Players Mentioned
Colorado-Portland Quotes
November 21, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
General
"Anytime you get a win at home over 20 points it's a good win for you. I thought in the second half we really exerted ourselves, and our defensive rebounding really took the game over. We had a stretch in the first half were we created some offense from the spurt we got from our defense. We still have some areas that we have to improve on, obviously turnovers are still a problem, and we had 18 tonight. But the good news is we had 19 assists and you need to build on the positive things, but you have to address the ones that are going to end up biting you and turnovers is one of those issues."
On Halftime Adjustments
"We challenged our guys to play with more effort and to be alert away from the ball. We obviously still want to guard the 3-point line, they shot 54 percent from the 3-point line in the first half, and they shot 21 percent in the second half. It was a lot like the Auburn game, where they came out and made some threes. We knew going into this game that these guys could shot, and Auburn had one guy who got hot and got going. But being alert away from the ball and being aggressive in the passing lanes is something that we talked about during halftime."
On Josh Fortune's 14 Rebounds
"That's something I've really challenged our wings with, especially George King, Tre'Shaun Fletcher and Josh is that we've got to become better rebounders to help out Wesley Gordon, Josh Scott and Tory Miller. I thought Josh was a beast on defense tonight with 11 defensive boards; that's just fantastic. We've made some strides in that area and we want to continue to do that. We were only up two on the boards after halftime and that needs to be a 40 minute thing, it can't be a 20 minute thing."
On George King and Josh Fortune's Play
"We knew that with Asika Booker graduating we were going to lose 17 points a game out of our lineup, so we were going to need fill that gap. It wasn't going to be one guy, but both of those guys are capable scorers and rebounders, so I knew coming into this year this team was going to be deeper and more balanced then last year's team. I think that's something that we feel good about, and those guys need to be good for us to be good. George, Josh and Tre'Shaun create a three headed monster out there on the wing for us. We're going to need all three of those guys to play well for us."
On George King, Josh Fortune and Tre'Shaun Fletcher's Roles in the Lineup
"Right now it's a rotation thing until something shakes out, but on Sunday I plan on starting Josh and Tre'Shaun. So every third game a guy will come off the bench for us. Looking at the Iowa State game George played great for us coming off the bench, you look at the Auburn game Josh played great coming off the bench. If you look at tonight Tre'Shaun did a great job coming off the bench. So it's not about who starts, since they're all going to play and be in the rotation for us, the minutes will only be affected by how they play on a night to night basis."
On Offensive Execution
"I think at times we executed well, but there are still some areas that we need to get better at. But when I look at those 19 assists I think that's a great number to have. We were in the 12 to 15 area, sometimes lower than that last year, but if the 19 assists number holds up it puts us in the 15 to 20 range which is really good. And on great nights it'll be above 20. We can still get better at creating plays for each other, so there's still something to work at."
On How Good This Team Could Be
"Well this team can be great, but this team needs everyone to be great. We need a great inside presence which we have with Josh Scott, Wesley Gordon and Tory Miller. We've got a good outside presence with Dominique Collier, Thomas Akyazili, and Xavier Talton. This team will be great as long as we play together and with each other not one guy going off on a certain night. Our goal when we have the ball is to get a great shot for our team every single time. And we want to play inside out, and if we can do that this team can be great. This team has the highest upside of anytime we've had here, but it's not going to happen overnight. We've still got a lot of room for improvement."
On Point Guard Play So Far
"Adequate, it's been good at times and other times I think we need to be more vocal and get our team into a play. I think (Dominique) Collier has had some good moments were he's really played well. I thought he had some good moments and good plays against Auburn the other night. Tonight wasn't one of his better nights, but the play has been solid overall. I think it can be better than it's been. I think you're going to see that improvement with Collier and (Thomas) Akyazili. They're both young, and you're going to see a learning curve happen as the season goes on."
On Development of Team
"Every year is a new year; it's hard for me to put a cap on expectations. We want to play in the postseason, that's what we want to do. I know this is that we need to come out tomorrow and get better. It's a short turnaround with a game on Sunday, so tomorrow physically we might not get better, but we better get better mentally and emotionally. Then on Sunday we need to come out and show improvements in those areas."
On Team Compared to Last Year's Team
"There's no question that this is an entirely different team than last year. It's entirely different than any year we've been here.  I think what made the win against Auburn so good was the fact that our backs were up against the wall and we answered the bell. You learn a lot about yourself from adversity but you also learn a lot about yourself through success. I'm not sure if this team will be the one to figure out how to handle success, but I do think that this team will be the one who will fight and claw every night in terms of their effort. We've got to learn how to handle success on a night like this. A great example is George gets a great tip dunk and celebrates to the crowd and his guy hits a three. I'm not picking on George since he's a very coachable player, but we need to handle success. Those are the things that we need to handle better."
On Handling Success
"We've just got to understand that we are playing for each other and with each other. If we can understand that and take that to heart we'll be fine."
