Colorado-Colorado Mines Quotes
Oct 19 (Sun)
12 p.m.
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement:
“The first game is always a little rusty and ugly. We didn’t shoot the ball well tonight. There were some good things that we can build on. The reason we play Colorado School of Mines is because they are well coached, disciplined, and have good players. I have great respect for their team and their coach. It is really good for us as players and coaches to see how another team plays. They did a great job of coming of screens ready to shoot. They played inside out. Their post guys scored over us. When we dug on the post and didn’t see the man and the ball, they hit threes on us. We can learn a lot from a game like this. Closed scrimmages are nice, but to get in front of fans there were some nerves and some rust that some of our guys were feeling. It is good to get that out of our system. I am happy that we don’t open up until November 13th. We have ten more days to get better and improve on some things. We played a lot better in the second half, especially defensively. Some guys started making some plays. We didn’t make shots all game. We have to figure out how to win when we do that. Our guys figured that out in the second half.”
On the play of the big men
“Tyler (Bey) we know is an effective plater. Lucas (Siewert) has gotten better and he played well today. Evan (Battey) struggled a little bit shooting the ball. We knew there was going to be some rust on Evan’s game. We have seen the Evan Battey we have seen in the first 20 practices. That wasn’t the Evan Battey you saw tonight. I am not too concerned, as long as we stay healthy in the post. The one thing we don’t have is a seven-foot rim protector. Their post guys, no disrespect they are good players, but they shook us and scored over us. Our post defense has got to get better. We have to keep the ball out of there because we don’t have that tall, athletic, shot blocker that Dallas (Walton) is. We have to play a little smart, fronting the post and keeping it out of there. Overall, Tyler played well. Tyler can block shots. He did that tonight.”
On their 3-point defense
“Our 3-point field goal percentage defense was 50% in the first half. That is something we have really talked about and have worked on. We have a goal of limiting them to six (made threes) per game. I think I have to get the “per game” part into our player’s heads. Not six per half. I think they are thinking six per half right now. We have to get better at that, there is no doubt about it. It is something we have talked about and we’ve worked on. We did a good job in that second half until the very end. They rattled off three or four of them right at us in a row. What our players have to understand is, it doesn’t matter who you are playing. There are a lot of good basketball players in this world. Some of them are playing at the Division-II level. We saw a couple of them tonight. Mines is going to win a lot of games this year. We are going to play against teams that are taller, bigger, and more athletic. When we do, we better figure some things out. We may not play against a team that executes this time of year the ways those guys were executing tonight. It is a good opportunity for our players to learn from them in a lot of different areas.”
On what they can learn from Mines
“They can learn that it is harder to defend the perimeter when the ball moves. It is easier to defend the perimeter when it is bounced. Our guys bounced it a little too much. Everybody did. McKinley (Wright) had eight assists and no turnovers, obviously we will take that every night. We have to bounce the ball more on offense and move the ball more. That is what Mines was doing. That is why they were a little bit more difficult to guard than we were. We have taller, longer, and more athletic guys, but they have good basketball players who know how to play. We didn’t run one play tonight. That was by design. We wanted to run our half-court offense, our half-court defense, and we ran one or two traps on defense the whole night. We wanted to see how good we were and where we need to get better. You can scout plays and take plays away from people. If you know how to play, it is hard for guys to guard you. We are trying to figure that out. We are in the infancy stages in that.”
On turnovers
“We had 8 (turnovers) at halftime and eleven for the game. Eleven is our number. We want eleven or less. We hit that, but if we can have three turnovers in the first half like we did in the second half, now you can really crank it up a little bit. We can live with our turnovers in the second half. The first half was too many. We had five assists and eight turnovers (in the first half). We have to flip that around. Our players can learn from the second half compared to the first half. Why we had success in the second half and why we didn’t in the first half. Taking care of the ball was part of that and guarding the ball was another part of that.”
On the starting lineup
“I have seen the way Evan (Battey) has practiced. He didn’t play exceptionally well tonight, offensively. I have seen how he has practiced. With Evan Battey, Tyler Bey, and Lucas Siewert, I feel like we have three starters right there. We are using them as a three-man rotation in the post. Alex Starting came in tonight and gave us some really solid minutes as our fourth post guy. There are going to be times when we need Alex. On the perimeter, McKinley (Wright) and D’Shawn (Schwartz) and the way they have practiced has solidified themselves as starters. That is fluid as the year goes. The guys will play themselves into the lineup or out of the lineup depending on how they practice and how they play in the games. We have had three opportunities now. We had the SMU scrimmage, the inter-squad, and now Mines. We will combine all three of those, combined with what we see in practice. There are still some question marks on this team when it comes to who is going to be the first guy or second guy off of the bench. When we are going to play big or going to play small. We will see how this plays itself out.”
