Colorado-USC Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement
“It was a really gritty, tough, ugly win. In February you take them where you can get them. Sometimes you have to try to win ugly when you don’t play your best. USC, I thought, was terrific tonight. I can’t say enough about their freshman, (Onyeka) Okongwu. We knew from how he has played this year, his numbers, and watching him on film how good he was. We didn’t see that in LA when we played them but we saw it tonight. Jonah Mathews is a heck of a player. This team can win a lot of different ways. We can win with our offense. We can win with our defense. We can win on the glass. Tonight I thought we won with our offense in the second half with the way we shot the ball. At halftime we had 11 turnovers and nine offensive rebounds for the Trojans. It was like, ‘Holy cow, guys. How is this a one possession game? How are we down three? We should be down 15.’ I thought that was a good sign. We got up I think 12 but were trading baskets with them. USC had something to do with that. We have to play smarter, defensively. We have to keep Evan (Battey) out of foul trouble. He picked up his third and fourth ones, bang bang. The third one he reached and swung down. I didn’t see the fourth one but the official said he did. We had a good crew tonight. You can’t get three and four, bang bang. He is just too valuable for us. We found a way to win and McKinley Wright was terrific down the stretch. It is nice to have a point guard who can make plays. Our crowd was fantastic. They helped us win this game tonight. I always say, ‘College basketball is not always a spectator sport. It is a participation sport.’ I thought our crowd participated in this win tonight. I thank them for that.”
On Bouncing Back From A Sloppy First Half
“It shows mental toughness because you have to have that. You have to be able to bounce back from a tough possession, half, or game. We have shown that, in terms of tough games, bouncing back after tough losses. We haven’t always shown it after a tough possession. We have let one bad possession turn into two, three, and four (bad possessions) we have also had one bad half turn into a bad second half. Tonight we didn’t let that happen. In the second half, we had four turnovers and they had two offensive rebounds. We can live with both those numbers. The second offensive rebound was a real critical one where Okongwu just took it and went up and dunked it. That was a big-time play. We have to get that rebound. I have to really look and talk to our players. I feel like maybe I have lost a little bit of an edge in practice. We can't come out and start games the way we started tonight. We need to be crisper. Our effort has to be better. Our pace has to be better. I could tell from our first few offensive possessions. Not because the shot didn’t go in but our pace and our demeanor was not good to start the game. That is the starters’ job. Two of your best players (Wright and Tyler Bey) had 10 of your 15 turnovers. That has to get better. Those guys know that, but they made big plays too in the second half. I can't be too mad at them.”
On USC’s Big Men
“The key for USC, we knew, was we had to protect the paint. You have to do that by guarding the perimeter guys, keeping the ball in front, and ball screen defense. You also have to do it with post defense. Our bigs worked on it a lot this week. It was a major challenge for our bigs to cover their bigs. We knew Okongwu was coming back. Rakocevic had 6 offensive rebounds. It is funny, against Oregon their guards had 9 offensive rebounds between them with (Payton) Pritchard and (Will) Richardson. Tonight Okongwu and Rakocevic had nine offensive rebounds. Against Oregon it was our guards. Tonight it was our bigs. We have to take on a challenge. 42 points in the paint, when one of the keys to the victory is to protect the paint, is not good enough. We dodged a little bit of a bullet tonight. We’ll take it and move on but we have to be better. We better be better on Saturday.”
On If They Got USC’s Best Shot
“I think so. Okongwu and (Jonah) Mathews for sure. Rakocevic played a heck of a game too with six offensive rebounds. I just know how talented they are. One of the things we said when looking at the scouting report was, ‘Look at each one of these guys’ career highs.’ Ethan Anderson was the lowest one at 14 or 16 (points). Every one of those other guys have scored 20, 25 plus points in a game, whether it is Okongwu, Mathews, or (Daniel) Utomi who had a career high 23 last game. They are all capable. (Elijah) Weaver is a heck of an athlete coming off of the bench. They have good players.”
On What Allowed Shane Gatling To Get Great Looks
“Trust. That is trusting your teammates that you don’t have to take the first one that is there. You know the ball is going to come back to you. I think we had 12 assists in the second half. We showed great maturity and poise. We didn’t get sped up. We talked at halftime, ‘When you are in a crowd, somebody is open. You just have to find them.’ We can’t panic and just find the open man. We did a really good job of that in the second half. Shane (Gatling) had some threes. Lucas (Siewert) hit three of them. D'Shawn (Schwartz) hit some big ones. Tyler (Bey) had a big tip dunk. We made some big time plays. McKinley made some plays down the stretch. You get into conference play and it is big boy basketball. Players make plays. Tonight our guys made enough plays to win that game.”
