Players Mentioned
CU-WSU Quotes
January 20, 2013 | Men's Basketball
University of Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
General
"That was an ugly win, we have got to get better
offensively. We only put up 44 shots to their 58 and we had some silly
turnovers, but again, you take a win on the road. I thought that there were a
couple key performances tonight; number one: Andre [Roberson] was terrific on
[Washington State's Brock] Motum tonight as he made him work for everything. He
is the difference in the game defensively, people are going to look at his stat
line and maybe say 'Oh Andre had an off night' but he didn't have an off night
on defense. They were obviously boxing him out, they were face guarding him and
being physical with him, but he was driven. Number two: Xavier Johnson, really
gave us great minutes tonight and got inside and he is a beast down there. And
then 'Ski [Booker] made some shots when he had to make shots. He's
three-for-eleven so his efficiency is not very good but two of his three that
he made were big shots in the second half and then he had a great assist to
Xavier [Johnson] and that is where we kind of blew it open."
On Defensive Performance
"Well, we held Washington to 33 percent (shooting
from the field) the other night, but they had 15 offensive rebounds, and again
tonight (WSU) had 11 offensive rebounds. I would like to see that shrunk in
half and were talking five or six offensive rebounds for the game and then were
talking. But, you hold a team to under 40 percent from the field, and they shot
the lights out against Utah, now they missed some shots especially early that
they are capable of making. But, one of the things we had on the board before
we took the floor was 'whatever it takes', you know we are on the road we are
scratching for anything positive, whatever it takes whether it is a box out or
a play on the shot or making plays for each other. Whatever it takes we have
got to do whatever it takes to win and our guys did that."
On Offensive Struggles
"I think we've lost a little confidence, and what
is really frustrating to me is that I see us in practice and I see us moving
the ball and playing aggressive. Then, in games it's almost like we're afraid
to make mistakes, we are passing up good shots and taking worse shots and a lot
of that comes down to decision making. I don't know, I think we might have to
pull out some film of earlier in the season and say 'hey guys, this is the same
team, the same guys'. We'll get it figured out, we have good players and we
have to play to our ability and right now we are not playing to our ability.
Defensively, we are doing everything we ask them to do, but offensively we can
be more efficient. With that being said, we still shot almost 48 percent in the
second half but it's just not flowing."
On Returning To Early-Season
Form
"It has left us and we have to find it, and we
will. I just told our players, the thing we have to focus on, and it can't be
any different today than it was on Wednesday after Washington is that we have
to figure out a way to get better. Individually as a player on this team, as a
coach I have to look internally and look myself in the mirror, and then as a
team we have to just keep getting better. And if we do that, and we get our
mojo back, we need to get a little bit of our swagger back that we have lost a
little bit and we can beat anybody in this league. We got to get it back, and
we're coming home to play the Bay Area schools and my mindset right now is what
do we need to do on Monday in practice to get better and what do I need to do
to help this team and help each individual player because that is my job and we
just have to stick together on this thing. I told our players in the locker
room that we have one senior and we have to play for him. We have to play for
Sabatino [Chen]; that young man has given us everything he's got and I know our
players love him and respect him and we have to play with a passion and an energy
for him. Because, I think in life sometimes we think about ourselves a lot. As
a coach, I feel sorry for myself because our team isn't playing well right now,
well forget it because we have to do whatever we need to do to make this the
best senior year for Sabatino, that's where our focus needs to be. I think when
you play for someone outside of yourself, maybe you can find some inspiration
or some passion that we don't have right now."
University of Colorado Student-Athletes
Freshman, Forward, Xavier Johnson
General
"Our mission
was to come into the game and play hard and be physical with these guys and that's
what we did and we came away with the victory."
On WSU's Brock Motum
"He's kind
of like me because he is a left handed guy and goes strong to the basket as
well as shoots the three so he is very versatile and I had to play him straight
up."
On Key to the Game
"I think it
was mostly just playing hard, that's what our mentality was, to come out and
play our hardest and just come out with a passion. They were 1-3 and we were
1-4 (in Pac-12 play) so both of us needed the win, and we just came out and
played hard and got the victory."
On Schedule Coming Up
"Stanford
and Cal are great teams but so are we, we just have to battle and come up with
victories."
-COLORADO-