Colorado-Washington State Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
General
“First, I would like to say, it is nice to see the ball go in the basket. We haven’t seen that in a while. It was nice to see that tonight. We got some guys kind of going. Making 11 three is obviously big. We knew we were going to see a lot of zone, didn’t know how much. They started out in man. I thought we did a good job. They went to their zone and we did a good job there too. Overall, I am pleased. I told our players, ‘You hit our defensive numbers, you hit your rebounding numbers. You add that one to the win column and you don’t have to worry about the final score. We did a lot of good things tonight. We will hopefully use this as a spring board into Saturday. Saturdays game is going to be a different game, a different animal. We know we are going to see 40 minutes of zone. We are going to have to really make some shots. I thought our guys did a great job in the zone offense tonight.
On returning home possibly added some confidence to the players
“I don’t know if it is home; I don’t know what it is. I just know that it was nice to see the shots go in and that gave us some energy on the defensive end I think – which helps. We started out down 5-0. We missed the first couple of shots we had. But unlike Arizona State, I don’t think we missed our first six or seven. Shane got going. Lucas made a couple. D’Shawn made some. Evan Battey, 10 rebounds at halftime and 14 for the game. Tyler gets a double double and D’Shawn rebounded the ball well. That is something, we harp on all the time. We need to rebound the basketball, hopefully both offensively and defensively. We did a good job of that tonight.”
On Tyler Bey’s performance tonight
“He is a great rebounder. He has unbelievable athleticism. He has great timing. He’s still flubbing some balls and not squeezing them together with two hands. For the most part, a guy gets 26 and 10, I am not going to complain about that. He could’ve had 12 or 13 rebounds. I think a part of it was, we did a good job of getting the ball in the zone where wanted to get the ball. Then Lucas, Evan, and our perimeter guys too did a good job of getting him the ball down low. He is really good around the baseline. He is really good around the rim. When Tyler catches it down there, usually good things happen. He has turned himself into a really good free throw shooter. I think it was a matter of him catching the ball in areas where we wanted him to catch the ball. We didn’t do that in the desert. He is terrific around the rim. He is really hard to stop down there because he is so long, so athletic, so bouncy, and he is a good free throw shooter.”
On Horns offensive set
“The horns set is really against man. It is a man set. The zone stuff we ran was more zone offense. We had a couple zone plays we ran. Horns is a man set. When they didn’t go man, we ran some stuff out of that. They were switching ball screens. We ended up having point guards on our bigs. We didn’t go a great job of attacking that but that is something we can do better in the future. It is a great set. We have a lot of plays out of that set. Depending on how people are guarding you whether they are switching, they are showing, they are plugging, what their ball screen coverage is really determines what we run and what we look for out of that set.”
On Namon Wright’s health
“Namon’s foot hurts. He hasn’t practiced since the Arizona game. I really don’t know anything. I know structurally, there is nothing wrong with the foot but it is giving him pain. Namon hasn’t practiced. He doesn’t feel like he can practice. So until he comes back and practices, he will be out. I have no idea how long that will be. That is why I call it day-to-day because I don’t know.”
On aggressiveness of D’Shawn Schwartz
“We will take that from D’Shawn every night. We asked him to be aggressive. He was aggressive tonight. He didn’t play perfect, but he played aggressively. Offensively, he was rebounding the ball. He is a good passer. He still can finish better than he can finish. He still misses some shots that are very makeable. I want D’Shawn to be aggressive. What we did a good job of tonight is making the extra pass and looking for each other. We had 20 assists. It has been a while since we have done that. Obviously, you have to make shots to have 20 assists. We made the plays that needed to be made. What I am proud of for our guys, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I wasn’t really a fun guy to be around. We had long practices and long film sessions. The things we talked about in those things, our guys really responded tonight. Not only do they know what to do, but they went out and did it. A great example of that, is the personnel. (Carter) Skaggs and (Viont’e) Daniels from Washington State are really good three-point shooters. I mean, really good. We did a great job on both of those kids of taking away their threes and not giving them open looks. Our guys knew personnel and they went out and did what were supposed to do. We weren’t perfect. But on those two kids, we were pretty darn good.”
On Ball Movement
“That is the next one up. I will be going to bed tonight thinking about Washington unfortunately. You wish you had a day or two to enjoy it. That is not the nature of the beast in college basketball. You turn the page. We will get ready. They’ve got some really, really good players. We know we will see zone for 40 minutes. We know what we have to do to be affective against it. That is what we have to do. Their personnel is a lot different than Washington State’s. [G] (Matisse) Thybulle is a first-team all-league guy, defensive player of the year last year. [G] Jaylen Nowell is an NBA type prospect. [F] Noah Dickerson is a low, down low. [G] David Crisp can make shots. They’ve got some guys that can play. We have got our hands full.”
