Colorado University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Colorado-Arizona State Post Game Quotes
March 01, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
General
"I told our players in the locker room, as a coaching staff we can help them lose games, but they got to go win them. Our guys went out and won this one tonight; they did what they had to do. It wasn't easy, but it's officially March and in college basketball nothing comes easy in March. Hopefully this can give us a little mojo as we move on to our last two road games and into the conference tournament. I'm really proud of our guys for stepping up. I don't think any group of players I've been around for a while deserved this win more than I feel these guys did, because they've been through a lot mentally and emotionally. They had to deal with a coach that hadn't been very happy the past few days. It's nice to see them respond. They played with great passion, great effort, and great energy tonight."
On Shooting Above 50 Percent As A Team
"It's nice to be able to make some shots. I thought Arizona State came in here and ran with us; we were able to get out in transition. The pace of play was the way we like it and the way we want it, especially in this building. It was a physical game. We went away from our ball-screen continuity stuff, because Arizona State is a great ball-screen defensive team. We wanted the have the ball moving and attacking off the dribble. We did a great job of getting to the free throw line. We made our free throws down the stretch, but I think we put them at the line too often. We had some big individual performances. Josh Scott I thought was big; he fought through some pain. He's not anywhere near 100 percent, but showed great heart. And of course Askia Booker. That's how you want your senior to go out on Senior Night; I'm really proud of him. I thought Dustin Thomas gave us great minutes in the second half."
On Team's Play At The End Of The Game
"I thought our guys managed the end of the game well and I thought our guys managed the end of the first half well. We called a timeout with a minute to go, down two, and said we needed to execute and hopefully go in tied or up one. Well we executed and got a stop and executed again and got a stop. We got the ball back twice. The end of half execution and end of game execution was good."
On Askia Booker's Final Home Game
"Askia, when you think of Buffaloes stampeding, you think of him coming down the floor with the ball in his hands. He plays with such passion, such heart, and such energy. We all know he doesn't always make the right decisions, the right reads, or take the right shots, but it's not because of a lack of effort, heart, passion, and caring. I'm really proud of him. One of the things I've talked to Askia about in the last couple weeks is, even though this senior year may not have gone how you wanted or how you expected, you got to look at the body of work. You got to look at your career and what you've done since you've been here and how your teams have performed that you've been a part of since you've been here. Hopefully you can take with you as you move on in your life and your career lessons from both; lessons from successes and lessons from failures. That's what coming to college is all about."
University of Colorado Student-Athletes
Josh Scott, Jr., F
General
"We got the ball moving. I think when we play together like that offensively we're talented. We showed the talent that we haven't been showing lately. It's easier when people are making plays for one another and trusting one another than when we're not."
On Askia Booker's Senior Night
"I'm really happy for Askia [Booker]. He works really hard and he deserved this win. As teammates, we didn't give him the season that he deserved as a senior. But since I've been here, we haven't won a senior night and so to be able to give him a special night and a farewell of Coors Events Center on a win is a good feeling."
On How They Struggled Tonight
"They have some shooters and I don't think we did a very good job of finding them at times. That happens but it's something that we definitely need to keep working on. There's definitely some stuff that we can get better at but there's definitely positives to this game as well."
On His Back Injury
"I don't know what percentage to put it at. I'll just say it hurts. But it is what it is. It's not going to change so, it doesn't really matter. I'm here to win basketball games. If I'm here on the court, I'm going to have to be productive and that's all I can really do and that's all coach really wants of me. I'm going to be fine. I just need to do some more rehab. It's part of college basketball. Everybody's banged up. So I keep that in mind. It's kind of interesting that our new teammate, Cason [Turkaly], his parents told us that he can't do gym and stuff like that some days because of his disease. I'm lucky enough to be able to play even if my back is hurting. There's perspective there."
On Being Able To Play Again
"It feels good. A lot of that is just the fact that when you don't play for a month. You're going to miss shots and it's frustrating. But you just have to get in the gym and put in the work. Since my injury I've been shooting more jump shots to try to avoid banging as much. But I'm just trying to play the game and whatever shots I get I get and I try to finish them."
On If They Can Succeed On The Road
"That's the magic question. I think looking at it, defensively we weren't the best we could be. I think we still need to look at that and that's still where we really need to keep improving and progressing so that if we don't shoot the ball well, we can come in and win basketball games."
Askia Booker, Sr., PG
On His Last Home At Coors Events Center And His Technical
"You can thank [ASU G] Gerry Blakes for that one. He started off about an hour before the game talking mess. He's a good friend of mine from back home. I've played with him since I was ten years old so when he started running his mouth, I took it very personal. That's why I got that technical in the first half. I told him his butt was mine but I used some other words. I got a technical. But I just wanted to get my team fired up. I felt great tonight and my body felt pretty good. I think we just battled as a team and I think they fed off of my energy and they kept it for 40 minutes which is something that we rarely do. If we do that consistently, I think we can win a lot of games. It got to their whole team. When people talk mess and say I'm not as good as people say I am, whatever it is, I take it personally. It's a credit to those guys to get me fired up and get the ball in the basket. I shot 9-of-16."
