Colorado-Tennessee quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement “Opportunity loss for the Buffs today. And it was right there to be had. I felt like we could have beat Tennessee if we played to the level of our closest level of our ability and skill, but we didn't because we're not good enough offensively. We were not good enough defensively. We just weren't good enough tonight and Tennessee's a good team. They expose your weaknesses. And obviously our high ball screen defense was pathetic. And we tried three different coverages and really none of them worked. Maybe a little double team there at the end, but that only happened like once or twice and they were using the clock at that point. So they weren't really even attacking. So congrats. Congratulations, Tennessee. You know, I said this on the radio. I've been in this room and on the road a few times over the last four years. And I said the difference between the game was we had McKinley and they didn't. Well, tonight, they had Kennedy Chandler and we didn't. I mean, he was the difference in the game. We had no answer for him and he's a terrific player. Obviously McDonald's All-American for a reason.”
On absence of connectivity
“Offense rather than defense. I mean, we did some good things defensively, but obviously the high ball screen coverage was the difference in the game on defense. But offensively Yeah, making one more pass and we had a couple decent offensive possessions but, you know, look, we have 15 turnovers. And we have eight shots that are blocked. That's 23 times we have the ball that doesn't get to the rim. At least if it gets the rim, we have an opportunity to get an offensive rebound. Have a chance to go in. But 23 times it doesn't even get to the rim. I mean, iin the first half, I looked up, I don't know late and the first half we were down four and I'm like, Oh my God, we can't be playing any worse. We're down four and then we go in down 10. So the end of the first half, that happened to us before. I was really frustrated because Tennessee, I really believe, especially early,they were ready to be beat if we could have kept the pressure on them. The crowd was in the game, got a little momentum, made a couple three's and got this building rocking. The fans were ready, everybody was ready, but our team wasn't. And that's disheartening, because we work hard for these opportunities. And you don't get these opportunities very often. The last six times a ranked team has been in this building, they've gotten away with a loss. So it's not like we expect something of ourselves we haven't done before. But this group hasn't done it before. And this group has to understand their offense is not going to win them a game won us a game against Stanford, you know, last weekend but it didn't want us to play at night. It wasn't even close. So you better hang your hat on something else and we have no identity right now. That's that's an issue. That's a problem and we better figure that out. Over the next two and a half, three weeks.”
On guard play
“Well, number one, take care of the ball. And think about your teammates. Think about how I can I make this team get a great shot every time. And KJ is a good scorer, Keeshawn is a good scorer, not that I don't want them shooting or taking shots but they've got to think how do we get Jabari involved? How do we get Evan involved? How are we going to get Tristan involved? I mean, Tristan, he just makes plays just kind of out of randomness. But you know, he's the one guy I feel and I feel this about Evan too. They really are thinking about their teammates. I don't get that sense as a unit. Sandy mentioned a lack of connectivity, I think. I think that's really hitting the nail on the head right now. Now that's not going to continue. We're going to get that right but we got to start playing that way. Not just talking about a window of opportunity.”
On first-half turnovers
“We had three in a row. We had three in a row. One we dribbled off our leg. And one of them we didn't know where we were on the corner, out of bounds, it's it's such things that are in your control. We were shooting ourselves in the foot, we shot ourselves in the foot in the first half. And you can't do that against a good team. You can do that against a bad team and get away with you can't do that against Tennessee. And that's what we did. We shot ourselves in the foot. But we couldn't ever get anything going flow-wise offensively and Tennessee's a good defensive team. They play with a lot of energy. They play with toughness, again, they're a good basketball team. But you know, we prepare and practice, we talk about it all the time we prepare to beat good teams. Well, we're not prepared right now to be a good team. We just saw one on Wednesday in Los Angeles. We just saw one tonight. And we're not there yet. That's It's unfortunate. I wish we were but we got a lot of work ahead of us.”
On guarding Chandler
“The high ball screen defense and focus and they play through their big Fulkerson. He's a sixth-year player. He's a good low post scorer that bangs and he's physical. Vescovi comes off a pin down in the second half. And here it is in December we don't guard the screen right. But Kennedy Chandler was the main reason he got the ball to the rim and then he had one three to get 10 layups maybe one or two pull ups, but he just got the ball to the rim whenever he wanted. We're supposed to have two guys that are gonna help prevent him from doing that, the big and the guard who's going under the screen. It's not like we're going over and trying to chase him back. We're going under that bigs there to slow him up. We couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Kennedy Chandler was he was different.”
On Tweaks and overall feeling
“Look, how do I feel? I'm frustrated as hell because we've worked on it. It's not the coverage. It was the execution of the coverage. And that's something that our players are going to have to figure out and commit to, or we'll be having this same kind of press conference a week from now or two weeks from now or three weeks from now all season long. Because the players are the ones that have to bow their back and say, ‘You know what? We've got to do our job, man tonight.’ We didn't do our job. I didn't do my job. I gotta do better. I gotta do better job scheduling. But players got to do their jobs. And we didn't do our job tonight. So it's frustrating as hell because it's not something that we didn't talk about. It's not something we didn't watch film on. It's not something we didn't practice. It's just something we didn't go out and do. Right now we're an average team. At best, Colorado's an average college basketball team right now, at best. We got to change that. And it starts in practice on Monday morning.”
Colorado Players
Tristan Da Silva, So., F
On sustaining offense and limiting turnovers“Coach talked about in locker room basketball is a game of runs. We've got to take care of the ball offensively, everybody turned it over including myself. We have to take care of the ball because otherwise we won't get shots up. We just destroy our opportunity to score on offense. And that's what it came down to in the first half.”
