Colorado-Sacramento State Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement“I need to apologize to any Buff fan that came out and watched this tonight because it was the epitome of winning ugly. We weren't very good offensively. My hat's off to our guys defensively though, they guard, we rebound. I mean, there were some there were some bright spots there. But I think we all expect more of this team on the offensive end than what we got tonight and so for that, I take responsibility and it's my job to get them better because that's the fourth game in a row offensively we have not been the team that we are in practice and you expect as a coach for your players to play how they practice, and we practice well, you expect them to play well. When they practice poorly you don't expect them to play well. We haven't had a lot of bad practices. Friday's was not good. Two days off, Thanksgiving, you know, I'll give them a break but the way we played tonight, I can't give them a break for that. I gotta do a better job. We'll take it, we'll move on but it’s amazing the feeling that we had in the locker room. It's almost like we felt like we lost because we all know we can be better.”
On The Offensive Game Tonight
“We had it at times tonight. We had some good possessions. It's not like we were awful the whole game, but we just had too many empty possessions. You have 19 turnovers against a team that doesn't pressure you. They don't press you full court and it's all half court stuff. Look, the M.O to beat Colorado is to take them out of transition. That's one of the reasons why other than number one for them who had a five offensive rebounds, three of them at halftime, but other than him, nobody went to the boards. Sacramento State on film was a team that we were concerned with their offensive rebounding, so we were talking about boxing out. Well much like Clemson, much like Wyoming, they didn't offensive rebound other than that kid and they split back and take us out of transition. That's the M.O., make Colorado play in the half court and they have trouble scoring and you know what? Right now, that's the case and everybody knows. We better get better at our half-court offense. We got to continue to work on and practice and we will, but 19 turnovers is the number that we got to get rid of. 10 assists, it's got to be flipped, 19 assists 10 turnovers. Right now, we got it backwards and to a man you better take care of your turnovers. You're not gonna play perfect. I get that. But footwork turnovers, bad passing, not catching, sloppiness, we got to get tougher. A couple times they just took it from us. First three possessions of the game, we turn it over. Just a poor, poor offensive performance and it is on me I'm not going to blame anybody else other than myself.”
On Free Throw Shooting
“I'm gonna say the same thing I said after the Wyoming game, which is that's on you as a player. You can't step the line and make a 15-foot free shot you, you better get in the gym and figure it out. You got to buck up and do it. What's amazing, against Clemson, we're 24 four 25. We made 24 in a row. Tonight, we're right back to where we were. What do you want me to say? I tried to make a joke of it after the Clemson game saying I'm in charge of free throws well tonight I wasn’t in charge of free throws. But I'm never in charge. That’s what you have to do as a basketball player. We've all played the game long enough. You step up, you knock them down, you move on. That’s what we did against Clemson. Tonight, we didn't. So look, you're asking the wrong dude.”
On Defensive Effort Against Joshua Patton
“Number one, we had Evan Battey on him. Evan Battey’s a great post defender. We need to keep Evan out of foul trouble because he's so smart and he's so sound and he's tough and he's aware. Evan’s just really good and Evan did a terrific job on him. We talked about digging on him, but you know we challenged our post players to do a good job on Patton and they responded, and I thought our perimeter guys did a pretty good job for the most part. Our defense, I can't point to a lot saying we're not very good. We're pretty darn good. Look at our numbers, look at how we held him down and how we rebounded. But it all comes back to the offensive side for me, but I thought our post guys defensively were darn good tonight as we were our perimeter guys.”
On Lineup Shakeup
“Two things on that. Number one, Eli Parquet is probably our best perimeter defender other than McKinley Wright and maybe make an argument for D’Shawn Schwartz. So, we know that Eli is going to give us that. It also allows McKinley maybe not to take a break, McKinley is always drawing the team's best perimeter defender in the in the backcourt. It allows us to put Eli on that guy from the get-go, and hopefully get McKinley going offensively a little bit more, which, you know, he scored the first six points of the game. The second part of the thinking is Daylen Kountz, and Shane Gatling are probably our two best backup point guards. I don't think either one's a true point guard, but they both have the ability to play that position and to have only one of them in the game, which is what we had with the second unit when Daylen was starting. Now Daylen coming off the bench, he and Shane are in the game together when McKinley comes out and we've got two ball handlers. Maybe it'll help us offensively. Obviously, it didn't help us offensively tonight, but that's the thinking of having two ball handlers in the game at the same time when McKinley’s out and Eli being able to take on that lockdown perimeter defensive roll and take a little bit of pressure off of McKinley in that regard. That was the thinking. I don't know if it'll stay like that. We'll see. But that was the thought process.
On Dallas Walton’s Shoulder
“Yeah, he had a stinger on his shoulder in practice the other day. I don't know if that got reaggravated or not, but I think he's okay. He was hurting, he was in some pain, so we didn't go back with him. I think he’ll be fine.”
