Colorado - Yale Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
“We beat a really, really good program [today]. A team that’s really well coached. I've got such respect for James Jones and [for] what he's done with that program in 24 years, I mean he's found a home. Obviously, Yale's lucky to have him. We were fortunate to win this game because we knew Yale; they've gone to three of the last four NCAA Tournaments, and the one that they didn't go to wasn't held. They didn't even compete that year. So really, a good win. And I've talked to [the media] about how good Ivy League Basketball is and how much better it's gotten over the last 10-12 or 15 years. I think anybody who was at this game today understands that I may have overscheduled with this team, but we snuck out of here with a win, and I do think that as we come into league play, at least our guys understand that nothing's going to be easy because our schedule has not been easy. We needed this today. I thought our guys showed grit and toughness down the stretch but there are still areas we can improve on.”
On Defense Stopping Shooters and Rebounding
“Putting two halves together, that's the key. Poulakidas, who's a hell of a player, a shooter on the scouting report, goes six-eight from three [point range]. You cannot let shooters on the scouting report get eight three-pointers off, much less make six of them. We have to make shooters drive. If the guy is left handed, make him go right; not that he can't finish, but that's when we’ve got to be in the gap, we’ve got to, help aside, we’ve got to do a better job at not looking over at the bench, like, oh, I can't believe [the player] made that shot. Well no, good shooters make shots in the first half. We let them have four threes, I think it was bang, bang, bang. I know there were three back to back possessions three, three in a row. And we're up 24 to 10, or 8 or whatever, and then all of the sudden, it’s 24-20. Just on 3-point shots. And so, we've got a long way to go. I thought our rebounding, [we had] seven offensive rebounds, which at least is a trend in the right direction, but they out-rebounded us as a team. We can't let that happen. So, a lot of room for improvement, but knowing what shooters are in the scouting report will help, and then look, the kid [Matt] Knowling, he is shooting 71% on the year and he went seven for ten tonight, and his shooting percentage went down. That tells you how good he is. He's a nice player, his shot just goes in; his ball just goes in the basket. He's really good, [Yale is] a good team. Again, I don't know Ivy League basketball in terms of other teams, but I know Yale is really, really good.”
On Challenging Tristan Da Silva
“I told Tristan at the end of the game, I want the stat sheet to look right, in terms of who's getting shots. And I talked to KJ [Simpson] about that as well. Like, our most efficient players should be getting more shots. Coming into this game, Tristan and Ethan Wright were by far, not even close, our two most efficient shooters and scorers; Ethan hasn't gotten as many looks, or, you know, he's shooting 53% from the field. Now, he goes for 2-9 from the field, but at least he gets nine shots up. You’ve got a guy who’s shooting 53% that gets nine shots up, and then Tristan shooting 49%, he gets 15 shots up. That's good. The guys that are not shooting as well, they don't need as many shots; they need to make the ones that they're getting. But, you don't need to get more shots for a guy who's shooting 30%, you’ve got to get more shots for the guy who's shooting 49% or 53%. So, you know, Ethan getting 9 points, and Tristan getting 15 points, that's a step in the right direction for us. Now, Ethan didn't finish the night but he's one of our best finishers. Every night won't be like that. [There’s] a lot of room for improvement. You know, I think finishing for our team, making good decisions is a part of finishing, we’ve got to be better decision makers on offense. And we're trying to get the ball to Lawson, which I want to do, but we need to get the ball to him at the rim, where he's catching it high, keeping it high and finishing. We're trying to throw bounce passes to him and wrap around passes to him, which, you know, hard passes just go out of bounds. I mean, we’ve got to do a better job of getting Lawson the ball in areas where he can be successful. And to me, right now, that's at the rim.”
On J’Vonne Hadley’s Energy
“J’Vonne Hadley brings toughness to this team. He can finish; he went five for six from the field. That tells you that he can finish and, he fights, and he battles. He scratches the claws, I mean, J’Vonne Hadley, again, I never want to make excuses for guys being out of a lineup, but when J’Vonne Hadley's not in our lineup, our toughness factor goes down significantly, our energy level goes down significantly, He's an important part of this team.”
