Players Mentioned
CU-CSU Postgame Quotes
December 04, 2013 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
On Spencer Dinwiddie Playing Like The Best Player On The Court
“No question. Spencer was terrific, took the game over in the second half, and was the difference. But, we had some great performances. I thought Wesley Gordon's defensive performance on [CSU F J.J.] Avila was terrific. I thought Jaron Hopkins, obviously, gave us unbelievable minutes in the second half with his steal and dunk, and the 3's. We battled, we made plays when we had to make plays, and we made stops when we had to make stops. It wasn't a pretty game offensively, it's tough because we had some good looks. I'm proud of our guys, we made plays when we had to, and Spencer was a big difference.”
On Rebounding Being A Difference Maker In The Game
“It almost cost us. They had two rebounds taken out of our hands, two free throw offensive rebounds – one in the first half, one a big part of the game in the second half. We got out-rebounded by two, so I knew that was going to be a big part of the game. I have a lot of respect for Colorado State, and their coaches, and their players. This was a big-time atmosphere. Quite frankly, for college basketball to be as good as it needs to be in this state, they should have this kind of atmosphere every time this team (CSU) plays, because this team deserves it. I think we've built that in Boulder, because our fans have really turned out for the non-big games. But, Colorado State, my hats off to them, and their fans were great. This was a big time environment. Non-conference games are supposed to help you prepare for conference play, and this game tonight helped us get better.”
On If Upper Classmen Helped Prepare Younger Players
“I think so. Only Ski [Booker], and Ben [Mills], and Beau [Gamble] and Spencer [Dinwiddie] have been here; even Josh [Scott] and Wes [Gordon] weren't here two years ago when we were here. So, we didn't have a lot of guys that have been in this environment, but I think those guys understand, and I think our veterans did a good job of explaining to them, 'Hey, this isn't going to be an Air Force environment,' this is a little different animal, and it was.”
On What Young Players Learned From Playing Such An Environment
“I think they understand how hard it is to win a game like this. Nothing in college basketball comes easy on the road – even at home – to beat good teams, it is not easy. This game could have gone either way, it went our way, and were thankful for that. I think the comment about Spencer [Dinwiddie] being the best player on the floor – I'm glad we had him – because he was the best player on the floor tonight, and it wasn't even close.”
On Encouraging Spencer Dinwiddie To Take Game Over
“I told him yesterday, 'Spencer, you're going to have to be aggressive tomorrow night. Keep your mouth shut before the game, and let your play do the talking.' He did a good job of that, and even during the game I said, 'I'm not going to take you out, unless you absolutely need a blow, you need to let me know.' I wanted him to be aggressive, he was going to have to make some shots. We talked at halftime about attacking the basket, and we had to put pressure on their defense. And, if we're going to take 3's, they going to come as a result of dribble-penetration. The two 3's that Jaron [Hopkins] hit were the result of dribble-penetration. When we shoot quick 3's without swinging the ball side-to-side, or without getting it in the paint, it's the first pass to their fast break, and we need to understand that.”
On Jaron Hopkins Shooting The Ball Well
“He's been shooting it much better. He's been working on it, he hit three (3-pointers) against Air Force, I think that gave him a lot of (confidence) – shooting is all about confidence, you gotta feel like you're going to make it when you shoot it, and he's feeling it right now.”
On Spencer Dinwiddie Surpassing 1,000 Career Points At CU
“Very fitting. Any time you get 1,000 points in your career, it's a milestone. When you recruit guys, sometimes you ask yourself, 'is this guy going to be a 1,000 point scorer for us, or not?' We knew Spencer could, and probably would. The thing I like about him, is he's a guy when we played Air Force on Saturday, he had seven points, he took five shots, (and) he got other guys involved. Spencer is the kind of guy – he's smart – he's going to do whatever this team needs him to do to help win games. It's awful nice to have a point guard (like that). And, I thought he was terrific on [CSU G Daniel] Bejarano. I thought Wesley's [Gordon] defense on [CSU F J.J.] Avila, and Spencer's on Bejarano was big time. You look at their numbers, and they were 8-of-34 from the field (combined). They made them work for everything they got.”
On Jaron Hopkins Steal and Dunk Late In The Second Half
“I thought the steal and the dunk was the biggest play of the game. It kind of got us going, it kind of got us aggressive. And, obviously the 3's were big too. His minutes in the second half were really, really, important and I'm really proud of him.”
