Colorado-Arizona Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement
“That was a hard-fought win, a gut check win, and a win our guys had to fight for. We didn't play our best in the second half. Give Arizona credit. They run good stuff. They run it with pace and they execute. (Arizona) is as good an executing team offensively we have played against, certainly in the second half. We held them to 33% in the first half. We can’t keep them off the foul line or keep them off the backboards. In the second half, we can't stop them. They shot almost 70%. But we found enough offense. I thought our guys really trusted each other. McKinley (Wright IV) hit Eli (Parquet) on that ball screen. They were really trying to keep the ball out of McKinley’s hands and get the ball out of his hands. That is what a good point guard does. He trusts his teammates. Eli was ready to knock down that shot. Evan Battey was a beast in the second half. He slowed down when he got it. In the first half I thought he was rushing things a little bit. He showed great gumption there getting his ankle rolled up on and staying in the game. I tried to box out Rawley Klingsmith, our trainer, because if he comes on the floor, Evan has to come out of the game and then they get to choose the free throw shooter. Evan is such a good free throw shooter. We wanted him to shoot them if he could. I am glad he made that second one so we could get a sub in for me on defense. It was a gut check win and a team win. Tristan da Silva and Alex Starting gave us minutes in the first half when we were having foul trouble. It was a great team win for Colorado and we beat a good team. Look, we were coming off a disappointing loss to Utah. Arizona was coming off a disappointing loss to Utah. We both competed hard. We beat a good team tonight. They have some good players.”
On Winning Close Games
“You need those kinds of wins throughout the season. The other thing is you are going to have maybe a loss or two, unless you are Baylor or Gonzaga, you will have a loss or two like we had against Washington and against Utah, different ways to lose games. We found a way to win tonight’s game. Given what we were coming off, and to respond like that, the credit goes to our players. They played with great toughness, great energy, and a great belief. As down as we were after that Utah debacle, I am so proud of our guys. I said I believed that they would be resilient and they certainly were tonight.”
On Evan Battey's performance tonight
"Absolutely. That's the most disappointing thing for me about this season-- and don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're playing, but it was great to have the players families in the arena because they've been playing in empty arenas. I just feel bad for Evan, McKinley and all of our seniors. We have seven seniors on this team and to not have fans in the building all year, it's just-- I understand why, but I just feel bad for them because they've worked so hard and these guys have heart. At least they've experienced it. Our freshmen, they don't know what a full Event Center is like. I can't wait until we get it back and get it full, but Evan showed great toughness. Any fan that follows Colorado basketball knows how special Evan Battey is us and our program, and just what a special human being he is."
On Jabari Walker's injury and his status moving forward
"Well, first of all, the sky is not falling, so let's just get that straight. Secondly, he'll be out for a week or two-- we'll see. He has a foot injury we have to get right and then we'll be ready to go. So, I don't know how long but it's probably at least another couple of weeks and then we'll see where it goes from there. I don't think it's season ending though."
On upcoming game with Oregon State
“Yeah, they’re playing very well right now. They swept the Washington schools at home and they beat Oregon at Oregon, which a lot of people don’t do. So Oregon State’s gonna come in, they’re going to play a lot of zone, we know that. They’ve got a lot of new players we aren’t familiar with. They’re playing very well right now and we’re going to have to work on our zone offense tomorrow. And that’s what we’re going to do and be ready for the Beavers. They played well here the last few years and they’ve given us a couple losses. So yeah, an unusual Monday game but we’ll take it. We gotta get healthy. We’ve got a couple guys banged up so we’re not going to go for very long tomorrow but we’re going to spend a lot of time on film and working on our zone offense.”
Colorado Players
Mckinley Wright IV, Sr., G
On coming off of a tough loss
"It's huge for us man, it's such a big win. We let our guard off a little bit but I don't think it's too much. They executed all of their stuff to a tee and we knew we were going to get their ebay stuff in the second half. They came out and made a lot of tough threes. Number zero (Bennedict Mathurin) made a lot of tough threes over hands. We were there on his shots, but we have to continue to make shooters drivers and he was a huge impact for them tonight. I'm proud of my guys and how we took their best stuff in the second half and we got down by three and we kept fighting and stayed with it.”
On mental toughness
"Yeah, we worked on this stuff the past couple of days with no time to score just in case it came down to situations like this. We'll prepare for what happened tonight. I'm proud of Evan (Battey) and it's just a low ankle twist, put him in the cold tub and he'll be ready Monday. I'm proud of my guys and the way we continued to fight down the stretch and got a win.”
On goals for the season
"It's huge for us. You know, Arizona is a really good team. They're always a team who is at the top of our conference and they beat us down in Tucson by 14 and we really wanted to come back and get this one. This one meant a lot to us and our coaching staff. I'm proud of our guys and happy we got this win for our coaches.”
On defensive intensity in second half
"Yeah, it started with me. My talk wasn't as good as it was earlier in the game. Evan (Battey), D'Shawn (Schwartz) and Dallas (Walton) all picked up two quick fouls and they are three of our best defenders so having them go to the bench, we took a step back and that is when I need to step up and be more vocal and talk to our guys. I noticed in the second half that I wasn't talking and I started talking again, letting my guys know stuff. It did fall back, and yeah it was on me."
