Colorado-Oregon State quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening statement“I’m disappointed with the loss to say the least. Credit Oregon State, don't want to take anything away them. We imploded in the last five minutes of the game offensively against that 1-3-1 and it's frustrating because we practiced against that we knew it was coming. We talked about it, we didn't know when it was coming, we knew was coming at some point and I thought it was kind of a last resort for Oregon State. They were down 10 with five minutes to go and they said ‘well let's throw this out there and see if they can handle it’, and we did not handle it. We peed down our leg and turned that thing over and got on our heels and lost our aggressiveness. One of the things we talked about against that defense is it's not very sound, especially boxing out. So you can really offensive rebound against it, but in order offensive rebound, you have to get shots, and we couldn't. We couldn't get shots because we turned the thing over and multiple times, successive times, and we saw the soft press against Oregon. All night we handled it well. They threw it against us tonight and we didn’t handle it well. We were looking around like we wanted somebody to come in and save us and there was nobody to save us. I take responsibility as a coach. We did not handle that well and that is my fault.
On team practicing against the zone
“We didn't play with it with the same aggressiveness and we knew. Now we told our guys ‘they'll come trap you if you hold on to that ball and you're in that trap area, they'll come. When they do, you got to either split the trap, or you got to get the ball moved before the trap comes to you and then you have to come meet passes, and our guys were on their heels and, you can't be any kind of defense. Especially that one on your heels. I don't mind playing against the 1-3-1. I've done it, I've coached against it many times and have never had something like this happen to to a team. We lost our composure, our confidence, and we got on our heels and that can't happen. It's league play and welcome to the PAC 12 guys. We're a veteran team, that's what's disappointing. If we had a bunch of freshmen and sophomores out there, we will learn from this. It's not the case, no excuses to be made for that.
On why efforts to stop zone didn’t work
Well I think you got young kids out there playing a game in front of a lot of people and on a big stage, sometimes they handle that well and sometimes they don't. When they don't, this happens and you got to live with it. You got to move on from it, and you got to learn from it. That's what that's what we have to do because guess what, we're going to play Oregon State again. We're playing in Corvallis sometime in February, and my guess is we're going to see the 1-3-1 zone. I'm not a rocket scientist but my guess is we'll see it. We better handle it better than we handled it tonight.
On what McKinley Wright can do to learn from this game
“Number one, he was taking control the game. Up until that point when they were man, and now they go zone, and they're going to get the ball out of his hands. So, again, it gets back to trusting his teammates. When you get get two guys guarding you, somebody’s open, you got to get it to the open man and that guy's got a move it to the next guy in a moment. If you do that, you're going to get any shot you want. You get any shot you want against that thing, but if you don't do that, if you get on your heels and you can't you can't dribble through it, now, you might have to dribble into a gap, and suck two guys into you, but now you got to get that thing moved and moved quickly and then that guy's got to either drive the gap, or get it moved quickly. It's a simple, solution. It's just basketball one on one, two guys are guarding you, move the ball, attack the gap, move the ball back. If you do that two or three times that's all you have to do against it. We have to get the ball in the baseline and attack it. You can't get the ball in the corner and hold it and have the trap come because now you're getting trapped in the corner. You have to catch it in the corner and drive before the trap gets there. Those are the things we worked on and talked about in practice, but when it came tonight to the game we didn't do it and you got one of the most disappointing losses. Again we knew what was at stake, we knew what happened last year. Same thing happened last year, we didn't handle business down the stretch and we had the game under control. Up 10 five minutes or so to go and didn't finish. That's on me. I got to take responsibility as a coach on that just as much as our players have to take responsibility we're all in this thing together.
On the challenge moving forward for the team
The challenge is to get the guys to understand that nothing is going to be given to you. I talked to them a lot about earning respect and what we've done over the last two or three four games, we've played to earn some respect, and how quickly that can go away. We earned some beating Dayton, and playing the way that we did against Iona, and then beating Oregon in here. We just stubbed our toe again just like we did against Northern Iowa. You eat what you kill, that’s the challenge is to get them to understand that. It’s not like we weren’t ready to play. We didn’t guard the way that we are capable of guarding, we didn’t guard the way that we did against Oregon Thursday night for whatever reason. These guys (Oregon State) came in and shot 52% in our own building and we didn’t play very smart. We fouled two three point shooters in the second half alone, that’s six points. That shouldn't have happened on a tough shot, the threes aren't going to go in. We fouled two and we fouled one against Northern Iowa. I mean, that's nine points in two games it cost us two losses. You don't foul jump shooters, you certainly don't foul three point jump shooters, just contest the shot. If they make it they make it, go down and get a good offensive possession. There's a multitude of things that we didn't do on defense, we got the stop there at the end and couldn't get a rebound. Big possession. We got the stop we needed we couldn't get the rebound. They got a timeout, they came out they scored. They executed slip to take the shot. We found a way to lose this thing.
On if there are common trends in each loss.
Turnovers. 15 turnovers down the stretch. I don’t know the number in the last five minutes but a majority of those 15 came then. I thought at halftime we were in pretty good shape turnover wise. We weren’t great, but turnovers is a common trend without a doubt.
On issues passing
If you can’t pass and you can’t catch, it doesn’t matter what offense you run. It doesn’t matter what defense you’re going against. If you can’t pass and you can’t catch you’re going to have issues on the offensive end.
Colorado Players
Evan Battey, So., F
ON 1-3-1 CAUSING PROBLEMS-"No, we worked on it in practice yesterday, thought we had a good feel for it but I guess it wasn't good enough."
ON EMOTION IN LOCKER ROOM-"Frustration I'd say. We beat ourselves"
McKinley Wright IV, Jr., G
ON WHAT CAUSED TURNOVERS/BAD SHOTS DOWN THE STRETCH-"We didn't execute man. We practiced against that defense, we knew that defense would come at some point but we didn't execute down the stretch."
ON 'EXECUTING DOWN THE STRETCH' BECOMING A PROBLEM - McKinley "No. We just have to be better man. We'll be okay. Coach Brown was telling us the whole half, when we had that 10 point lead, that it [1-3-1] would come at some point and we didn't just execute. Failed to execute down the stretch.
ON LEARNING OPPORTUNITY FROM THIS LOSS-“We'll see it on Tuesday in the film room."