On Julian Hammond’s Effectiveness
“He’s very effective. Yeah, and look right now, KJ’s our point guard. Julian's kind of our backup point guard. [Julian] is just going to have to make his minutes useful. But I think that what he does bring us, when KJ does go out, I don't feel like we drop off a whole lot, in terms of his effectiveness. Now, he maybe can't score like KJ, but he made a really nice finish in the lane. You know, down the stretch in that 8-0 run that you talked about, Yale was exhausted. Altitude in this building helped us win this game because they hit a stretch where it was a 2 point game, and then went to a 10 point game. The whistle didn't blow a lot. They were exhausted. So our depth, I think, helped wear them down a little bit. Julian was and is a big part of our depth.”
On Meeting Team Standards
“I thought tonight we played with more toughness and more grit. I look at it like Lawson Lovering going down on the floor. Your seven footer goes down on the floor to get a loose ball and he's the first one on the floor. It’s those little hustle plays that the rebounding, just the grit that you play with, the energy that you play with, the toughness you play with. I felt like we did that tonight. Now we still didn’t out-rebound. We got out-rebounded by four by an Ivy League team. We still have some guys that have to get a little bit better at that. But I thought overall, look, this was not an easy game. I mean, I just look at our schedule and I'm like holy cow. What did I do? You know now we got two league games coming up. I feel like we're in the middle of January not the end of November. But here we are.”
On Starting PAC-12 Play
“Yeah, I would hope so. I mean, we know Arizona State's playing well right now. They play Alcorn here today, later this evening. I'm not sure when the game is, but my guess is they'll come in here with a 6-1 record would be my guess. They’re playing with a lot of confidence, talented players. They beat Michigan and VCU back in Brooklyn. Two really good programs, two really good teams so we know it's not going to be easy. We're going to play Washington in 40 minutes of zone in Seattle on Sunday. We know that, so heck of an opportunity for our guys to dial in and see what we can get off on the right foot here.”
On KJ Simpson
“The one thing about KJ you don't have to worry about is, he's a competitor. You know, when I talk about the standards of Colorado basketball, I'm not talking about KJ. KJ’s got toughness, he's got grit. I don't worry about him in those categories and he showed it there at the end. So KJ needs to become more efficient with his shooting, more efficient with the ball, inconsistent turnover ratio, but in terms of his toughness and grit, I’ll go down with KJ Sampson because I believe in what he's about.”
On The Crowd Atmosphere
“I think our crowd a couple times on defense really got into it tonight and gave our team energy. Really the community turned out today. I mean, really, really well. I was a little disappointed our student section but you know, it's early and maybe they don't even know what's basketball season. I don't know. But I thought our crowd was good. I felt the altitude took its toll on them in the second half. But yeah, our team responds to our crowd without a doubt.”
On Shooting Struggles
“Well, look, I mean, as long as we're getting good looks from three, which I thought we did, it's on the players. My job as a coach is to get them good shots, and put them in position. They got to make the shots. Finishing at the rim is a problem with this team. It has been. It was last year for certain players. It is this year for certain players. That’s part of toughness. Part of toughness is finishing. It's making open shots when you got them and it’s finishing at the rim when you’re at the rim. That's areas where we got to get better. Now, bad shot selection, my fault. Taking bad shots, my fault. I take total ownership in that. That's my job as a coach is to make sure these guys are getting good shots, getting good looks if we're doing that we feel like as coaches we've done our job. There’s a fine line there. You want your players to play with confidence. I got confidence in every player we got. Every player had to make 100 threes and 100 free throws before they left the gym yesterday. They all did. They shot really good percentages. We got good open looks today, didn't go in.”
On CU Football’s Future
“Yeah, I'm a huge college football fan. I'm a huge CU football fan, and I don't know who our next head coach is gonna be. I do think and I think people understand this, but just from an outsider looking in, the job that Mike Sanford and his staff did when they were dealt a really, really difficult hand, put in a really difficult position did such an admirable job and kept that group together. They weren't splintering. He stayed positive. I mean, the job that Mike Sanford did, and again, I'm not a football coach. I don't know. I don't know much about football from an X and O standpoint, but I do know leadership. I do know team guys. If I was the next head football coach at Colorado, I'd hire Mike Sanford. Look the other thing and again, that's just my opinion. So yes, I'm giving it, but the other thing is, I think, fans we got to understand too. As coaches we sign up for this. We sign up for the business that we're in, football coaches, basketball coaches, doesn't matter. But there are families out there that are in turmoil right now and their husbands are looking for jobs and so I don't want to forget the assistant coaches because they don't get much attention a lot but my heart goes out to those families. Again, I'm not making a judgment in any way shape or form. I just want them to know I'm thinking about them and whoever the next head coach is we got to get behind him and keep this roster intact as best we can. I hope those players understand that they got to stick together right now. I know what it was like taking over a program 13 years ago, and maybe the kids are thinking what's best for them. But what's best for Colorado football is to keep this roster and young talent intact and to thank Mike Sanford and his staff for the job they did in a very difficult situation. So thanks for asking, but I want CU football to win every game and I'm going to be at every game. Thank you.”