On Washington Huskies’ defense
“Their length and their effort, is all they. That is all they do. When it is all you do, you are usually pretty good at it. Our thing is, whether it is zone offense or man offense, our goal is no different. We want paint touches. We want to play inside out. We want to get a great shot for our team every time we have it. Against the zone, you have to go about that in a different way. Your play package is shrunk significantly. Washington knows every zone play there is because they play against them all the time. They see them all the time. It is a matter of your players making plays against that zone. That is what are going to have to do on Saturday night is make plays against that zone. The best way to do that is to not let it get set up, get stops, and transition baskets. In the half court, you better play with patience, play with your head, shot fake, pass fake, dribble penetrate, get the ball where you want it, hit good shots.”
On confidence of offense against the Husky defense
“I do feel good about it. It is a different animal. It is the same zone but different personnel in that zone. I felt last year, especially here, we got really good looks against that zone. But you are going to have to make shots. You are going to have to make plays. We will have to do that on Saturday.”
On effort of the team
“I think our guys understand. I don’t think our effort is an issue. I think it is more of our execution, knowing personnel, and understanding what we are looking for offensively. I think our effort hasn’t been in question this year. Our execution has been in question. Our knowing the opponent’s personnel has been in question. Our getting steps when we need to get stops has been in question, not our effort.”
On Shane Gatling
“It is the Shane Gatling that we recruited. It is the Shane Gatling that we need to be aggressive from three. One thing about Shane is, Shane is a confident shooter. I met with Shane yesterday and reiterated that when he is open, I want him to shoot it. He can still become a better playmaker for others. When he has nights like this, he is going to get more attention from three much like we gave Skaggs and Daniels. He is going get that type of attention from Washington. The open looks might be a little farther and few between. He has to understand that. He has to be shot ready on the perimeter. He has to be ready to attack close outs and make plays for his teammates which he is capable of doing. That will make him a more complete player. When he is open for three, we want Shane shooting it. We have to find him shots. That is the duty of the other four guys on the floor.”
Colorado Players
D’Shawn Schwartz, So., G
On how a strong win feels“It feels great, we definitely needed that for our confidence but not satisfied. We have a big game on Saturday against Washington.”
On how today reflects a more all-around performance of his skills rather than just hitting three-pointers
“I think that I just hit one three today, it hasn’t been feeling the best so I have been trying to use other areas of my game to impact the game. For assists. I tried to find Shane on the wing or Tyler down low. Those guys can make great plays, I have great players around me so I need to utilize them as I can.
On adjustments that have been made offensively
“I don’t know if it is necessarily a change in offense, I think it is just how we are running it. We are looking for more options, not just looking at one side. We are trying to run it at a better pace and execute. We have been harping in practice that we need to be better on the offensive end, especially if we are not hitting shots. We need to be sharper on the offense end and that is what we have been doing.”
Tyler Bey, So., F
On what this win shows about the team“I think that we just played for each other today, we found our groove today. The grove that we had at the beginning of the season when we were winning games and then we had that slump but we are working through it. On Saturday we are going to have an even better game, I guarantee it.”
On how this team’s performance can continue to be this dominate
“We can be a great great team, we can win the PAC 12 championship and go through the tournament.”
Shane Gatling, Jr., G
On how his shot felt today“It felt good. I have been putting extra hours in the gym lately, my teammates kept telling me to shoot the ball and stay confident. It felt good in warmups today, my first couple shots went down so I kept shooting.”
On possibly feeling more confident on the court
“Yeah I am definitely feeling more confident now, especially after watching film with my coaches. I have seen that I have passed up on a lot of shots. They have kept telling to stop passing up on shots and when I have a little bit of space to shoot it. So like I said before, I have been putting in extra hours in the gym being more confident. My teammates keep trusting me and whenever I am open I shoot it.”
On what has been working on the offensive inbound play
“Like we said before, we did a good job executing the play. Coaches emphasize me coming off the screen shoulder-to-shoulder, our bigs stand still and let us come off the screen. It really just is the execution and concentrating on knocking down the shot.”
Washington State Head Coach Ernie Kent
On how Colorado played
”I thought Colorado played extremely well, and I know they struggled a little bit. They shot the ball well. I felt like they out-toughed us at times in the game. What really fought for us was our bigger line up. It really kind of got us back within nine and then we got a little bit fatigued. They ran waves and waves of athletes at us and really took control of the game again. It’s a learning lesson for particularly these new guys we are going to have to regroup out here on the road and play with a lot more toughness.”
On the role that altitude played
“I don’t think altitude was that big of a problem, but short bench of course and particularly when you talk about scoring it’s not sitting there, but we’ve got to do a much better job defensively.”
On Colorado’s defensive pressure
“Colorado did a good job of just forcing us to stay in the half court, but a lot of it had to do with our inability to stop them and play a better defensive game.”
On positive takeaways from the game
“The good thing about the game was Isaiah Wade kinda bounced back and got going again. That’s where he was before he got hurt. You can lose by 2, you can lose by 40 it’s a beating that you take and you gotta understand how to bounce back from it. You don’t dwell on that, you figure out how to get them going again and that’s where our focus is going to be before we play Utah.”