Colorado-Oregon State Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement
“Same story, different game. The same story that happened at Stanford in Palo Alto, now we’re in Boulder. We weren’t good enough in the second half and I thought there was a stretch at the end of the first half where I think they scored on four straight possessions, and the first six or seven possessions in the second half they got layups. Our defense went south, when they shoot 56 percent in the second half in our building, they tie us on the boards, and we don’t make enough shots. We miss free throws, miss open threes, which is where we’re at right now. It was a winnable game, much like Stanford was, but we didn’t win and we have to figure out how to do that. Until we can understand that our defense has to be good for 40 minutes, and they might make tough shots, they’ve got good players, but we can’t give them the easy ones.”
On teams second half problems
“The bottom line is we have to get better at every facet of the game, offensive execution, shooting the ball, free throws. I thought we boxed out pretty well but we have to rebound better. The Thompson brothers and Tres Tinkle are good players and they proved it tonight, they made plays down the stretch tonight when they had to and that was certainly a difference in the game down the stretch.”
On McKinley’s key turnover
“McKinley is our guy. He’s the heart of this team, he’s a warrior. It was an inopportune turnover but I’m going to battle with that guy. You’ve got to live with it and he’s got to learn from it and hopefully not let it happen again. He’s a big time player in big time moments. One of the things we’ve talked about with him this year is learning to trust his teammates more, because we’ve got great players around him. He’s an aggressive, scoring point guard but that was certainly an inopportune turnover. He’s a really competitive player. Nobody hates losing more than McKinley Wright. He’s probably one of my top five guys in 25 years of coaching that I really believe hates to lose, so it’s tough on him. But in terms of that turnover, we’ll learn from it and watch film, he’s still growing and a lot of our guys are still growing.”
On teams recent struggles
“The beautiful thing about college basketball is a lot of people count people out in January and February, and people are counting out the Buffaloes and I understand why. But our job is to prove those people wrong and continue to improve every day and try to figure out how to win our next game. If we can get on a role, which we are fully capable of doing, we can make some noise in this league coming down the stretch, but we can’t do it by hanging our heads and feeling sorry for ourselves. Tough loss on our home court, just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you’re going to win. And I want our guys to regroup, get up tomorrow and keep coming to the office and keep getting better. It’s what we have to do, we have no choice.”
On Tyler Bey’s limited minutes
“I thought Alex was playing well and I didn’t think Tyler was giving us much tonight. He’s a good player, but I just thought defensively and rebounding he wasn’t the same Tyler Bey that I’ve expected to see. We talk about playing on balance and being strong. He hits the floor a lot for a guy his size with his athleticism, I love Tyler Bey. I’m not down on Tyler, I just think that he has to understand that he needs to bring it every single game, every single possession. I’m not worried about Tyler in the long run, but in the short run he’s in a little bit of a rut right now and he’s just got to get himself out of it."
Colorado Players
Evan Battey, Fr., F
On Oregon St. Offense in the 2nd half“They were spacing the floor out and driving 1 on 1, and the bottom line is that we just have to guard the ball. We have to do whatever it takes to get stops.”
On Playing More Consistent Throughout Both Halves
“I think we need to have a better mindset of coming out and playing together and hard for 40 minutes. On the offensive end we played together, but on the defensive end we have to take more pride in how we play. We know we can play really well through stretches, and that’s what’s frustrating. Our team is on a rollercoaster right now, because guys start to hang their head when they miss a shot or aren’t playing well. It’s everybody’s responsibility to lift each other up”
On What Was Working For Him in the 1st Half
“I was using my body, shot fakes, not being in a rush, and playing aggressive.”
On Keeping His Confidence Up
“I have the most confidence in my game, and I believe Shane is too. He can go 0 for 50 and he’ll still have his confidence, because I think he’s the best shooter in America. As a leader Shane, McKinley, and I just tell our teammates to keep their head up and tell them “You can make that shot”, “You can make that pass” “You can get that rebound.”
On Shaking This Game Off and Focusing on Oregon
“We shake this off by playing our hearts out the whole 40 minutes, that’s the bottom line. The whole 40 minutes is a mindset, it’s a mentality and we have to play that way.”
Shane Gatling, Jr., G
On Their Struggles in the 2nd Half“I think that when we’re up at half time the other team wants it more than we do, because they’re down. We have to come out and play like we’re down 10 at half. We have to play like we’re losing, and right now it feels like the other team wants it more than us in the 2nd half and it can’t be that way.”
On Coach’s Message After the Game
“Continue to get better every day, and win the next game. That’s what we’ve been focusing on lately. We’re preparing for the next game and not two games ahead, we’re focusing on winning the next game and getting better in practice every day.”
On Picking Up McKinley Wright
“McKinley’s a great player, and he’s very hard on himself. Before in the huddle he said “This is on me”, but it’s not it’s on all of us. In the first half, somebody got beat, somebody had a turnover, and somebody else missed a free throw. His turnover at the end meant a lot, but there was other stuff that led up to it. It’s not just his fault it’s all of our faults, we have to keep our heads up.”
Oregon State Head Coach Wayne Tinkle
On the difference between the first and second half“We were pretty upset at halftime, we looked at the disparity in points in the paint. They man-handled us whether that was on post-ups or drives so we got after our guys pretty good. Our guys pinned their ears back coming out of the locker room and we had better focus that carried over to the defensive end as well.”
On what made the difference to pull away with the win
“Well they have a lot of young guys but they have some weapons. They made some plays, we hurt ourselves, we tied it up, and then they jumped ahead, we tied it up; the difference was at the end we made some defensive stops and we were able to get either fouled or scored baskets. The one play we went one-three-one that caught them off-guard, a few possessions late we got a big steal right in front of the bench that lead to a dunk. I think that really lifted the guys’ spirits there to finish it off. They missed free throws, we are a much better free throw shooting team but we kept saying in the timeouts that we aren’t going to let that cost us the game, we are still going to find a way to close it out. We did that luckily with some key stops, I don’t know how many it was, three out of the last four, but we closed it out on defense which is something that we need to build on because we have not been defending well the last few games. We let them shoot fifty percent, which is three games in a row. After the first seventeen games of the year nobody shot fifty percent so we have to get after that a little bit but defense did win us the game down the stretch.”
On what a win like this means for the team
“It is huge, it gets us to five hundred on the road. It gives us some momentum, I know that we have a tough opponent on Saturday but we can talk about getting a road sweep. I think that it is going to give us great confidence moving forward. They are really good here and I have been coaching against Coach Boyle for a long time and he is a hell of a coach. So I think that this is really going to help our confidence but the message in there was that the last two games we haven’t come out with the same fire for whatever reason. We haven’t changed anything but our guys all agree, whether it is at home or on the road, we have to be hungry every time out. I think that this win will make it a lot easier to accept that when we are watching film on this game.”