Colorado-Wofford Quotes
Oct 19 (Sun)
12 p.m.
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
General
“Number one, I think the people that weren’t at the game tonight and people that follow the Buffs from afar a little bit, they see Wofford on the schedule, they have no idea have no idea how good Wofford is. I think that team is going to win a lot of games in their league this year. Is it a game we should’ve won? Yeah, it probably is but it’s no easy, and what our players need to understand is every time you step on the floor, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, doesn’t matter where you’re playing, doesn’t matter when you’re playing, you have to be ready to go. We have to understand that and I thought that was a lesson that maybe we learned against Notre Dame, but I wasn’t pleased with our energy level in the first half, I thought it was much better in the second half. I’ve got a lot of respect for Wofford, they’re good team, they’re well coached, they’ve got tough kids, they have some really good shooters, so a lot of credit goes to them. We need to continue to get better, without a doubt. No question about it.”
On Whether Lack Of Energy Is A Surprise With An Experienced Team
“Yeah, I am a little bit (surprised), we need better energy level and body language from a few guys, I though Xavier (Johnson) was terrific, Derrick (White) struggled in the first half, got better in the second half. I thought our freshmen Deleon (Brown) and Bryce (Peters) gave us good minutes, good energy level in the second half, but we didn’t have guys play to the level they’re capable of playing and we’re going to need that to beat good teams. We’re going to see a good team Wednesday night, and we’re going to need that.”
On Xavier Johnson Returning To Form
“I think X has played really unselfishly, I think he’s taken good shots, he had 27 points tonight on 14 shots, that’s efficiency, that’s good. I really like the way he’s helping lead this team, and the one thing we know Xavier does, for the most part night in and night out, is he competes. I thought his competitiveness kind of rubbed off on the rest of the guys and we need that from everybody, it can’t just be one or two guys. We need every Buffalo on the floor to be playing with great energy, great effort, great attitude. We had some guys hanging their head, feeling sorry for themselves tonight, which you can’t be successful doing… because nobody really cares.”
On Defensive Turnaround In Second Half
“Energy level, I thought. We dodged some bullets in the second half, they had some looks that didn’t go in. Again, I think we wanted to wear them down, I thought we were a deeper team, we went 9 deep. I do think we missed Tory (Miller) a little bit tonight, his energy level off the bench is usually pretty good for us. We were down one rebounding in the first half and finished +7, so we did a better job rebounding the ball in the second half. Guarding the 3-point line as we prepared for Wofford (was crucial). They’re a 44% three-point shooting team, against pretty good competition, they haven’t been playing against ‘busters’, they’ve been playing against good teams, and they’ve shot 44%, so guarding the 3-point line was key. They made some, they catch it and they’re locked and loaded and ready to shoot. Again, I’ve got a lot of respect for that program.”
On Xavier Johnson Playing More Inside
“I think Xavier really understands who he is now. Sometimes you try to be who you’re not. I think Xavier’s done a great job of playing to his strengths, understanding what his strengths are. He made a couple of threes in the first half, shooting the three ball is a part of his game, it’s not something we want to take away from him, but he also is really, really good around the basketball. He’s good at finishing through contact, we’ve been working on that a lot in practice, I thought he did a good job of that tonight. He’s a true inside-out type guy. He’s become a very good passer, a very willing passer. Again, I can’t say enough about Xavier Johnson’s unselfishness. If we can all kind of play with that ‘we’ instead of ‘me’ type attitude, our team is going to be really hard to beat this year.”
On Xavier Johnson Improving As A Leader
“I think his competitiveness, and his ability to hopefully demand his teammates compete at the level he’s competing at. That’s what leadership is, it’s not just doing it yourself, it’s expecting your teammates to do it with you, and when they’re not to let them know it. Wesley Gordon is really good defender, we need Wesley to make sure his teammates are as dialed in defensively as he usually is, and care about it as much as he cares about it. Derrick White needs to be a great communicator out there, he’s running the point, he’s got to make sure we’re in what we’re supposed to be in, so the leadership is not coming from just one guy. I think Xavier Johnson is doing a great job with his part, Derrick needs to do his, Wesley needs to do his, Josh Fortune needs to step up his leadership, and George King. To me, it’s kind of a 4 or 5 man committee.”
On George King Following Up Great Rebounding Performance In New York With No Rebounds Tonight
“He’s better than having zero, I mean that’s not very good for playing 26 minutes. Again, that’s the consistency factor. He’s not going to have 13 every night, we know that. The offensive effort, we won’t know that until we grade the film, but sometimes the numbers speak for themselves, and a zero is a zero, I don’t care how you look at it, that’s not very good. Room for improvement, everybody individually has to understand what they need to improve upon, and our team has to understand as a group what to improve on.”