On Evan Battey
“Tonight, he felt like he could score over them (Mines). Evan is a below the rim guy and that is okay. He almost got a dunk there in transition so he can get above the rim. He is a below the guy rim which is fine. There are a lot of guys, like Paul Millsap from the Denver Nuggets who is a below the rim guy who knows how to score and how to use his body. That is how I see Evan evolving for us. It is almost easier when you are playing taller and more athletic guys because they want to block shots. The Mines’ defenders are pretty solid. He couldn’t score over them tonight. Part of that might be rushing, being excited, nervous, and all of the emotions running through him. Imagine the emotions running through that kid’s mind and veins as he took the court tonight. We will see. I see it in practice. What I want see as a coach is the same guy in games as I see in practice. In Evan’s case, I will cut him a little slack. He has been off and has a lot of things he is dealing with. I am not worried about Evan. This is one game, one exhibition game. He has an opportunity for him to learn as well.”
On McKinley Wright late in the game
“What I would like to see from our team is that sense of urgency that he played with down the stretch, be there from the jump. I’m not saying that it is not, he has a lot of things on his plate as well. We are putting a lot of responsibility on him. I want to see that (urgency) from the get-go and for 40 minutes. That is easier said than done. Basketball is a game of runs. Other teams are going to make runs at us. I try to make the game plan as simple as possible. I didn’t want our guys thinking tonight. I wanted them playing tonight. Offensively we wanted to take care of the ball, which we did in the second half and we wanted to take great shots. We took maybe half a dozen bad shots. We’ll grade that when we watch film. We want to contest every shot and limit them to one shot on defense. They had seven offensive rebounds, we aren’t going to shut anybody out of that. That is all I wanted them to think about and then go out there and run the floor.”
Colorado Players
Tyler Bey, So., G/F
On aggressiveness throughout
“I was working a lot this summer, this whole team was. I just wanted to be one of the guys that stepped up and did his part.”
On still having success with poor shooting
“We always have to learn from our mistakes and work on it, come to practice every day and work hard. Everybody has to crash and everybody has to do their job. When you’re not making shots, you have to do something besides scoring to help the team.”
McKinley Wright IV, So., G
On conversation at halftime
“First off, a lot of credit to Mines. They played very hard tonight. We just kind of talked about playing down to our competition. It’s something that we have to focus on and be better at. We did it a lot last year and that was a big reason why we weren’t playing in the postseason. Coming into this year we can’t have that, so we kind of stressed that before the game and at halftime. We have to be better.”
On the learning experience of tonight
“That those guys come off screens and they shoot the ball well. They finish well at the rim, they’re big when we’re posting up, and they find shooters. We learned a lot from those guys. I know they’re a D2 team but they’re very good.”
On what he thought of the big’s play
“Obviously, it’s emotional to lose one of our bigs (Dallas), especially to an ACL. We moved on past it and kind of focused on the next man up. I think all our bigs took pride in that. Tyler’s going to have a huge year for us and something he’s been working on is stepping up and being able to help this team in different ways. He had 11 rebounds tonight and that’s an area where he’s really good at.”
On overall takeaway from this game
“We just have to come out with fire from the start. Looking back at last year we did the same thing. We always had a slow start and tried to turn it up in the second half. That’s something we can’t do. We have to come out from the start and have that fire and be ready to go.”
On seeing Evan Battey back on the floor
“It’s good for us. We’re very happy for him. He got emotional in one of our practices the other day because he’s finally back. They took two years from him, which we don’t think they should’ve done and it sucks but we’re glad to have him back. It’s going to be a fun year with him.”
Colorado School of Mines Head Coach Pryor Orser
On what was going right in the first
“I just thought that we played well; we were making shots and I thought that our defense was pretty good. They missed shots too, that is the whole game of basketball. Our turnovers were about equal and all of that but we played well. I think that they just wore us down in the second half, we played last night too. I was really proud of our guys. Obviously I am very thankful for the game, we love the Buffs and they don’t have to play us and they do. We are really thankful for that. Our goal number one is to give them a workout and get them ready to play their schedule, I think that we did that. Plus we got better too because they really are a well-coached team and we just have all the respect in the world for their program and how they go about their business.”
On the importance of their seniors stepping up
“Those kids are unbelievable. Obviously moving forward those guys are the heart and soul of the team; they are great leaders, they are great people, and they are really good players. Our team starts with them and ends with them. They got big hearts and high character guys, I can’t take them off the floor.”
On some takeaways from today’s game
“The takeaways is that we need better performances, particularly at our four position. We has some silly turnovers and travels. That four position will have to get better at free-throws; Michael Glen didn’t play well, he didn’t have a good weekend. He is very much more capable of that, but now he is a marked man too. People know him, he has to perform better. You know just the typical thing we have guys getting in their own head, over analyze everything. Two plus two sometimes in our guys’ head is the biggest calculus equation.”