Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement:
“That was a good win. We made it interesting there in the second half, but hopefully we can learn from the lapse we had both offensively and defensively. I thought we were aggressive offensively in the first half. We got a little complacent in the second half, but we got the game back under control. We had some great individual performances tonight. I really like how we shared the ball in the first half, we had 11 assists. Only four (assists) in the second half. We need that number to be higher at this point in the season. I thought Lucas Siewart played really well, it was nice to see him kind of exert his will down low. Dom [Collier] was terrific in the first half. McKinley [Wright IV] got us going once they tightened it up. George [King] and Namon [Wright] played extremely well. I thought our bench was great in the first half, maybe a little subpar in the second half. I think it’s something we can learn from, grow from, and get better.”
On going to the bench earlier than usual:
“We don’t want our starters or anybody on our team to need to pace themselves. We want to play with great effort and great pace, especially at home. The first four or five minutes of the game was up and down, I think the first foul was called with 13 minutes left in the first half, the whistle wasn’t blowing, so guys got tired a little quicker than normal. I thought our bench came in and did a great job. Dom [Collier] did a great job. D’Shawn [Schwartz] gave us some great minutes and Lucas [Siewart] did as well.”
On Namon Wright’s emergence as a rebounder:
“I don’t know if it was me challenging him or if a light bulb has just come on for him, but I know that when Namon Wright gets 10 rebounds, our team gets better. I know George King is going to rebound for us. I want our guys competing, I want them to be selfish on the boards.”
On Dom Collier accepting a role off the bench:
“Dom is like a starter. The key with Dom is that he’s quit putting pressure on himself, he’s just going out there and playing. You can see it in his body language. Even when he misses a shot now, he doesn’t put his head down, he doesn’t press, he just keeps playing. I’m really proud of Dominique Collier. I consider him a starter even if he’s not introduced with the starting five, because he’s a critical part of this team. There is (a line of thinking) that you shouldn’t start your five best players, that you want to bring strength in off the bench. Recently, we’ve been brining strength off the bench with Dom Collier.”
On mental toughness holding off opponent’s runs in back to back game:
“It takes mental toughness to handle that, whether you’re on the road, or at home. We’ve got to figure out why our 26 point lead became a five point lead, and we’ve got to eliminate that. I probably could’ve used some timeouts, I used one but it didn’t really make a big difference. I want our players to figure it out, and they have.”
On Tyler Bey’s improvement over the season:
“Tyler is a terrific player and a great talent. When Tyler Bey is dialed in and plays with great energy and effort, he’s terrific. He is a big time rebounder and a big time defender. The sky is the limit for Tyler Bey, and it’s all between his ears and in his heart. He can be as good as there is in this league.”
On how important it is to build on road win at UCLA:
“It’s big, and it’s going to be just as big on Saturday. Saturday is the biggest game of our season, without a doubt. We know they’re going to come in here and play 40 minutes of 2-3 zone and we need to be ready to handle that. They’ve had some big wins because that zone can neutralize some things, so we have to come out in attack mode. Tonight was a very important win for our team to keep that momentum going. Now it becomes a separation game between the Huskies and Buffs on Saturday.”
On Lucas Siewart’s big night:
“He was aggressive. I saw him out here before shoot around getting in a workout with Coach English. He comes in in the morning. I saw him leaving straight from Coors Event Center to go to class this morning, but he got a workout in. When he dedicates himself to the game he can be a very, very good player in this league. He was aggressive down low tonight, he played like a 6-10 post guy.”
On holding Malachi Flynn and Robert Franks to 5 of 18 from the field:
“We did well from that standpoint, but I was really disappointed with [Carter] Skaggs in the second half. We did not do a good job on Skaggs. We did a great job on Flynn and Franks. The scouting report that Coach Grier put together was right on point.”
On difference in Dom Collier’s play as a sixth man vs. as a starter:
“I really haven’t noticed (a difference). What I’ve noticed is that when Dom lets the game come to him and plays free and easy, he’s really, really good. Dom’s the type of guy that will practice with both units, and I haven’t really noticed a difference in who he’s playing with. What I’ve noticed with Dom is how he plays, his body language, how he reacts when things don’t go well, and he’s figured that out, especially in the last three weeks or so.”
Colorado Players
McKinley Wright, Fr., G
On second half struggle
The biggest thing was letting there three point shooters loose. Letting them hit 10 in the second half hurt us
ON second half break out performance
In the beginning, they allowed the Shooters to get wide open, in the second half took away shooters. That was able to allow me to create for myself.
