Colorado University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Colorado-Arizona Post Game Quotes
February 26, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
On Lack Of Execution
"It's extremely frustrating. It's February 26th and we're not executing offensively. We're not doing the things we're supposed to do, we're not making plays and we haven't gotten any better. If you look at the teams that I've had here as a head coach, I feel that each team, outside of my first year, had progress and got better throughout the year. I don't feel like that with this team. I don't feel like we've gotten any better. We're still making the same mistakes that we did in November and we're not any better, offensively or defensively."
On Offensive Strategy
"We guard and play defense the same way that Arizona does. There's no difference. We guard differently than USC, Utah or Oregon State, but we guard the same way as Arizona in terms of our philosophy and how we guard ball screens. Ball screen defense was a big part of the game tonight. They made plays offensively and they tore us up. We didn't make plays and didn't execute. Games like this in February and March are won by the team that execute and Arizona executed offensively and defensively. We didn't and that's why we lost the game, but what's frustrating is that I see us execute in practice against ourselves. When the lights come on for some reason, we don't. I don't think that there is one guy that I can look at and say that he played well tonight. Not one. Not one guy. Usually we have one or two guys and if it's good we have four or five. Looking at Arizona, they had five guys in double figures, we had one. We don't have guys making each other better, our team just hasn't improved. That's on me, that's the responsibility of the head coach and I haven't done a very good job."
On The Fight Of The Team
"There has to be some fight in the locker room and right now there isn't. It's like a submissive, beat us now while you can kind of mentality. That's embarrassing. These guys are young men and they haven't been through what they're going through before. They're finding out a cruel life lesson: life isn't going to give you anything. Division one athletics teaches you that it's a very humbling and unforgiving arena. If you want to step into that arena you had better be willing to sacrifice and do whatever it takes to win and we aren't willing to do that."
On The Play Of Askia Booker
"Askia is a prolific scorer and he was trying to be aggressive, but he has to find a way to make others around him better. He's trying, he is, but he's not getting much help. It's frustration on both parts. He is who he is and we know what he is. He's a career 40 percent shooter and that won't change down the stretch. There has to be a belief that he has in his team and his teammates have in him and I'm not sure it's there, but the fact is that we didn't execute. Arizona had a lot to do with that, they're the No. 7 team in the country and don't beat themselves. Coming into the game, we knew we had to make shots, but then we couldn't make a shot. Even passing and catching the ball was in hard whether it was in transition or the half court. It's just not there right now."
On His Technical Foul
"I don't want our players to quit, don't ever quit. I felt like that was a foul on a baseline drive with the body check on Dustin [Thomas]. I think that sometimes officials can check out and I just wanted them to know that we weren't checking out and that I didn't expect them to check out. I probably deserved the tech, but I'm tired of this, I am. I want our players to know it, our fans to know it and our officials to know it. I want to fight somebody, I really do, but I know you can't do that and I won't do that in the locker room. I'm sick of the way we're playing. The world doesn't owe us anything, we have to go out and get what we earn. Right now we're not earning the scholarships we're on or the paychecks we get. We have to go out. It's our pride, intensity, will to win, will to prepare to win and the will to do whatever it takes to get it done. If we play well, play hard, execute and get beat I'll be the first one to shake our opponents hand and say, 'You beat us tonight.' I don't like teams that beat themselves and we beat ourselves tonight."
University of Colorado Student-Athletes
Josh Scott, Jr., F
On His Back Injury
"Like I keep saying, it's not 100 percent. I keep fighting through. I just have to do what I can do. My back didn't have anything to do with the loss. Most of it was that I was trying to help over on the guard and they made the right play which happened a couple of times with [CU guard] Askia [Booker] and [CU forward] Wes [Gordon]. Their guards made plays."
On Problems Within The Team
"I think there's players on this team that aren't stepping up. But, I will say that me and Xavier [Johnson] don't have control of that. We just try to do what we're told. But obviously, we haven't been successful in it."