On If They Feel They Have To Send Gatling and Lucas Siewert Out With A Win
“Absolutely. I always say before the season, ‘seniors are great if they play like seniors.’ I think Lucas and Shane, for the most part this year, have done that. They have played great minutes. We rely on them, some nights more than others. They deserve, on Saturday, to be sent out the right way which is with a win. It is not going to be easy. UCLA is really, really good and really talented. We have to do it for them. Our fans were fantastic tonight. We have to do it again on Saturday. I know we will. We have (never) had a CBS game here. Never is a long time. This is an opportunity for us to show what we can do. I know our fans will do their part. We need to do our part. Tonight, our fans did their part but the team did not do our part in terms of how we started this game. We have to be better.”
On Turning The Ball Over 11 Times In The First Half
“You certainly can’t do that on the road. For some reason at halftime it was a three point game. We got enough stops there, some buckets, and got the crowd into it but you cannot turn the ball over 11 times in the first half. Against certain teams you are going to be down 15 or 20. You're not going to be down three. We have to be better.”
On Being It First Place In The PAC-12
“It means nothing. There are four games to go. Being in first place right now means nothing. It didn’t mean anything two weeks ago. It doesn’t mean anything now. It means absolutely nothing. What matters is we have to take care of business on Saturday. That is all that matters. First place, whatever. We need to win the next game and do our job. And take care of our two seniors who deserve a great send off.”
On Tyler Bey
“Tyler is a great rebounder. We know that. We know he can score the ball. We have really challenged him to be a better offensive rebounder. That's why that tip dunk tonight was so big. It got the crowd kind of back into it. It gave us a little bit of a boost. He just has to take care of the ball better. He has shown that he can do that. That is one of the things with Tyler that comes and goes. We have to take care of the ball better than we did tonight. Tyler Bey is a terrific player. He is a first-team all-league guy. Double doubles, I don’t want to say I take them for granted, but I guess I take them for granted. I am always looking for more.”
On Eli Parquet’s Confidence
“That starts in practice. Where my confidence really grows with players is in practice. I always say, ‘Just play how you practice. If you practice well you are going to play.’ Eli has really shown, probably over the last month, that he is shooting the ball with more confidence. He is guarding. He played terrific defense against USC in LA. I thought again he was better tonight. Bringing him in the game gives McKinley a bit of a break. We have McKinley on Mathews and he expends a lot of energy on Mathews. When Eli comes in we can put him on Mathews and McKinley can go over to Anderson or Weaver. I’m not saying it is a break but it is just not the same. We got rejuvenated a little bit. Eli is a good defender when he defends. All he has to do is defend, make open shots, and take care of the ball. When he does that he helps this team. On that dunk he got that was a heck of a pass by McKinley. He can block shots. Eli is terrific.
On The Importance Of Depth
“Daylen Kountz is a good player. Dallas Walton is a good player. Alex Strating is a good player. Don’t forget about those guys even though they are not playing as much. Maddox Daniels is a good player. We are going to need all those guys at some point before the season is over in certain spots. We need all hands on deck and I have confidence in all of them.”
Colorado Players
McKinley Wright IV, G, Jr.On the difference between the 1st half and 2nd half
“I just had a talk with Coach afterwards about, you know, my energy was bad to start the game. When that happens, you know my teammate’s energy was bad, so I have to get off to a better start with my energy and lead these guys in the right direction. And we have to get on the glass, all five guys.”
On what went wrong in the first half
“The turnovers and offensive rebounds. Those are two areas that were very bad in the first half. And that's why we were down 14 points at one point I believe.”
On getting revenge and getting ready for UCLA
“Yeah, it’s going to be a show, and we want it bad. We let one slip away in L.A. and that's one we need back so, we'll be ready.”
On how the team prevented offensive rebounds in 2nd half
“Coach got on us at halftime. That’s it. We knew we needed to step up on that and get them off the glass and we responded and got them off the glass. We took care of the ball in the second half as well.”
On having sole possession of 1st place in PAC-12 after tonight’s win
“We just have to win now. Now we have to move on to the next game and we know UCLA is going to give us their best shot again as well. Everybody wants to lose, nobody wants us to be in first place in this Pac 12. So all we can worry about is ourselves and our teammates and our fans that's rooting for us and go get it.”
Shane Gatling, G, Sr.
On if he had a hot hand in the 2nd half
“Oh yeah, I started feeling it. I was actually feeling it after the first shot I made in the first half. I didn't make any shots in the 1st half after that shot. I just had to come out and be more confident, be more aggressive. My teammates struggling to score a little bit so I decided to pick it up on offensive and defensive and get more energy from doing that.”
