Colorado University Athletics
Colorado, Kansas Quotes
January 25, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
General-"I don't know where to start. I'll share with you what I shared with our team in the locker room after the game. We will never be happy with this result, but I'm happy tonight with our basketball program. I'll go to the end with this group if they put out that kind of effort. I thought it was a great college basketball game. Both teams played their hearts out. I'm really proud of the effort. I think we took a step forward tonight, even though we didn't win the game. Results are what matters, but when you are a basketball coach, coaching within the season, you want to see improvement. I think we took a step forward tonight, even though it didn't show up in the final score and the win-loss column. We lost to a hell of a team."
On getting effort from the team-"We get that kind of effort, that kind of intensity; if we had that in Norman last Saturday, that result would have been different. That is what we have to understand, that is where we have to grow, and that is what the next step in this program has to be. I said before the game, 'The good thing is we are going on the road expecting to win, not hoping to win or hoping to compete. Just expecting to win.' We expected to win tonight and when you don't, it is disappointing, it is disheartening, but the resilience of this team will be tested now and I believe in our guys 100-percent."
On what gave Kansas the win in the end-"Second-chance points. 21 to two, end of story. We take those away, and we talked about this at halftime, they had seven offensive rebounds to our zero, we got some stops, we just couldn't finish the possession. That is something that we talked about before the game. I thought our guys executed the game plan that was put in front of them as well as we can ask. We just have to finish possessions defensively. That was the difference in this game."
On Colorado making a late run-"I always say that you don't get into the top five or the top ten by accident. You have to play your way in there. They have good players, they are well-coached, and they are well-prepared. Nothing comes easy. We talked with the coaching staff going into tonight, 'If we compete for 40 minutes, we will give ourselves a chance to win the game.' We gave ourselves a chance to win in; we just couldn't get over the hump."
On the game atmosphere-"That is what college basketball is all about, a few too many KU fans to my liking in our own building. I hope that going forward, whoever we play, UCLA or Arizona, I want the Oklahoma State atmosphere - where it is just 11,000 Buffs fans and maybe only a couple hundred from the other team."
On CU fans-"Our fans were great. The fans that were here were absolutely great. What this team did, it kind of opened some eyes and generated excitement, but the game was already sold out. Our fans have been unbelievable; the game atmosphere is what it is supposed to be about. I said it after the Oklahoma State game, 'Our fans helped us win that game.' There is no doubt about it. Tonight it was 60-40 is what is seemed like. I don't know what it really was, but it was a great atmosphere for college basketball. Our guys I thought rose to the challenge and fed off of it."
On the possibility of playing Kansas in nonconference play in the future-"I don't know. We have 18 conference games. We'll need to look at that closely. We talked a little bit about that on the road last July, so never say never."
On what his team did well-"We only turned the ball over six times; that is phenomenal in a game like that. That high level of game, we took care of the basketball. We had 14 against Oklahoma and they weren't pressuring us like KU was pressuring us. With how KU pressured us on defense, we took care of the ball. I thought we executed a lot of great possessions offensively. We had a couple of lulls, offensively. They broke it open to 10 early in the mid-second half. I thought we kind of hit a lull, but we were exhausted. Our guys battled, gave a lot of guys a lot of minutes, and I thought fatigue might have been a factor in the game. Usually it works in our favor, I need to play our bench a little bit more maybe, but the guys that were out there, I'll take their effort."
On Nate Tomlinson being more aggressive-"Nate was good and he helped us on both ends of the floor. He can also get guys shots, which really, really helps. He makes Cory [Higgins'] and Alec [Burks'] jobs easier, plus when Nate is in there, Cory is coming off of screens and looking to score more, which we need from him. When he is at the point, it is a little harder for him to do that. Nate I thought took a major step forward tonight with the way that he helped our team."
On Kansas shooting three-pointers-"You have to pick your poison with Kansas. They have the Morris twins inside, so you take that away. We don't have one guy on this team that can guard those guys one-on-one so we talked about having a team defensive effort. I thought our guys did a great job in doing that, but what you give up sometimes is a three but we wanted it to be contested with someone running at them. Our rotations were a little bit late, but for the most part, I thought we guarded them pretty well. They executed awfully well, they shot 50 percent. There are teams that shot that before on us that I didn't feel good about, but I thought our game plan was pretty good. Brady [Morningstar] got hot in the first half and [Josh] Selby hit a couple. That is why they are in the top ten in the country because they have an inside and an outside game and they are tough to guard."
On keeping turnovers down-"12 of our 14 turnovers against Oklahoma came from Marcus [Relphorde], Cory [Higgins], and Alec [Burks]. Nate [Tomlinson] is not a turnover risk. That is why I like having him out there. When he plays well, when Austin [Dufault] plays well, and Andre [Roberson] plays well, it really helps our team. I thought Marcus, Cory, Alec were good tonight. We had some ill-advised and quick shots at some bad times, but we were able to overcome it. That is an area in which we can continue to improve on."