On Coach Boyle's Plan For The Game
"Coach Boyle's plan was defense and rebounding. We tried to attack the basket and we didn't do a very good job on any of those. I buy into what he says. As a player, I've said this before, you can yell at different players and try to encourage different players but in the end, that's really all I have control over, and playing hard. In regards to myself and trying to bring others around, that's not in my control I believe."
On Arizona's Play
"I would say hats off to [Arizona guard] T.J. McConnell. I think they did an excellent job playing to their strengths."
On Tonight's Game Compared To The Buffs' Win Against Stanford
"We didn't shoot the ball well against Stanford but in the end we got stops and rebounded the ball. That was pretty much the difference between this game and the Stanford game. We did those things when we played Stanford."
On Losing At Home
"It's hard. I'm sure people will contrive it as we don't care or something like that but there's people on this team that care. That's going to be weeded out.
Xavier Johnson, Jr., G
On The Loss
"Coach always says that this is a game of execution. Whoever executes better is going to win the game. We had a lot of mental breakdowns today, a lot of emotions in the game. They executed better than us. I think we were a little stagnant today. We didn't do our game plan period. I don't think we executed at all and we didn't make plays that we needed to, to beat a team like that. That's about it."
On What They Need To Do For The Final Three Games
"We need to come together as a team, take better shots, defend, rebound, get more assists. The list can go on forever."
On What He Should Have Done Differently
"We attacked early in the game. They had to foul me to stop me multiple times. What I didn't do was make my free throws. I didn't make open shots and I wasn't getting the usual touches that I get. But it doesn't matter. When I get the ball I have to do more with it and create for my teammates and myself."
On Changes That The Team Needs To Make
"I think we need to be more focused and I feel like we need to show that we care more. It's hard sometimes. I'm not saying we don't care but it's just hard to battle sometimes."
Arizona Head Coach Sean Miller
General
"I told the team afterwards that this was one of those games, that I really have a great feeling about being their coach, about all of us being on the same team. Reason why I say it is, that I really felt about four days ago that our practices and the collective attitude of our team has never been better. And our preparation going into this game is what you want especially this late in the year. You only hope that it's backed up by a good performance and tonight it was. It was one of those total team victories late in the year. Colorado isn't an easy place to come in and play. In fairness to Colorado, any team that has the injuries from start to finish that they've had, it takes a long time for players to get back to that true game feel. We respect them a great deal and I thought that we played the game well on both ends."
On UCLA Game Effecting Tonight
"Our UCLA game was obviously a unique game. We didn't talk a lot about it, and we moved on from it. Sometimes through the course of a long season you have those games where it just doesn't happen for you, especially on offense. That was left behind, and we came into tonight's game confident and ready to play. And you need to on the road especially this late in the year."
On Possibly Looking Forward To Utah
"Not at all, we had four days to prepare for Colorado. We haven't prepared for our next at Utah at all, and rightfully so because that's how we always do it. And now that this game against Colorado is over, obviously we forge ahead towards Saturday."
On Halftime Adjustments
"I mean when you're on the road and you have that lead it's almost a scary feeling. Because you say to yourself these are the games that you watch, it happens all the time, when the home team really makes a run. So we wanted to make sure we came out in the beginning of the second half playing hard and ready to go. I felt that we did a good job at that."
On Colorado's Tough Season
"Tad Boyle is an outstanding coach, and someone I consider a friend. I've watched him over the last couple of months, even our first game against Colorado at home. It's tough when you have guys injured like that, having to do patch work coaching. Almost trying to do two things, improving and at the same time doing the best you can navigating the situation, which is one that I wouldn't wish on anybody. Year's like that happen, I mean a few years back we had one of those years were it didn't seem like it would be a close game. Or some of the guys we were counting on didn't come through. I'm pretty confident that Colorado will be back, and they could come back here in the next couple of weeks."