On Staying Focused On Loyola Marymount
“Well, that's a challenge and that's something we have to understand. I think our guys are understanding it now. I think we felt it in Vegas with Wyoming and certainly Clemson but even tonight against Sacramento State. When you're a ranked team, you got that number next to your name and people talking about you a little bit, other teams take that on as a challenge. Other teams come in and say okay, what can we do to put ourselves on the map. Beating Colorado in Boulder is one way to do it. We have to understand that. I think our guys are figuring that out. We didn't play offensively like that tonight, but Loyola Marymount is a capable team. I haven't watched one ounce of film on them, so I have no feel. If they’re man and man team, a zone team, a combo team. We’ll figure that out between now and next Wednesday, but our players better be ready to go on Wednesday, or we’ll get beat. Somebody will beat us if we continue to play the way we are on the offensive end, turning it over 19 times, having 10 assists. As well as we guard, as well as we rebound, somebody will beat us. If it's not Kansas, it might be Loyola Marymount. We've got to understand that we've got to get better. That's what this week's practice is for, to get better. Maintain where we're at defense and rebounding, but we got to get better offensively.”
On Being Critical Of This Team
“It's easy to be critical because my expectation level is so high. I think our players expectation levels of themselves is pretty high too. So, when they're not playing to their capabilities, and they know it, I have no trouble. Now, I love this team. I love coaching this team. I think, the one thing I love about this team is we do guard and we do rebound, and we do compete, and we've got toughness. There's a lot of things I love about this team. But we've got some good offensive players that aren't playing good offensively and they're not taking care of the ball, and they're taking tough shots. Those are the things we have to get corrected. Look, the shots may go in, the shots may not go in, but I just want to get shots and 19 times we had the ball tonight, we didn't even get a shot. That's got to end. Bottom line. This is the same team, against San Diego we had seven turnovers. We got a team that's capable of playing 40 minutes and turning it over seven times. We got a team capable of turning it over 19 times. We got a team capable of going 24 for 25 for the free throw line and we got another team capable of going, 17 for 26. What team is it? Come on, the consistency factor, that's something you got to own up to as a player individually. I don't understand 24 for 25 verses 17 for 26. I don't understand it, but you know what? That's why we hang our hat on defense and rebounding. That's why we do have a win. This isn't the end of the world, but it should be a wakeup call. I just think we are so much better than the way we're playing on that end of the floor and we got to figure that out. That's my job.”
Colorado Players
McKinley Wright IV, Jr., G
On Early Struggles"We just need to do a better job of putting two halves together. We sucked in the first half and we sucked the whole game. We had 19 turnovers, that's terrible. But we got a win, so there's nothing to be mad about, but we need to be better for teams coming down the stretch. Loyola Marymount is pretty good team; they will come in here and try to beat us. It's my job and his [Tyler Bey] job to take control of the team and make sure we get off to better starts."
On Evan Battey's Impact
"We feed off of him a lot. He's a very emotional player and brings it every day to practice. He shows that emotion every game, so having him out there motivates us and gets us going. We feed off of Evan a lot."
On If The Traveling And Holiday Played A Factor In The Team's Performance
"No, there's no excuse for the way that we played tonight. It's on us, we have to get back to the drawing board. Like I said, we won and that's really all that matters, but we have to get back to the drawing board and get better at practice on Monday and prepare for Loyola Marymount on Wednesday, so we come out with a better performance than tonight."
On If The Game Against Kansas Is A Distraction
"I'm sure everybody thinks about it a little bit, but our job is to handle business against Loyola Marymount. We see other ranked teams around the country losing on their home floor and we don't want that to be us. So, we need to take care of Loyola Marymount first and then we can get to the Kansas game."
Tyler Bey, Jr., G
On Being Strong Defensively"We hang our hat on defensive rebounding, so if we're not making shots then we need get stops and that's just how it is. We just need to keep competing on the defensive end."
On The Game Plan For Joshua Patton
"Just playing with our feet and our brains. We knew he couldn’t do anything if he doesn’t touch the ball so, we tried to get the ball out of his hands as much as we could. He's also good at counter, so we just had to watch out for shot deflections and play solid."
On If He Thinks About Getting A Double-Double During The Game
"Not really. Honestly, I didn't even think I had 17 rebounds tonight. It didn’t even feel like it. I didn't play that well on offense, so I just let it come to me and it's a habit every game."
Sacramento State head coach Brian Katz
General“Our games are a lot like that. We don't’ play fast, low possession games. They tend to be kind of ugly, but that’s good for us. We don’t really want teams to get up and down in transition on us. It’s our first loss of the year, we feel like we respect Colorado. I really respect Coach Boyle, but we came in expecting to win.”
On defensive output
“We were rated number 3 in the country defending the three, number 3 in scoring defense and number 3 in field goal percentage defense, that’s in the country. So that’s kind of our deal.”
On how team played down the stretch
“I thought we missed some shots that were very make-able. If we make one or two of those I think that puts some pressure on them, then it’s a little different down the stretch.”
On Josh Patton’s lack of production
“I thought they did a good job defensively. I always want to credit the opposition.”
Josh Patton, Sr., C
On this not being his typical game“I just have to give credit to Colorado, their team was ready to go. They were real physical with me, ii didn’t get some calls that I usually get. But you just have to play through it. I wasn’t ready to go obviously. I just have to be better for my teammates. I’m used to getting double teamed, triple-teamed every game, but number 21 he’s a really good player. He uses his size really well. He was playing great defense in the post which was making it really tough for me, then I just wasn’t making some shots that I’m used to making. It was a frustrating game. “
On thinking they had a shot down the stretch
“Yeah, we did have a shot. We didn’t capitalize on it. We had a shot but we didn’t take full advantage of it. It’s always disappointing when you get a loss, especially against a team like this that’s ranked 21 in the nation, you’re over here playing them well at their place, playing good defense, but sometimes the ball just doesn’t go your way.”