Colorado University Athletics
Colorado, Yale Quotes
December 30, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
GENERAL-"With our basketball team, what I was proud of, was that they didn't allow the fact that we were struggling so much offensively to defuse their defensive energy. A lot of players do that. When they are going well offensively, it energizes them defensively. We didn't allow that to happen tonight. It kept us within striking distance and allowed us to slowly get some separation. That's something to build on, and to be positive about, and to feel good about. Offensively we never really got into a flow; we were over handling the ball too much, and breaking from our offense. We bailed ourselves out defensively, with our defensive energy, trapping, and that generated some easy points."
ON CONTAINING G ALEX ZAMPIER-"Defensively we were rock solid. Offensively we were stuck in the mud. Stopping him was a big focus. At halftime we had yielded nine offensive rebounds and in the second half we did a better job of rebounding the basketball."
ON OFFENSIVE STRUGGLES-"We just didn't get off to a great start. The energy wasn't there, the cuts weren't there, and the sharpness wasn't there. We were very robotic. The ball got stuck, the bodies got stuck, which was much different than our last game."
ON TOUGHNESS OF YALE-"I told them, it is a junior and senior team. They have guys that have played at Connecticut, and Boston College and Providence throughout their careers. They have been all over the east. It's a big, strong junior, senior starting lineup. They've been through it and they have guarded this style of offense in the Ivy League. We got to the rim but we didn't finish very well."
ON REBOUNDING CONCERN-"It's always a concern. We talk about it pretty much every game."
ON CORY HIGGINS PASSING CHAUNCEY BILLUPS ON ALL-TIME SCORING LIST-"It says that he is a heck of player himself. I thought today, what was really significant about Cory, was that he had 12 deflections himself. He was very active defensively. He comes to work every day with a real professional attitude. You can see the fruits of his labor."
ON HAVING AN UNDERSIZED FRONT COURT-"We need to block off. We work on it every day. You have to strike first and drive people back, and face-block people off. Our perimeter players have to go in there and dig out rebounds. We just have to do it. Coming into this game our rebounding margin was only at negative one, it's not like it has been really bad. There are two other teams in the Big 12 that are negative one as well."
ON TEAM COMPONENTS-"Every team has strengths and weaknesses. We have some strength that other teams don't. We force turnovers. Prior to today we were way up there in free throw percentage and three-point shooting and field goal percentage."
ON STARTING DIFFERENT PLAYERS-"I tell the starters that their job is to get us off to a great start. I didn't go deep into my bench tonight. Some of the players with less athletic ability didn't get it, but they may get their chance on Saturday. Since the Colorado State game I tell them that the starting lineup can change all the time."
Yale Head Coach James Jones
ON TONIGHT'S GAME PLAN- "We played Providence our last game and did a pretty good job against them, and had an opportunity to win the game. We wanted to come out and make sure we gave ourselves that kind of opportunity."
ON SECOND HALF STRUGGLES- "It changed midway through the first half. We were up by ten and they switched to a 1-3-1 and we didn't handle it very well. That got them back in the basketball game. I thought we defended really well in the half court, but that 1-3-1 enabled them to get some turnovers and some opportunities to score at the basket on our end."
ON G ALEX ZAMPIER- "He had a tough night. You are going to play 30 games in a season and you're going to miss some shots. He had six threes that he missed. I'd say probably four of them were open that he normally knocks down; he didn't get that done tonight. You are going to have those days over a 30 game season, and if somebody would have told me that he would have scored seven points and we were going to lose by eleven, and be down by six with three minutes to go, you'd be pretty happy."
ON TEAMS REBOUNDING- "They run kind of a Princeton style offense so they don't look to get offensive rebounds very much. I thought we did a decent job on the offensive glass getting 13 of the 30 misses that we had."
ON TEAM'S TURNOVERS- "You're not going to beat a team if you turn the ball over 30 times. We did a poor job of handling the pressure, and getting the ball where it needed to go and guys got trapped. For lack of a better term, panic kicked in and we turned the ball over."
ON FINDING POSITIVES IN TONIGHTS LOSS- "We are close to being a pretty good basketball team, but we are not there yet. I didn't like what I saw, but I saw some things that made me feel like we could be a good basketball team. We were winning midway through the first half, we got control of the game and we were down one point at half time. We are playing at a Big 12 gym. They take 38 free throws to our 19 and we still have a chance to win. There are some good things there, but obviously there are things we need to clean up."
Colorado Players
Cory Higgins, Junior, Guard
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO HALVES-"We had better energy, and we are flying around. In the first half, our shots were not falling, and I think we let that affect our energy a little bit. In the second half, we just came out and played hard, and the rest just took care of itself."
ON DEFENDING ALEX ZAMPIER-"We just had to know where he was at because we knew he was a big time player."
ON YALE'S DEFENSIVE EXECUTION IN THE FIRST HALF-"It was nothing we weren't expecting. I just think our shots weren't falling. We were getting good looks; we just weren't converting."
ON YALE'S SIZE AND PHYSICAL PLAY-"We knew what type of team they were. They were solid, and they usually aren't going to make many mistakes. We knew we weren't going to blow them out like we had with other teams."
ON PASSING CHAUNCEY BILLUPS ON THE ALL-TIME SCORING LIST-"It's great to be on a list with Chauncey Billups, no matter what list it is. I'll just leave it at that."
ON SHAKING OFF THE RUST AFTER THE BREAK-"I don't think there was rust, but maybe anxiousness. Getting out and playing another game because we have been battling each other in practice, it's nice to get out and go against somebody else."
ON BIG 12 CONFERENCE OUTLOOK-"That's something in the back of our mind, because we want to get some momentum heading into conference. These would be two huge wins for us, and I think that would help us that much more going into conference."
ON ROAD MENTALITY-"We can't let that be our mindset. We have to believe that we can win on the road. We just have to get it done, basically."
Marcus Relphorde, Junior, Guard
ON AGGRESSIVENESS IN SECOND HALF-"It just came to me. There were some plays that I could attack in the beginning. I just tried to do that to get the team off to a good start in the second half."
ON COMFORT ON THE COURT-"I felt pretty comfortable last game. I think it has just been a work in progress in practice. It was a way to show the fans that I am more comfortable on the court."
ON REBOUNDING CONCERNS-"It's definitely a major concern. Today was a lot of long rebounds because they shot a lot of three's. That is no excuse; we definitely have to rebound better as a team."
ON FIGHTING THROUGH BOXOUTS-"It's tough, we just have to keep fighting and rebound collectively. We just have to rebound from one through five, and if we rebound collectively we normally do a pretty good job."
ON TRANSITION INTO THE SYSTEM-"The system was hard, but just knowing when I should attack, or shouldn't, a lot of the time. I try to force things when I shouldn't; or I take an uncontested shot when it wasn't there. I'm still working on it, but that's probably the hardest part."
ON EARLY BALL PRESSURE-"I wasn't really letting it come to me. I was making it harder on myself. I just have to focus on watching film and talking to coach, and trying to work on that."