On scoring his most points since December
“It feels good. My teammates were picking me up at halftime because I think I was 1 for 4 at halftime. I think I got beat a couple of times defensively, so they were just trying to pick me up and keep me motivated and positive. And like I said, it feels good to score for this team when everybody else is in scoring.”
On if this home game was special in his last home-stand
“Yeah, this is definitely something to remember, our last two home games here, and our second to last home game. Our seniors, Lucas and I, stepped up when we needed to be so it feels good for us and it feels good for our teammates as well.”
Lucas Siewert, F, Sr.
On making three 3-point shots in 6 minutes
“Yeah, I mean, the shots were there, you know I was working before the game on the shot a lot. So, you know, even though the first two didn't go in, if the shot is there I’m not going to stop taking them.”
On if this home game was special in his last home-stand
“Yeah, for sure, you know those are memories that stay with us for the rest of our lives. You know, to have a win like that, the crowd was into it. You know something we have to remember and note performing for them, it was good.”
On if this was USC’s best shot
“Yeah for sure this was what we talked about before the game, you know, we've been pretty good. They're going to be ready for us. You know we just had to respond.”
USC Head Coach Andy Enfield
On The Last Possession Of The Game"We drew a play up and put all five guys in position and he went to the wrong side as a point guard. If he wants to be an elite guard in this league, you have to be able to come out in a game time situation and follow directions and go to the right side of the floor so we can get the ball to our big guy. Everyone else was in the right position. I'm not going to make excuses up if you want to win games on the road and be an elite guard in the PAC-12, you're going to have to follow the darn board on the timeout and come out and execute."
On Being In Control Of The Game In The First Half
"We were in control but then they came out of half and made a run. They started making some threes and we made some crucial mental mistakes. We came off of (Lucas Siewert) a few times. (Nick Rakocevic) came off the first time and gave him a three and (Isaiah Mobley) came off, and that's not our game plan. We didn't box on that last possession and (Nick Rakocevic) had to get that rebound and somehow he's out of bounds. You have to make plays, you have to box out and limit mental mistakes and maybe that's our ball. At the end of the game, we called a play for Daniel to get a three ball and we set a good screen. He could've shot it off the screen but he shot faked, and would’ve bene wide open, but they called a travel. These games come down to little mental mistakes and sometimes these teams make contested shots and that's what they did. We had three or four right in a row that we're wide open and we kept missing. It comes down to mental mistakes, and down the stretch we made a few crucial mental mistakes defensively and when the game is on the line, you have to execute offensively. It's frustrating that we draw a play in the timeout and we can't come out and do what we draw."
On Defending The Three
"Mental mistakes take over. We got caught in transition, a couple under half court on some offensive sets and we went away from our game plan and we kept switching when we should've been split down in the five man and we let them kick it out, and left (Lucas Siewert) open when we should've switched. You have to be focused for forty minutes. No team plays perfect defense the whole game and we played well enough offensively to win tonight other than a couple of crucial mistakes down the stretch. Defensive we gave them 44 points in the second half which we can't do."
On Coming Out With More Energy
"We were playing a good team on their home court and they had energy too. We took a couple of long jump shots that allowed them to get back in the game. Our guys re-grouped and played a competitive game. It's two good teams going at it tonight and give CU credit, they made some big plays down the stretch to beat us but we were right there."
On Keeping The Game Close
"There is no excuses. You have to step up and make plays and players win games. As coaches, we give them all the credit in the world but when they win it's because of that and Colorado stepped up and we didn't"
On Comparing Tonight’s Game To The Arizona State Game
"Tonight was different than the Arizona State game. Other than him running the wrong play out of the timeout. The ASU game was self-inflicted and once again, they stepped up to make some shots. It's not like we were ahead most of that game, it was a one possession game the last ten minutes. These one possession games come down to mental mistakes or sometimes you have to step up and make a big shot or get a big rebound. We had one in our hands and didn't come down with it. We were right there competing but those crucial mistakes killed us. We like our team as coaches and they always bounce back and really care."
On The Importance Of Onyeka Okongwu
"He played really well offensively tonight. We gave him the ball quite often and we tried to get it to him in that last minute but our point guard went to the wrong side of the floor. He had played really well. Shot a high percentage. On defense, he didn't box out Tyler Bey well and that last play, he didn't put a body on him. We expect more than two defensive rebounds from him when he's playing thirty one minutes. We're going to challenge him to change that. We're going to need all five guys playing at their top level if we're going to regroup here."