Colorado-South Dakota Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement
“That was a good win. A good overall effort by our guys. I thought we handled South Dakota’s double teams in the post in the first half really well. Our big guys did a good job of passing out of that. That was a big part of the game plan tonight, offensively. Guys did a great job of feeding the post and then cutting. We made some extra passes. Defensively I thought we were good all night. Going into today we were tenth in the Pac-12 in field goal percentage defense. Our goal is to be in the top three. Tenth is not anywhere close to that. I don’t know if we have any math majors on our team, but we’ve made that point. Guys rode to that challenge and did a better job defensively tonight. That is something we are going to have to get better at as we move forward. Illinois-Chicago on Saturday has a lot of tough minded kids. We are going to have to be ready to go. It was a good victory tonight for the Buffs.”
On Different Guys Getting Involved
“It can be a different guy every night. If our guys can but into that notion, certain guys on certain nights are going to be feeling it. We have to go to them. We always want to play inside out and keep finding each other. I thought our guys shared the ball well. I was pleased.”
On Evan Battey’s Passing Ability
“We knew Evan was a great passer when we recruited him. That is one of the things I loved about him. He is a guy that can catch the ball on the block. In high school and AAU ball you had to double him because if you didn’t double him, then he was going to score. He would physically overpower kids in high school. He is not always going to be able to physically overpower guys in college. When you double him, it is a dangerous deal because he can find the open man pretty well. He enjoys that. Evan enjoys passing the ball. Hopefully our players are figuring that out. One way to get a shot is to hand the ball in the post and move. D’Shawn (Schwartz) got one that way and we have to understand he (Battey) is a big weapon down there. One a play in the second half, he took his time, jabbed him, and hit a fade away.
On The Post Play
“Tyler made a couple of nice moves. (Lucas Siewert, Tyler Bey, and Evan Battey) work on their low post games. We need to reward them in game situations by getting them touches and understand that it puts the defense in a vicarious position. If they don’t help, then those guys can score down there. If they do help, it opens up things on the perimeter for three point shots and attacking closeouts.”
On Evan Battey’s Improvement
“What I want to see from Evan is continual improvement with him game to game and practice to practice. Obviously, we knew there was going to be rust on his game. We saw that in the first couple of games. Every time he steps on the floor he seems to be more confident and more comfortable out there. He is a weapon offensively. Evan Battey keeps getting better. He, Lucas, and Tyler are a really good three-headed monster in the post.”
On Committing 23 Fouls
“There were 46 fouls called tonight. That’s too many. We have to play without fouling. We can’t play without fouling. We have to figure out how to defend without fouling. (Evan Battey) has great feet defensively. We have to get our hands out and not hand check or elbow. We have to get our elbows in because those are automatic fouls when guys are driving.”
On Taking Advantage Inside
“Going against South Dakota, we knew the advantage for us was inside. They didn’t have much size. They have one big guy who came off the bench. The rest of their guys are undersized post guys. We had to go inside. When we went inside, we were expecting the double (team) which came in the first half. We have to attack the matchups that give us the advantage. Tonight, that was in the post. That is why we really wanted to play through our post guys tonight. There are going to be other games where the matchups are on the perimeter, the point, or on the wing. The point of emphasis might be a little different. They were switching ball screens. When they switch a ball screen, their big gets on a guard and their little guys get on a big. Now it is a mismatch. We have to exploit that. Those are the things I want our players to be thinking about as we progress through the season. On any given night, there might be one or two matchups that we have to try to go out and exploit when we have an advantage. We have to understand that and we have to execute that.”
On D’Shawn Schwartz
“It was good to have him back being aggressive. I told him, “You have to play extremely hard, defend, and rebound. Your offense will get going. You are a good shooter so when you are open, shoot it.” He did that tonight and made some really nice plays attacking the rim. He was under control off the bounce. He had a bigtime post feed to Evan, then cut, and got a right-handed dunk. That was a big time play in the first half. It was good to have D’Shawn (Schwartz) back.”
On The Offense
“We have to get Deleon Brown going offensively a little bit. We have to get Namon (Wright) going offensively a little bit. When we start hitting on all cylinders, this is a dangerous team. We just have to understand that on any given night it might be someone else’s night. We have to be okay with that. If we are then we will be okay.”
On Playing A Complete Game
“I don’t buy into first half or second half. I don’t want to be a second or first half team. I want to be a 40-minute team. That means we have to execute and play with energy and effort. Those are the three things we asked from our guys tonight. For the most part, I thought our energy and effort was good. Our executing can still get better on offense and defense. That is the exciting part about this team. We are young, learning and getting better. We are winning some games at home, but as we progress through this schedule it is going to get more difficult. Saturday is going to be a difficult game. I don’t know much about Illinois-Chicago, but I know they have kids that are tough. They will want to come in here and beat the Buffs. We have to be ready for that challenge and then move on to the next one.”