On preparing for Monday
"Defense and Rebounds. That is what we base ourselves on and that's our identity. To start the game up 19-2, it was a really good sample of that but we have to maintain that through all 40 minutes and you know it's something we can do, we have to stop talking about it and do it. The first 10 minutes of the game, we were really good defensively and the last four minutes of the game we were good defensively even though they made tough shots. Yeah, cleaning up the defense and rebounding. Coach Boyle told us today that Arizona is ahead of us or tied with us on every stat across the board and that the only stat they were above us at is the rebounding. We have to do a better job of boxing out, and guards including myself, we have to help our bigs who have their hands full and help them rebound. Those are the things we have to clean up for Monday.”
Evan Battey, Jr., F
On clutch free throws
"Yeah, I want the ball in my hands down the stretch and me and McKinley (Wright IV) practiced every day on just doing the right thing every time and making the right plays so I feel like we earned that right to put the game away. My teammates were behind me and they really gave me strength to shoot those through. I shouldn't even really walk. I tip my hat off to my guys and my teammates who are so special. I love them."
On leading the defense
"We just practice that every day and I was just doing my job. You know, with my jump ball on (James) Akinjo, that's just me being help. My tipped pass on the back screen, that's just me helping on the back screen. That's just my job, and if we all do our job, good things are going to happen. Coach Boyle was telling us just to be 50% better on defense every game and that means 50% less mistakes and ultimately that number is going to get to zero. If you are a math major, maybe it won't get to zero."
On family being at the game
"It meant the world honestly. My mom loves watching me play. My sister too. It just means the world. I think I texted my Mom on Thursday saying she could come to the game and it's Saturday. Obviously, she got that flight on short notice and it just means the world because she hasn't been able to watch me play all year. There are no words to explain that."
On ankle injury
"Yeah, I'm going to get some treatment on it tonight, tomorrow and Monday and I'll be good to go."
Arizona Wildcats Head Coach Sean Miller
Tough loss, How Bennedict Mathurin responded?
Our entire team played a great game, obviously we were down 19 to 2 and I think a lot of that had to do with Colorado came out playing with a lot of energy, a lot of physicality. They’ve had a week to sit and wait on us and they were ready. But when you are down 19-2 on the road and you're coming off of our worst overall performance of the year and I don't say that in any disrespect toward Utah, Utah they beat us but we just went quietly away the other night that was disappointing. That really hasn’t been the personality of our team this year. But tonight win or lose I couldn’t be happier or prouder of a group of guys. Again down 19-2 we were right there to win the game. We made a couple poor decisions maybe at the end but again you have to remember the inexperience. It’s just having so many younger guys out there in this crucial period of time. The foul when the ball was out of bounce quarter court, game tied, if you’re going to foul you want them to foul last second shot. We ran in almost a play before that defensively where we gave them a game tieing 3. At that point you have to recognize up three stay at home, I wish i had done a better job in the time out in just explaining that before we went out there. When you make those errors Colorado still had to make those plays and they made the free throws, they made the 3’s and they are a good team, they really are. We lost to an excellent team on the road here in February, but that’s how we play. I thought that was in some segments maybe the best overall basketball game that we’ve played this year and unfortunately when you dig yourself a 19-2 hole, you do have something to overcome. I am proud of our guys.
What do you think you need to improve on?
Just being really consistent for all 40 minutes. I would say the first 8-10 minutes of the first half obviously heavily favored Colorado. It would be beneficial to us play the way we played from that 10 minute mark in the first half all the way to the final buzzer. There’s no denying our effort level, there’s no denying our togetherness, there was no denying our offensive play or our defensive play, I thought we executed and played with a tremendous effort. We have some holes. We are not a perfect team and our defense a couple times in the last 4 minutes last 6 minutes if we were able to get a defensive stop, create a turnover, play the possession without fowling, we leave here with a great victory. But we weren’t really able to do that. And we had a couple things on offense. Could have been a fowl, could have been an and-1. The referees did a good job from start to finish. It was a physical game, they recognized it and they refed was a fine game. At the end you always think about that one play. Was that a foul, was that not a foul? And we were right there, could have won the game but didn’t.
What do you say to Brown?
You win as a team you lose as a team. I look at the overall, we were 18/23 from the foul line. And we did a good job making quite a few. James went 8/8 from the line. Obviously we got there. Same thing with 3 point shooting. At the end of the night 7/17 is a pretty good percentage. Unfortunately when you play Colorado, they are so efficient from the 3 point line. There is a time in the first half where they were just making kinda one on one 3’s. Not 3’s off of an action, but just shooting with confidence and making them. But they made 12 threes against us at home, and they made 11 threes on the road. Both games were hard fought. We won the game at home but didn’t have quite enough to finish this one. In no way are we or I disappointed. You get into February and you come up here on this trip you know losing the way we did to Colorado, look we try to win every game but there’s a lot of valuable lessons we can pool from it. There’s a lot of confidence you can gain from it. And like I mentioned, some of our errors or maybe mistakes down the stretch because of who’s in the game, it’s a learning opportunity so that the next time they won’t make that mistake.