Colorado Players
Josh Fortune, Jr. G
On Exciting Future for These Three Players [Fortune, King, Fletcher]
"I think we can be great in the long run. With me, George and Tre', we obviously have a lot of depth. With that we can play all 40 minutes and play hard for all 40 minutes. We can be good."
On Playing After Sitting Out a Year
"It was kind of a tough, a long year. Like George said, me and him both stayed in the gym and tried to compete with ourselves to get better and help our teammates get better in the offseason. We learned a lot from other teams and we got better for the whole year. The game slowed down a lot watching other teams and how they like to do things. I got some techniques from certain players and things like that. It was a good learning experience."
On Team's Rebounding Effort
"I just try to stay aggressive; crash the boards on offense and defense. We all did a good job of it. Our bigs got blocks and the ball just landed in my hands. That's from crashing. It's a good thing."
Tre'Shaun Fletcher, Jr., G/F
On Getting into a Rhythm
"It definitely felt good to get into a rhythm. Like George [King] said, the team is playing really good right now. We have a lot of comradery and team chemistry going. We're just going to keep that rolling."
On Starting Lineup Changing
"Piggybacking off of what George said, we got three starters and two spots. It's a battle and competition, but I know me, George or Fortune won't let this affect each other. We all want each other to do good. We just want to go out there and play hard. It could be a matchup thing; it could be somebody had a better game; it could be somebody rebounding. It's whoever Coach Boyle feels comfortable with."
On Coach Boyle's Comments after Portland Went on a Run in the First Half
"He told us to pick it up on defense, because they were shooting 40-something percent from the 3-point line. That was something we struggled with last year. That was definitely an emphasis we wanted to carry over and be better at this year. We started guarding the 3-point line and outrebounding them; those are the two things we wanted to do to expand those leads we get. Then, we got to stay aggressive on the offensive end and get the right shot for the team. "
George King, So., G
On Team's Comradery
"We did a lot of things off the court to make our team together like going to golf; a lot of things we didn't do last year, we're doing this year. On the court we're playing read and react basketball. We're having a lot of fun doing it right now."
On Starting Lineup Changing
"Coach [Boyle] said we got three wing starters: myself, Tre' and Josh Fortune and we got two spots. He pulled us over to the side yesterday and said that we're going to rotate. Today, Tre' didn't start and Sunday he and Fortune will, I won't. We're going to rotate it like that. We basically have three starters."
On Using Year off Last Year to Improve
"Last year, for the other guys it was game day, but it was my game day too, but I wasn't putting on the jersey. I was in the weight room, I was on the court myself with Josh Fortune shooting, getting our games right, and preparing for this moment."
On Leading Team in Scoring the Past Three Games
"I don't really care about scoring honestly. I attacked when I had the opportunities. I don't think I shot the ball well. They fouled me and I made free throws. I wish I rebounded the ball better and chased some guys on screens. Defensively I think I can be a lot better. I'm really not happy with myself with this game."
Portland Head Coach Eric Reveno
On The First Half Compared To The Second
"It was a tale of two halves for sure if you point out that the turnovers in the first half did us in. Fifteen turnovers in the first half was really problematic. We came in at half and were close but maybe not in as good of a position as we could have been. Second half felt like we could carry the ball and did some things offensively, they got a little bit of a lead and we started pressing offensively. We started not making others better; being a bit quick on a shot and making the extra shot on the pass, over dribbling a little bit. That led to a lower shooting percentage. Once we started breaking down, they got long rebounds and really crushing us on the boards. They missed 32 shots and rebounded 17 of their misses. It wasn't good."
On What Improvements Their Team Needs To Make
"Early in the season, when the going gets tough and plan A stops working, we're not very good at plan B. We have to be tougher minded on the road. We have to execute a little bit better and take care of the ball. We have to get the ball where it needs to go to a guy in rhythm so that that shot that hasn't fallen has a little higher percentage and all of a sudden we're going for it."
On Challenging Preseason Games
"It's great. They're [all preseason games] all really important right now. We have to get better to play against a team of this caliber, this level of athleticism, this size. It's a great learning experience. You'd like to learn from a win or even a better performance but what we'll be talking about is being tough minded and trying to learn from disappointment and learn from mistakes. It's not as fun but it's still a learning opportunity."
On The Rebound Discrepancy Between The Teams In The Second Half
"I think getting better shots in rhythm is important so that we're scoring more, a taking it to the net and getting our defense set so we can rebound better. Give Colorado credit for their overall athleticism wearing us down perhaps. We played a lot of younger guys, gave them minutes. It was a title bit of a step up in caliber for them in terms of the level of athlete and the size and the wings. I give Colorado credit for maybe wearing us down a bit. In the first half we were batting and competing. But they just came out second half and regrouped. They didn't do much different but it was more effective and just wore us down."
On Josh Scott's Play
"He's a very good player; credit to him for hitting those perimeter shots. That changed our defensive strategy a little bit which was to mix things up in the post. We did a good job of faking at him and mixing it up. Good players like that, we have a few in our league like that where you can't really give them the same look all the time. He makes good unselfish decisions. He doesn't force anything, he was trying to score and if it wasn't there, he would pass it. They did a nice job of having other guys step up."
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