If you look at our roster right now, we have some players that can make some shots. Also, some players can make shots in a variety of ways, so that makes the offense more efficient."
ON STARTING THE SECOND HALF STRONG - "You have to play wire to wire. Horse races are won by horses that go wire to wire. We have to attack and be aggressive for all 40 minutes. We started the second half really well by hitting our first six shots."
ON KEEGAN HORNBUCKLE - "We just need Keegan (Hornbuckle) to be aggressive. He has great skill, and you have evidence of that with his dunk (alley-oop in the second half). He is very athletic, but he just needs to get ticked off; he needs that kind of attitude, and we have talked about that with him. He sometimes just goes with the flow instead of making it happen."
ON SHANE HARRIS-TUNKS - "He is very long, and very intelligent. And we are going to need that kind of length as we get more and more into it this year. So the more experience that we can get him the better."
San Francisco Head Coach Rex Walters
ON THE GAME-"Our guys are at the point now where they are running our stuff, but they don't know why. We have got to continue to show them, continue to coach them. I thought Perris (Blackwell) competed his tail off; 25 minutes, 10 points, 9 rebounds. He would not back down, and continued to fight. We need more of that. Obviously, I thought going to the hole, we missed some shots. We are afraid to take it to the hole and going through the rim. It's part of growing up. Our guys have a lot of stuff going on in their heads right now. This is a Big 12 school with a very well coached team. They do some things with their defense to make you think as opposed to just continue to try to execute your offensive game plan."
ON GIVING UP THREE POINT FIELD GOALS-"I am really concerned because we don't guard the ball well. It's not a product of just talented guys getting open, we don't guard the ball well. We always talk about paint touches where they get the ball into the paint. It's like they are getting it, and they are going, one or two dribbles and they are getting deep paint touches. We did a good job of spreading out the ball around the horn. It hurts the offense, but then we get sucked in."
ON DIOR LONGHORN STRUGGLING-"I was concerned about his health. I didn't want to risk it. He was complaining about something, and I don't know exactly what it was. Before, he has had to go to the hospital, so I didn't want to risk it. He was concerned about the altitude, concerned about getting air. At that point, I just made a decision; hey it was time to sit him."
ON TEAM'S CONFIDENCE-"A coach can't give confidence. You get confidence from hard work and success. We haven't had a lot of success. Our guys need to see the tapes, see the corrections and see why we are telling them this is how you have to do it. It's hard for me because, as I said, we are starting to get them to do it, but they don't really understand why. People don't like it, but it's true. We have got a lot of sophomores and we have got a lot of freshman. Every one of our seniors is a second year player. They don't understand it, and I don't know if they really believe in it, but the tape doesn't lie. The only way we are going to be successful, again, it's simple, but it's very complicated; you have to play hard, which I think we do, play smart, which I don't think we do. If you are not playing together, you are not playing smart. I like the way our guys battled. One time I looked out there, there are two sophomores and three freshmen. Looking at their side, they have got I guess one senior, and a bunch of juniors, and a lot of sophomores. Quite honestly, we have to take it on the chin, we have to learn from it, we have to stay together. I am not going to sugar coat it and say, 'Stay confident,' because that is not going to do it. You have to have shooters who see that ball go through the rim a whole bunch of times. You get confidence when you see the ball go through the hoop."
ON PLAYING BYU-"They might be the best team on the West Coast. I thought about that last year, but they were getting good money. You can't get better unless you are playing really good teams. This will show, once again, one where we need to go, and our guys need to view it that way, our guys need to understand that. To be a good basketball team, you have to play against good competition. It's tough for a young team and for them to understand that. That is the bottom line; we have got to get better. It shows exactly what we are talking about. We try to simulate in practice, but you can't. We have got Mikey (Michael Williams) back, I thought Mikey did some really good things for us. He shot the ball really well. I thought Tomas (Bruha) did some good things. Fatigue got to him. We have got to try to get Moustapha (Diarra) going somehow. We need an understanding of what we want to get accomplished. It will expose what we are, and where we are trying to go. In that way, I think it's a good thing, because I didn't think that in my second year we were going to win 25 games and be one of the Sweet 16 teams. I thought we would be better than this. I take all of the blame quite honestly. I am the coach. I am the one who gets the wins and losses. I have to do a better job to coach them and show them. There is nothing that shows it better than game experience."
Colorado Players
Cory Higgins, Junior, Guard
ON SHARPNESS AFTER ROAD TRIP- "We wanted to come back and get to playing how we are accustomed to playing. It was good to get out in front of our fans and hopefully we can keep them coming."
ON BEING AGGRESSIVE- "People know how to be aggressive within the offense. I think last year people were running the offense just to run the offense. This year people are being aggressive at all times and putting pressure on the defense so it's a lot different."
ON TEAM SHOOTING WELL- "I think that comes from, like coach said, moving the ball extremely well. When you are moving the ball, you get open shots and rhythm jump shots, and you are more likely to make those."
ON HALFTIME ADJUSTMENTS- "We wanted to basically stomp on them. In the past we have had leads and relaxed a little bit and let them get back in the game. I think we made a big step to show that we can have that killer instinct."
ON BEING A GOOD TEAM- "Good teams can't let the other team have any life when they already have them down."
ON ALEC BURKS- "He is a tremendous scorer. He can do everything. Teams are going to have to respect him. He just puts that much pressure on their defense and really makes that many plays for other people."
ON GETTING GOING ON THE ROAD AGAINST A PAC-10 TEAM- "That's another area where we have to prove to people that we are making strides in. So it is going to be a huge game for us. Like I said, we have a lot to prove."
Keegan Hornbuckle, Freshman, Guard
ON FEELING COMFORTABLE IN THE OFFENSE- "I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable. Making big plays makes me feel even more comfortable than just going out there and just running around. Making those big plays definitely makes me feel a lot more comfortable on the team."
ON ALLEY-OOP BEING A DESIGNED PLAY- "I was supposed to go to the elbow but I looked up and saw Nate (Tomlinson) motioning me to run to the basket so I just ran to the basket and hoped for the best."
Marcus Relphorde, Junior, Forward
ON STARTING SLOW- "I felt like it was the defensive intensity; Coach has been preaching to us defensively to keep up the intensity from the beginning of the game and to let that dictate our offense. We kind of struggled in the beginning, not making shots and it was hard to get in there and penetrate. Our defense picked up and we got some easy steals, easy baskets and we just got going."
ON BRINGING CONFIDENCE BACK FROM MAUI- "I think we learned that we could just play with anybody. I know they had a lot of close games last year that they didn't pull out, but instead of just playing it close, now the mentality is to win. It definitely added some confidence in the team and we carry it out every day."
ON BEING IN BZDELIK'S SYSTEM- "It's coming. It has been kind of tough for me so far, trying to find my offensive game and things like that. Today I just tried to dictate it defensively; I let the defense dictate my offense. Today it came by finding the wide open man, and I think as the season goes on I will just get better and get more comfortable."
ON PLAYING PAC-10 TEAM ON THE ROAD- "I am really looking forward to that and that is our next test. Starting tomorrow in practice we are going to be preparing for that and I know they will be ready."
ON ALEC BURKS- "Alec is very athletic and very versatile. Especially as a freshman, he is pretty advanced with all the things he can do. He helps create for everybody as well as himself. He is very valuable to the team."