On growth throughout the season
I just try to stay aggressive the second half even when they are making their runs.
On Tyler Bey
“In the beginning of the season, he played like a freshman, but now we all see his potential and he does what we need to win. “
Namon Wright, Sr., G
On first double-double as a BUFF
“I think being aggressive since the beginning of the game helped a lot. I’ve always been a good defensive rebounder and today it just came to me. “
On overcoming adversity/runs
“We just always try to tell each other to stay aggressive and believe in one another. We believe we play as well as anyone else in the country. “
Dominique Collier, Sr., G
On mental toughness of this team while battling runs
“These guys have a lot of fight in them. We have overcome a lot this year with blowing leads earlier in the season.”
On strong performance coming off the bench
“The biggest emphasis from the coaches was to stay aggressive at both ends of the court. Being ready when my teammates are driving I am ready to shoot and being ready whenever they call my name. “
On fight of this team
“I love these guys. I would go to war for all of them. I know first hand how hard these guys work day in and day out. SO I know when its game time we are ready to play and when teams go on runs I know we are able to up stand that. “
Importance of UCLA win leading in tonight
We are trying to make the NCAA tournament so we can’t let any games slip. We know WSU is a big game, and so will every game the rest of the year be big for us.”
Washington State Head Coach Ernie Kent
Opening Statement
“We hunted early on and knocked ourselves out of rhythm, consequently. They had us back on our heels and really got into a great rhythm and started shooting the ball and they did. Second half I feel like we toughened up more. We changed lineups. We put more toughness on the floor, we got back into the game, and then we got into a great rhythm. It’s very difficult to get down by 26 to any Pac-12 team and think you’re going to come back, but we were right there with seven minutes to go and Drick misses the layup and I thought they were starting to get tired a little bit. I am proud of our guys for battling back. I’m a little disappointed that we got down 26 and put us into a hole. That was about us.”
Coming in after such a successful three point game against Cal did you find that maybe your players were trying to depend on that too much and that gave up some long rebounds?
“No we shoot the three ball and we shoot it well. If anything I thought a couple of them were too much one on one shooting the three ball and that’s what gave up the long rebounds. They are shooting under pressure fading away and a guy right in front of your face. It’s hard to rebound when shooting. When we got into that second half as you know with Viont’e Daniels, every shot was wide open. Carter Staggs got into great rhythm of hitting wide open shots and tough ones too, but he can do that. Malachi had some wide open shots. First half we took some tough shots and put ourselves into a hole and not playing very smart. When we settled down we did a much better job in the second half.”
What did you tell your team at halftime?
“We yelled a little bit and just tried to get them just back on pace on terms of what was our game plan. Particularly in this environment you have to play a lot smarter. We talked about playing tougher that has been our problem all year. Mentally and physically just playing tough. What I mean about this is just trying to be in a grind of a game and have the leadership to make play after play defensively and offensively without breaking down. We were breaking down all over the place in that first half. We settled down in that second half that is why we played so much better.”
You got it to five. What was working that got it to five?
“The zone. We started the game the zone was great. We didn’t block out. We had to get out of it because they were getting some second shots. The second half we went back to the zone again and the zone allowed us to rebound allowed them to jack up some bad shots, and allowed us to get out and run. We got into a great rhythm in the zone in the second half and shooting the ball.”
What allowed Colorado to take a run?
“Seven minutes to go we missed a layup that was huge. I thought they put a team on the floor again. The toughness part of the game where King started rebounding the ball and they started driving us a little bit. They kind of took control of the game after making tough play after tough play and we weren’t able to stay in it with them.”
Colorado played zone then went to man and you guys did same thing. Is that common?
“The chess game is trying to get people stops. When people are scoring on you, you switch up and try to do different things. If you are scoring on my man I’m going to go zone which is what we did. They were scoring on are zone, we went man and they did the same thing to us too. It is very common.”
Coming in this is a tough place to win. How do you think your team faired?
“I felt like we battled, but I felt like we left some basketball out on the floor.”
Second game on road trip. Usually the first game with altitude is tough. Do you think it will be easier for your team when you play Utah next?
“The altitude did not bother us at all. We pushed these guys pretty good before we got here. I didn’t think that was a factor at all. I think what bothered us was just playing tough is what bothered us. The second game of the trip is difficult. I have been through this before, but we just need to regroup and come back at Utah and see how we play.”