On Tyler Bey
“I do think we are further along this year with our offense. If you compare to last year’s team, we are much further along. We have a lot of weapons inside and out. We have to shoot the ball. It is all about playing together, making the extra pass, making a play for your teammate, and that mentality. If we do that with the talent that we have, we are going to be able to score the ball. We may not score 80 points every night. One of the things we have tried to do is simplify their mindset. We want to take care of the ball, which we did an atrocious job of in the first half. We had nine turnovers at halftime. We can’t do that. We had four in the second half. We can live with that. We have to take care of the ball and get a good shot. That is all I care about as a coach. It doesn’t matter what we are running. Set, continuity offense, zone offense, or whatever. We have to get a great shot and take care of the ball. If we do those two things offensively, we have enough talent to get buckets.”
Colorado Players
D’Shawn Schwartz, So., G
On if he was experimenting some new things tonight
“I probably wouldn’t say that. I think there were just some options based on how they were playing that aren’t usually there. They were reaching in in the gap and it was opening up on the flare guys. I mean, you just got to take what the defense gives you.”
On what the secondary scoring players do for the team and McKinley Wright
“It makes it easier for him (McKinley Wright) if we’re all playing well. He’s a guy who takes pride in his assists so if we’re making shots, if we’re getting open, and playing well it opens it up for him and it’s going to open up more shots for us as well. Us just playing well helps the team as a whole.”
His thoughts on Daylen Kountz
“He’s a big-time guy. I’ve been watching him play since he was in third grade, I was in fourth grade. We’ve been playing together forever. Just seeing him here and doing well, it’s a big thing for our state for sure.”
On if Evan Battey is just scratching the surface of what he can do
“Yeah, for sure.”
On a certain moment where he knew Evan Battey was back
“Yeah, he does this one thing, I don’t know if his left eye or right eye closes but he starts hulk slamming around. We started calling him Ralphie, like the buffalo.”
On going into tonight’s game with a different mindset
“I probably would attribute that one to Coach English. He gave me some texts of what I needed to do, and it was kind of just along the lines of get some shots up, shoot the ball, and the rest will take care of itself. I appreciate him for that.”
On staying more consistent
“Yeah, no doubt. Just trying to make sure I’m aggressive, keep watching film, and picking my spots. I think that’s something I have to focus on and just studying the game a little bit more and that will make it easier.”
On his vicious dunk tonight
“Yeah, good pass (looks at Evan Battey).”
On looking for plays such as his dunk tonight
“Yeah, I would say so. It was there. I think that was my first one in college, so I’m happy for that one.”
On the difference of last year’s offense to this year’s
“I just think returners stepped up learning their role a little bit better than last year.”
Evan Battey, Fr., F
On if he’s settling in
“I’m definitely settling in.”
On what’s helped him settle in
“I just think being comfortable. The first few games I was a little nervous, you know, just the first time back in three years. I was so foreign to playing in front of the fans and just playing on the home court. So, I’ve really settled in.”
On if his role is increasing
“I do whatever the team needs me to do, so if a guy’s open, I’m hitting them. That’s just the way I play.”
On if he’s really worked on getting his teammates the ball
“That’s something I’ve had my whole life. I’ve always been a good passer and they know that. They cut, they space out so I can hit them.”
On if he’s fully back
“I feel like I’m back. Just being out there with my teammates, it kinda helps me feel like being back, so yeah.”
On if he’s just scratching the surface of what he can do
“I don’t know how to answer that without being too full of myself, but I think so.”
on the difference from last year's offense to this year's
“We’ve run the same offense so it’s not the offense but it’s more about the players we have. We’ve had the same players the last two years, we’ve brought a lot of guys back. Just the understanding of the offense has been really key for us.”
On playing with a high basketball IQ
“Yeah, if we can play the game in any offense and in any set. We have two offenses. We have two continuous offenses. We just run them to perfection every time.”
On if Coach Boyle preaches a strong second half
“No sir. He wants us to come out with 40 minutes of energy. He wants us to get started from the get-go but we can’t always apply that. I don’t want to call us a second half team but we talk in the locker room and we definitely pick it up in the second half.”
South Dakota Head Coach Todd Lee
On the pressure put on your team with two starters out“We just don’t have much size. CU is a big and physical team. They do a good job of getting the ball inside. That was the biggest thing tonight. I feel like we were in foul trouble the entire night. We were battling, but they were just bigger than us.”
On expectations from the team entering game
“I expect to win the game. We are a good program. We come here to compete and win. I think we were just outmatched physically, especially inside tonight. That was the first game all year that we were not in it. The other three losses we lead in the second half. We are usually top 25 in the country defensively, holding teams to 61 ppg. However, they are a very good offensive team averaging 85 ppg and over 50% from the field. I think that was our worse defensive performance of the year. Some of it was on us, some of it was just lack of a size against a very big, talented, and well coached team.”
On foul calls hurting the flow of the game
“It’s tough to get in the flow when there are calls where guys are not sure about and the game stopping. We still have to make shots, we shot 4-23 from three. When you go on the road and play a good time you have to knock down shots. We had open looks we just didn’t make them tonight.”