On Whether He Thought Derrick White Was Aggressive Enough
“Yeah, he is. I want the ball in his hands, I like the ball in his hands, I thought he made some really good plays in the second half for Xavier, as well as other guys, he only ended up with 2 assists, but I thought he really distributed the ball well. I told Derrick we’re going to need him to score the ball for us at certain times this year, and it’s going to be really important for him, much like it was for Spencer (Dinwiddie) when he was here, to understand what the team needs. Does the team need scoring? You need to probably get some buckets. Does the team need a distributor? Does the team need a guy that can be a great screener? Whatever the case may be, he’s able to do all of those things, it’s picking and choosing the right times. There are times I want him to be more aggressive, but he’s a smart player, I trust him a great deal for only having coached him a year in practice last year and in 6 games this year. I’ve got a lot of confidence in him.”
On Status Of Tory Miller’s Injury
“Don’t know. We’re hoping and praying. When you get ready to play Colorado State, I’m always talking about defense and rebounding, but rebounding is the key against those guys, because they are so well-schooled and well-coached in terms of going to the glass. We’re going to have to box out, and then we’re going to have to exert our will on the offensive glass. In the second half we did a little better job, but we only ended up with 6 offensive rebounds tonight and we missed 20 shots, so we need a better ratio than that. We’re certainly going to need one Wednesday night, it’s going to be a blood bath inside, because they play physical, they rebound the ball extremely well, and we need to be ready for that.”
Colorado Players
Xavier Johnson, Sr., G/F
On Playing After His Injury
“I’ve been trying to play basketball at the end of the day. I’m just trying to win. We have some big games coming up from here on out. We need to be better as a team. That’s the whole story.”
On Defensive Adjustments In The Second Half
“I think they slowed themselves down. We continued to pressure them. They made some turnovers and their shots started going short probably because we’re at altitude and they got tired of running around. They beat themselves, to be honest.”
On His Second Half Performance
“I didn’t feel like I had to carry the team. I think we’re all capable of scoring and dominating. It’s just a matter of who wants to dominate. I think that we have a mindset that we want to win. With that we can do great things. I don’t think I have to be the main scorer or anything though. At the end of the day I just want to win so it’s whatever I have to do [to make that happen]. Period.”
On The Team’s Low Number Of Rebounds
“Our starting five are 6’5” and up. We can all go get ten rebounds a game if we really wanted to. At this point it’s just a matter of who wants it. Who wants to compete, who wants to dominate. We’re not competing at that level yet but hopefully we will soon or we’re going to get embarrassed.”
Wesley Gordon, Sr., F
On Defensive Adjustments In The Second Half
“I think our energy picked up a little bit. We started getting after their guys. We knew what they were going to do coming down. So we just made little adjustments.”
Wofford Head Coach Mike Young
On their first half lead-
“We had to dominate the pace, we couldn’t play at the pace that the Buffalos wanted to play. That would be a tremendous disadvantage for our team. We played at a good pace, I think the half time score was 31-30, maybe a little hangover coming back from the East Coast for Colorado. We played well, but so often times happens, bigger, stronger, faster athletes got the best of us in the second half. I am so impressed with Coach Boyle’s team and the make-up of their team, they play the right way, they’re going to win a lot of games and I look forward to watching them on TV. I don’t look forward to playing them again I can tell you that.”
On their turnovers
“How many did we have? 13? Which is a fair number, we’re typically in the 11, 10, 9 area. Our turnovers are coming from people who can’t turn the ball over, you can’t have two first half turnovers from the point guard. You can’t have turnovers from the front court people, but Colorado has something to do with that. They’ve got tough kids, quick kids and they made it difficult for us at the most critical times in that second half.”
On some of his starters getting into foul trouble early in the game
“Yeah, that’s an Achilles heel through six games. We’re not quite tough enough yet to move our feet and get to where we need to be. It’s easier for us to foul the heck out of somebody and it’s something that we need to work on. Colorado has things they need to work on, we all have things we need to work on here in November, but we’re still early into this thing and those guys are going to get a lot better and so will my team.”
On his takeaway from this game
“You know, a long way from home against a very, very good opponent. Their game against Texas was a sight to behold and with any luck at all they beat Notre Dame, Notre Dame is very good as always. We come in here and it’s a one point game at the half and we took the lead at least twice, maybe three times in the second half so a lot to build upon and a lot to be proud of. But, I’m too far down the line to take any great consolation after getting our rear end whooped I can tell you that.”