On Coach Boyle Taking Him Out After His Technical
"I was in a zone. At that point in time, there was no controlling my emotions. I was just here to compete and I felt like I was back home because of Gerry's words. When you're playing open run back home, you're competing as always. There's trash talk and there's fights but that's just how we grew up. Tonight it felt like that. But I think Coach Boyle made the right decision taking me out of the game. Dominique Collier came in and made a three and got some rebounds and some stops and he played great. So, I can't say that he shouldn't have taken me out but I just felt that we needed that."
On The Win Tonight
"It means a lot. The first thing I did after I finished my speech is I brought my team in and I told them thank you. I told them that we've lost the past two years and I couldn't thank them anymore. I really appreciated it. They gave their all tonight. It wasn't just me. Josh Scott, Dominique Collier, Dustin Thomas, Xavier Johnson all played great tonight. So, credit goes to those guys too."
On The Up And Down Play
"You can expect that from anyone, especially in our league. People can make runs, people do have scorers, people do have shooters. If you leave them open, they can make shots and tonight was a testament to that. We just have to have a smaller margin for error when it comes to the end of the game. I think we did get enough stops towards the end and we got some rebounds. There was a jump ball but that was questionable. As long as we continue to fight and compete at a very high level, especially at the end of the game when it really does count. That's what we did my freshman year. We might not have gotten stops the first 37 minutes of the game but the last three minutes of the game, we were all lock down defense and getting stops. That was a glimpse of that tonight."
On When Reality Will Hit Him
"I think it will come down the road. Reality will probably hit after the second Washington game just because I know that when I come back, there won't be another home game. As of right now, I'm just trying to enjoy the moment. I had a great time competing tonight and I can't thank my team enough. Without them I wouldn't have been able to do this. I wanted to win but I didn't know I would have 29 points and shoot 9 of 16. That's a pretty good shooting percentage. And 10 for 11 from the free throw line. I'm mad that I missed that one free throw. I'm just happy for the team. We have to win. To get the win on senior night, for the next year's seniors, they can do this next year and I'll be proud of them."
On Geoff Bates And Kevin Nelson
"It wasn't even about me. It was about Geoff [Bates]. He needed the standing ovation. He's put in so much work that nobody sees and he doesn't get enough credit for it. He's the guy that you do not want to be guarding in practice because he will go to the boards every single time and he will make you box out. If you don't box out, Coach makes us run. So, Geoff is that guy that you hate playing against. He makes our players better. He and Kevin [Nelson] don't get enough credit because those guys have been coming to work every day and they don't get any publicity, they're not on the floor, they're not playing for 40 minutes so I couldn't thank those guys enough. You have to give those guys credit for making us better at practice."
Arizona State Head Coach Herb Sendek
On Defense
"We've struggled to get key stops and we've struggled during stretches defensively going back to November, our defensive numbers aren't what they need to be. In the second half, our defense didn't give us the best chance to win. I have a hard time saying its effort, but at times it is. Sometimes making one effort on a possession isn't enough and you need multiple efforts. There's been some issues carrying over some details of our preparation into our performance. There's a lot that goes into it at this level."
On Askia Booker's Performance
"In all fairness you got to give Booker his fair share of credit. He's a special player; he makes buckets and he makes free throws and he got 29 tonight. He was the only player on either team that was at that next level. He significantly helped tip it Colorado's way. I think Booker was the X-factor."
On Free Throw Shooting
"It's been a nemesis all year. We left 14 points at the free throw line. And that doesn't include the front end of at least one one-and-one and maybe more, so that's a minimum of 15 points. Did an outstanding job at getting to the free throw line. On the road playing a good team in a conference game, if you're going to miss that many free throws you really have to be dominant in some other phase of the game. We could've been in a much better place if we make free throws."
On Foul Trouble
"We didn't have the good fortune of having [F] Eric [Jacobsen] in the game late. We wrestled with foul trouble right out the gates, it seems to me that I was substituting not only for some altitude related early breath-taking but also fouls. [F] Gerry [Blakes] played in only 15 minutes, Eric [Jacobsen] played 21 minutes and fouled out, [F] Savon [Goodman] had four, three in the first half. That makes us a very different team. All of the sudden we don't have a great deal of size, and that's one thing Colorado does have is great length and size, not just with their front court players but, with their perimeter players as well."
On The End Of The Game
"Probably (Bo Barnes took the shot too fast). He thought he was open, if it goes in you have a different headline. It was still a one possession game and we made a mistake by fouling, we didn't want to foul there. I don't know if it was a matter of closing them out, it was a nip and tuck game that could have gone either way. Any number of things, we didn't get a stop on the underneath out of bounds play. Give Colorado credit, good home win for them just like we had a good home win earlier in the year."