On if he is worried about three losses in a row-"I worry about the next game, I worry about the next practice. I'm not about streaks; no matter if we've won 10 in a row, I'm not about that. It is about who is next on the schedule and that is Baylor in Waco on Saturday. We have to be ready; we have to be ready to have this kind of effort. They are talented and athletic, they are a good group. It will be a totally different style of a game going against their zone. But we have to bounce back so I don't really worry about streaks, positive or negative."
Kansas Head Coach Bill Self
On coming off a loss to Texas-"We didn't play good in the second half. We were pretty good in the first half, but we deserved what we got. We played good today. Defensively, we won the entire game, but they are pretty good because they spread you and drive you, and that is what we struggled with. Offensively, we were very efficient. We had some guys make some shots. We didn't shoot as well as they did, but we made some shots and played pretty well."
On Josh Selby-"It also felt good to see Josh [Selby] be aggressive. In the first play of the game he got right to the lane with Tyrel [Reed]. Those two were really good. Then Josh turned his ankle, but then he played all of the second half. I was really pleased with them."
On Thomas Robinson's sister-"She is in second grade. I am sure there are some legal ramifications that have to come into play. All I know is that I want Thomas to be comfortable with it. Thomas is all she knows, at least from a family situation. There are some people that are there, and everybody is working together."
On Colorado's zone defense-"They played a 2-3 for about four possessions, and then they played a 1-3-1. We actually got good looks against the zone; we didn't make them, but we got good looks."
On free throw shooting-"It was good. I think that Tyrel [Reed] is the only one that missed one. I thought Tyshawn [Taylor] made a couple of huge plays for us, knocking down the three and making free throws, and of course, Marcus [Morris] making the free throws as well. Tyrel made a couple, or three out of four. The guys did a good job. Tyshawn left his feet the same exact play that Texas had against us on Saturday when Texas got a charge late in the game, and we got a turnover there. Marcus had a bad turnover when he charged down a block, silly with about three minutes left. Otherwise, we played pretty smart."
On playing close games-"It definitely benefits you because it makes your record better. You have a better chance to be in a league race, and a better chance to have a better seed. A coach in a perfect world likes to play, well you don't want too many of them, but I think you certainly need to play close games. If you are going to have a chance to go far in the tournament, you have to play close games, because you don't want that to be the first time, obviously."
On Alec Burks-"Burks is a good player, but yeah he just drove it. He drove it around every one of us. Our stances were bad and our help position was bad. I mean, he's good. That was their offense; spread and drive. He and Higgins both gave us trouble."
On the NCAA surrounding Thomas Robinson-"The NCAA has been unbelievable and very responsive in a quick way. We understand they have rules, but they are trying to make as many allowances within the rules as they can. With this situation, and as much hardship as there is, I think the NCAA is looking out for the student-athlete first. I couldn't say anything remotely negative at all about how this has been handled by them."
Colorado Student-Athletes
Cory Higgins, Senior, Guard
On the difference in the game-"It was rebounding and second-chance points tonight. That was pretty much the difference."
On expecting Kansas' high volume of three-point attempts-"A little. We were just going to give them jump shots over a hand and worry about the Morris twins who had good help-side, and they made their shots."
On playing Kansas close at home for the second consecutive year-"If we rebound the ball today, I think we win that game, if we take away those second-chance points. Everything else was there."
On being outrebounded-"It's all effort and heart. We showed that we can outrebound people, and we just didn't get it done today. It's not that we were trying not to, we just couldn't get it done today."
On Kansas' shooting performance-"We weren't expecting them to come out hot like that. We don't really feel like they have a consistent outside shooter outside of [Tyrel] Reed, but everybody was hitting shots."
On Kansas' Brady Morningstar-"He's a good shooter. I'm surprised that this year he hasn't been shooting it that well, so that was the game plan, being help-side and making them make jump shots over a hand, and they get that sometimes.
On Thomas Robinson not playing-"It didn't affect how we play. Obviously it is a huge loss for them, and we feel for sorry for them, but we just wanted to give it our all out there."
On this performance being an improvement over the Oklahoma loss-"Yeah, it was. We don't take moral victories. We feel like we are a good enough team to where we can beat anybody, but I guess it was a good step back to how we should be playing. We didn't do that at Oklahoma or Nebraska."
On the crowd-"It was awesome. They give us energy when we don't have it. They're just a big part of this team, and hopefully they'll keep coming out, because we're going to give them everything that we have."
Marcus Relphorde, Senior, Forward
On being outrebounded-"It's an effort thing. Today we were focused a lot on helping out on the post and stuff, so we got caught a lot of times on the rotations, and they had some easy rebound s and stuff like that. That's the only thing I can think of."
On the loss-"We always want Kansas, but especially right now that we're leaving. It's one of the last times we're going to get them at home. We all really wanted this one."
On having to play from behind tonight-"It's tough playing catch-up. We tried to get out to a good start, because it is always hard playing catch-up, no matter what the team, but especially against a good team like that. We had a chance, but stuff just didn't go our way."
Nate Tomlinson, Junior, Point Guard
On his play tonight-"I'm just getting healthy. I need to make those plays when I'm out there for the guys, and tonight I tried to do that, but it obviously wasn't enough."
On his hip injury-"I'll be alright."