On What It Means To Beat Air Force, CSU, and Wyoming In The Same Season
“And we had two of them on the road. We want, and expect to be, the most dominant team in this region. But, you can't do it by talking about it, you have to do it by going out and doing it. Our guys have done that up to this point. Now, Utah is still in our region, we didn't play Denver and Northern Colorado this year, they both have good teams, I have a lot of respect for those coaches as well. I don't want anybody to misconstrue my comments about us being cocky. We're not a cocky team, we have to go out and earn it. And, I have a lot of respect for Air Force, and their program, I have a lot of respect for Colorado State, and their program, and Wyoming and theirs'.”
On Dustin Thomas' Performance
“Five offensive rebounds. And, we needed to spell Wesley [Gordon] and Josh [Scott] – XJ was in foul trouble in the first half and never we got on track offensively for us. Dustin is going to be big for us as the season unfolds, there's no doubt.”
University of Colorado Student-Athletes
Jaron Hopkins, Fr., G
On His 3-Pointers Down The Stretch
“Those 3's late in the game just lifted our team.”
On Playing CSU For The First Time
“The butterflies were all in my system, and I just stepped up with confidence and hit some shots, and played defense.”
On Coach Boyle Having Confidence In Him
“It means a lot, because I struggled early on with foul trouble and I wasn't sunk in, my confidence was a little shook at the beginning. It's a good thing I stepped it up at the end, because I think coach has a lot more confidence in me late in games.”
On If He Prides Himself Upon Making Big Time Shots
“Yeah, in practice a lot, I hit some late in the shot clock 3's, and stuff like that. So, it's just all practice for me, I knew I could step up and hit some shots.”
Spencer Dinwiddie, Jr., PG
On How Good The Win Feels
“It was great, it made me real happy. That was the first, I guess, true road test in a hostile environment, and we came out and passed the test. So, I'm really proud of our guys, especially Jaron Hopkins, he had two big 3's for us.”
On Atmosphere In The Locker Room After The Game
“It was happy, we were real happy. Don't get me wrong, we may not like them, but we respect them, for sure. They are a good solid basketball team, and especially playing at their home floor they're going to be good and give us a great game every time. But, we're happy to get a win, and we believe inside our locker room that we're a top-25 caliber type program, but we understand that we haven't exactly proven that to this point, and we feel like we're on our way with that win.”
On What It Does For Young Guys To Get A Win In This Type Of Environment
“Experience. Everything you do, and everything you go through is going to be a learning experience, whether it be positive or negative. This time it was really positive, a lot of them played well. Dustin [Thomas] hit some shots, Jaron [Hopkins] hit two big shots, George [King] got some rebounds, and Trey [Fletcher] got a couple offensive rebounds off of free throws which were big for us. When you do those types of things, and get the win, it's just that much sweeter.”
Colorado State Head Coach Larry Eustachy
(Opening statement)
“Well I thought the tougher team won. I thought (Spencer) Dinwiddie, who likes to talk, publically; backed it up, and I admire a guy for that. He just dominated the game at the end. He controlled the whole pace of the game, we had no answer. Like I told Tad (Boyle) after the game, this is a bigger game to us than it is to you, it seemed pretty important to him after the game. This is a big game, it's a tough loss and I think the game broke us down. We really could absorb that bad of shooting, we really could've, from our three best players (7-40). Had we just stuck to who we were, we talked about it at halftime, we couldn't take the halftime talk into the second half; which was to stop them in transition and get them into the half court. I think they got four or five easy transition baskets to start the second half. We battled, and I know how big it is for our fans and I apologize that we couldn't pull it off. I think lack of experience in these situations, nobody has been asked to be a, (Spencer) Dinwiddie has been in this situation before, (Josh) Schott has been in this situation before, the main cog and our guys have never been asked, nobody on our team has ever been asked to be nothing more than a role player, until today or until this year. We'll learn from it, we'll move on.
(On the style of play)
“Yeah we were playing with tired guys; we had four guys with four fouls. It was a great win for them to come into this environment, it doesn't happen very often and I'm proud of our effort. You have to try and think at the same time, I saw shots I hadn't seen, I saw execution I hadn't seen before. To answer your question, they're a physical team. Physical, I would say that, they just executed better down the stretch.”
(On turnovers)
“Who we played had everything to do with it. They had a lot of length, and you know we were tired and we made some lazy passes that I think were fatigued. They had everything to do with it. In spite of knowing they were going to do these things, we couldn't execute and counter with it and I think that's just. Hey come on let's face it, these guys were preseason 15th in the country and we were picked last by one poll. I mean we don't come close to their experience, so for me to ask this team, at this point, to play perfectly and do what we say in this environment is too much; but I thought we were far enough along to somehow get it down to where we got it to and then make the plays at the end, and we didn't.
-COLORADO-