Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-Mines Quotes
Dec 1 (Mon)
7 p.m.
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
“It was a little ugly out there, especially in the first half. In the second half things came together, we started to wear them down a little bit. There wasn’t much flow to the game tonight, but it’s an exhibition, it’s October 30th, and I certainly wasn’t expecting a masterpiece. I like this team, I think we have some pieces, but we’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there.”
On Positives and Negatives
“I’ll start with the negatives, we outrebounded them by one. I felt like that was a team we should’ve dominated on the boards. They had 12 offensive rebounds. That can’t happen against a team that’s not as big, not as long, and not as athletic. I think we lost 22 rebounds (a game) out of last year’s lineup, and I’m still not sure how we’re going to replace that. That’s something that we have to do a better job of, it’s one area that we talk about a lot. I thought in the second half we turned it over a little too much, in the first half we only had four turnovers. We’ve really been taking care of the ball for the most part, it’s something we’ve really been emphasizing, but in the second half we turned it over. Then I thought our post defense and our digging on the post was really poor tonight. A lot of credit goes to Mines, they have some good post players, especially for being division-II. They bounced us down and scored over us pretty well, but I thought those three areas were the negatives. The positives were we competed, and we made plays when we had to. I thought we were very unselfish, we had 19 assists on 33 baskets, that’s a number we can all live with. Again, we have so much room for improvement, but I thought we really shared the ball well offensively and wore them down a little bit.”
On Freshman Getting First Exposure To Playing Real Game in Front of Crowd
“I think now you know why I don’t like to play exhibitions. I’d rather that happen behind closed doors than out in public, but I thought it was a good opportunity for our young guys to get under the lights. Again, I’ve got great respect for Pryor Orser and Colorado School of mines, they won 30 games last year and went to the elite eight, won their league, won their conference tournament. He’s a good coach, they’ve got good players. #30 is as good a shooter as we’re going to see all year, we did a great job on him in the second half, first half we let get loose a little bit. We knew going in that he was one of their weapons. There were some positive things that came from this. You can’t play 13 guys, there was no flow, and that was my fault, I wanted to give everybody a chance to show what they could do, but we need to get our lineup whittled down a little bit. Nobody really stood out (tonight). We’ve had a couple of guys that have stood out, but we need to get a little more cohesive in terms of our rotation and we will.”
On Tonight Being a Chance for Experimentation
“It’s not even guys playing with certain guys, it’s more just ‘here’s your three minutes, here’s your five minutes, let’s see what you can do.’ I told them before we took the court that everybody is going to play, so don’t count the time, make the time count. We’re going to learn a lot by watching this film. If I had a ballpark all the time we’ve spent in the film room, it’s between five and six hours. That’s a lot of time, it’s in 20-minute increments, but we’ve got to really take what we’re learning in there and apply it on the court. The quicker we can do, that the quicker we’ll improve as a group. Right now it feels like we need to watch film, we need to do drills, we need to create habits, we need to play five on five, we need a lot of time. It’s a lot to do in a short time to get it done.”
On Contributions From Freshmen
“I thought McKinley Wright did some good things. McKinley didn’t play as well as he’s capable of playing, and he knows that. He’s going to be a terrific player for us as the season unfolds but he has to get his turnover number down. He has to learn what he can get away with at this level and what he can’t. I thought Tyler Bey did some really good things. Tyler Bey is as talented a player as I’ve ever coached in terms of his length and athleticism, he’s got great instincts, he just has to learn to be disciplined and learn habits of basketball. Once those things kick in, he can be as good as any player in the Pac-12, because he’s very talented.”
On Confidence of Freshman
“We need to play with confidence, they’re good players. When they make a mistake I don’t want their heads to go down, I want them to stay positive. We’ll get on them the next day in film, but you have to go to the next play. Our guys did a pretty good job of that tonight. It’s a quick moving game so you have to have a short memory.”
On Starting Alex Starting
“I couldn’t come up with a fifth guy. Alex does everything you ask him to do. There were four starters and a fifth spot, and I couldn’t make a case for anybody else. You look at the play he made at beginning of the second half saving the ball from going out of bounds, those are the things that Alex does that I appreciate and his teammates appreciate. But that fifth starting spot is wide open and waiting to be had. This is the type of team where you’re going to see guys play themselves into the starting lineup, and you may see some guys play their way out, and back in. This is going to be one of those teams where we have a lot of options so you better bring it every day and play with a level of consistency. That’s hard to do with so many freshmen, but I’d like to see our seniors be rock solid.”
Colorado Players
George King, Sr., G
On the mixing and matching of the rotation:
“I thought it was good for us to give everybody a feel. It was good to get a lot of guys in so they could get acclimated for the season.”
On finally being able to play against a team other than themselves:
“We have been beating up on each other for a while now. It was really nice to be able to get out and play against someone other than us.”
On the team’s rebounding:
“We didn’t do a good enough job rebounding. As a team we need to do a better job of boxing out. In the first half they were getting a lot of offensive rebounds. They had way too many. Just like what coach always says, that’s enough to get you beat. We will watch film tomorrow and learn from it.
On the confidence of the freshman on the team:
“They are going to make mistakes, but if you stay confident throughout that process, you can take a step forward, and they are doing that right now as freshman.”
On his role after losing key seniors from last year’s team:
“I want to be a leader for the team, and recognize when the team is going through adversity and say something to let them know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. During adversity, I want to be able to bring the guys together, and I am still figuring that out.”
Namon Wright, Jr., G
On the takeaway from the night:
“We have a lot of film to see, but a lot of guys were able to play. We have to take care of the ball better offensively and rebound.”
On having exhibition games and scrimmages to get ready for the regular season:
“They are really important. Scrimmages are really important for us and tonight was really important. It gives a chance for our coaches to get a feel for our players, and who does what well. They are really important.”
On being able to play in real competition for the first time in a while:
“It felt a little weird. In the first half I didn’t feel like myself. I just felt weird. In the second half I got a lot more comfortable, and the team got a lot more comfortable. It did feel a little weird at first with the band, wearing the jersey, and playing against another team other than our guys in practice. I was trying to let the game come to me. I am an attacker so I tried to get a lot more aggressive in the second half.”
On the role of experienced players like Dom (Collier) and George (King):
“I think they are great leaders, and we watch how they play and feed off of them. We feed off of their positive energy. When we see George attacking and guarding guys, it makes us want to attack and guard guys. They have been in the coaches system for four years, so we look at those guys and see what they are doing. Whatever they are doing I usually try to do that too.”
On playing fast:
“We want to run. We want to run in transition. I think we could have done a better job at that, but we did do better in the second half.”
Mines Head Coach Pryor Orser
On Freshman Michael Glen’s Performance
“I think he did well until he got tired. Obviously there was a serious conditioning level difference between us and them. While we are in class, they are conditioning so that’s what it looked like.”
Difference Between First and Second Half
“I thought that they were running and practicing their offense. Then in the second half when they went five out we had trouble with their athleticism, we had trouble holding them off the dribble. I could have switched to a zone earlier but we are mainly a man-to-man team and I wanted to work on that because we see teams do that to us. That was the difference, when they went five spread we just turned it over. That was a difference in the game, we turned it over and they scored 28 points off of our turnovers. We just had trouble transitioning and that is our athleticism (vs. CU’s), that is just a different level.”
On Takeaways From Today’s Scrimmage
“I think we need to take care of the ball, we can’t force it. We tried to force it against a really good team with more athleticism. It was fun and we really appreciate the game. Obviously we wanted to give them a workout and I think that we did in the first half."