Colorado Players
Jr., G J’Vonne Hadley
On what changed defensively in the second half - "Yeah, you mentioned it a little bit. We still have to work on consistency. Just being rock solid for 40 minutes and just trying our best to do that. [It's important] just knowing personnel, shooters. We let their shooters get some shots up and when they shoot it, they're making a lot of them. That's one big thing that we're emphasizing is contesting shooters."
On the final defensive stop - "That was a big emphasis. Like I said, taking shots away from shooters. We knew they were running and we had to try and find one of their shooters so they didn't tie up the game. So he [G KJ Simpson] just really locked in and he listened to coach the coach had a good game plan. We followed that and we executed and it worked out in our favor."
On if his run in the second half sparked the team - “Yeah, most definitely. I try to be that energy guy. I try to be that scrappy guy does it all. Sometimes it doesn’t work in my favor but at least I'm yelling and screaming -- something. So at least I'm bringing some type of energy. And yeah, I just felt good to be out there again -- back with my teammates, my guys and back at home with the home crowd. It felt good."
On how his shoulder injury is feeling and when he knew he was going to be able to play today - "I'd say a little bit after Thanksgiving. I saw the doctor a couple of times and they said to just take it easy for a little bit. Because if it gets bumped in practice or something like that something bad [could happen]. We don't want it to be a long-lasting injury. So prior to Thanksgiving, I met with the doctors and they said I'd be good to go as long as I felt comfortable doing that. You know, once I heard that, I was like, Yeah, I'm getting out there with my guys regardless, so that's what I did."
On if he still feels limited with his usage of his shoulder – “It's still limited. Obviously, I'm not quite 100 [percent] Right now, it's a little bit sore but I knew that was going to happen. I just have to ice it, rest it, recover and get back at it tomorrow."
Jr., F Tristan da Silva
On if he was consciously trying to score at the start of both halves - "Yeah, it's been -- Me and Coach [Tad] Boyle had a talk. he wants me to be more aggressive. I'm just trying to be out there and be aggressive and help my team try to make the right plays and if that's scoring I'll do that. Just try to come up and be aggressive right away."
On the difference between the first and second half - "I'd say just starting off strong. We lost the first four minutes of the second half. We just got to be ready right away. That can't happen. It's representative for the for the whole second half, I think. Throughout the second half, I think they went up on the boards too so they controlled that part of the game a little bit. So we just got to come out and be stronger, be more consistent -- Put two halves together and do our job consistently."
Yale Head Coach James Jones
On the Second Half - “I thought we out played them for the second 20 minutes. I thought we did a great job; we had some good stretches there offensively where we faltered in the first half. We did some things uncharacteristic of us in the first half which hurt us. But I thought we did a great job in the second half of battling and fighting. We got the ball with 12 seconds on the clock with a chance to win the game and we turned it over. Young team and make some of those mistakes and those things happen, and you try to learn from them.”On John Poulakidas - “John's a heck of a player and he's somebody that can certainly heat up and we have some other guys on our team like that, tonight was his turn. Too bad it was in a loss. You'd love to see that effort of him going for 22 points happen in a win.”
On Playing in the Altitude - “I didn't see it. I didn't notice anything in my guys. We tried to get guys quick a rest sometimes out there. But there was nothing. I worked out yesterday, I didn't feel anything different, so I think it's a lot about nothing. If you're in shape you're playing.”
On Playing Against Jalen Gabbidon - “That was great. Really didn't interact with him much, he's going to be with us now. But it was great to go up against him and have him play against our guys. I know there was some trash talking going back and forth and that's just fun.”