On patterns in offensive struggles
“We just want to get great shots on offense. So that's probably the main thing if we run our stuff with pace and have ball movement, man movement, and just share the ball then we get great shots and most of them go in. If we don't share the ball like that it's just hard to score against a set defense like that.”
On what they will take away from two top 25 teams
“A couple periods during the game like we played pretty well. Caught up to them but we just can't seem to get over the hump.”
Evan Battey, Sr., F
On guarding Kennedy Chandler
“We tried everything, going under, switching, we just guys did a bad job. I did a bad job in making sure my team knows all the coverages, making sure we gapped up. I did a bad job on my part.”
On losing at home
“In my four years I haven't lost many games against opponents on my home floor, so it definitely hurts. It’s a learning opportunity for me and my team. We can do better, and I can do better.”
On Kennedy Chandler driving ability
“He’s super fast so obviously with that we got rid of the five guys and we’re guarding him one on one. A McDonalds All American like that you get what you asked for.”
On what they will take away from two top 25 teams
“We have to share the ball. It's both sides office and defense. We need to be better team defenders and share the ball, do the little things better . I don't think we're so far away, I think we're a little bit away.”
Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes
On Josiah-Jordan James
“I thought was a difference in the game. I thought what he did on both ends of the court was huge for us. He didn't have a particularly great day shooting the ball, but when we needed to respond, we did. I think [for what] is really our first true road game, I say we're going to find out today, the diversity in reacting and responding. I thought for the most part, we responded well, when they were trying to make a push to get back in.”
On Josiah-Jordan James' Hand Injury
“He's practiced two days prior to today, but he's been around, he understands our system as well as the coaches too. He works as hard as any player that we've ever coached; he's as loyal as any player that we've ever coached. Even when he was out, you could feel his presence with our team because of the kind of person he is. What he did was really pretty special.”
On Josiah-Jordan James Game
“[He played] both ends defensively, came up with some huge rebounds inside, and blocked some shots. If you look at plus minus, I think he's got the highest out there - plus 22. You could just tell when he was out there.”
On Kennedy Chandler's Game
“When he's stoppable most times [it's because of] himself. He's getting better each game, but with the ball screen defense he's very good. He's going to continue to get better with it. He's starting to learn more than ever [ how] to run a team and that's because Santiago's coaching him on floors for plays where Santiago is not out there early. Kennedy, Zakai, and those other guys, we have to really hope to eventually learn leadership skills, learn how to run our team, when a guy like Santee is not out there.”
On What the Team Learned
“Well, we're still a relatively young team. When you look at it, we've got John Fulkerson, Victor Bailey, and Olivier Nkamhoua, but the guys that have played big minutes for us over the past couple years really have been John and Santee. We knew it was gonna be a hard game, and we knew it was gonna be our first true road game in two years, so we just kept talking about 'we'll see today', 'we'll learn to listen the way we react or the way we respond'. I think we responded for the most part pretty well.”
On how The Game Has Helped the Team
“I like to think that each game we go out, these young guys are going to learn some things. I think what they're learning is that every game will take on its own personality; every game is going to be a little bit different. We've played against really well coached teams and we'll continue to do that. We keep talking about letting our habits work for us. We got a little bit sloppy with the ball. We don't like to turn the ball over, but we started the half just not playing very good basketball, and those are the areas we've got to get better with.”
Tennessee Players
Josiah-Jordan James, Jr., G
On Collecting Yourself as a Team vs Colorado:
“Yeah, well they’re a really good team and they have a really good fan base here. So I mean, they came out with great energy. They fed off the crowd’s energy. We just thought that that will wear off and then habits come into play. We know that what we do on a daily basis, we can get the job done. We kind of were a little sloppy in the beginning running offense, so it’s kind of tough for us to score. But after the first media timeout, we kind of calmed down, the nerves calmed down, and got used to the crowd and everything. We just played the way we practice.”
On Handling the Road Trip & Altitude:
“I would say the altitude is definitely real, coming out here and playing with the air. So I’m glad we got out here a day early. But yes, great atmosphere. I definitely miss the atmosphere of the road game where the crowd is into and energetic and kind of against you. You definitely miss that as a player, and as a competitor. But just those two things, and altitude. I’m just happy to have the fans back.”
On How Big of a Win This Is:
“Huge. Colorado’s a really outstanding team. They’re going to do well this season. For us, for our first real road test, it’s a big one for us and it should hopefully get us started on a good roll.”
Kennedy Chandler, Fr., G
On Playing with Altitude:
“It slowed me down a little bit. The first half honestly, a lot of us honestly. You know, it got me wondering, you know when to keep fighting mentally. Don’t let it bother you, keep fighting, keep playing. That’s what we did. We got started with a slow start but after that three to ten, we got that energy up and that’s what we did.”
On Team’s Performance:
“We were just playing an offensive game and you know, we had to get some stops first as well on offense and that’s what we did. Coming out in the first half, you know, we got some great shots and got some good looks. We had to get some stops and we had a great run after they had that little run so we got out on the run and you know that’s what got us going.”
On Energy in 2nd Half:
“That’s on Barnes. We didn’t realize it, but he said Colorado look tired at halftime, and no one expected that. We expected us to get tired at halftime, you know, just with the altitude over here. So that lets you know that we can do it mentally, and we can come on the road anywhere and we play like that here, we can play like that anywhere. We just mentalize it. We know they were tired. We had to push the ball and they started falling asleep and playing lazy on defense and we took advantage of that.”
On The Win:
“You know, it’s just our first road win. We got a lot of road games out there against a lot of great teams, SEC play, and then Texas and other teams like that. So it’s just our first road win, and we’re looking forward to having many more of them.”