Colorado-Oregon Quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement
"Really a good win over a quality team, quality coach, quality program. I’ve got a lot of respect for Oregon. They came in here 5-0 and I was looking at the numbers today, game day, especially 8:30 p.m. tip, you’ve got a lot of time to look at numbers. It's not like they've been dominating people, they’ve just been grinding and winning close games and we knew they were going to make a run in the second half, didn't like the way we started second half, especially offensively. We turned the ball over our first four possessions, but our guys really had a lot of grit tonight, showed a lot of grit and a lot of toughness and a lot of competitiveness and I know that that's what this team is made of, and they showed it tonight when they had to. They bowed their backs when they took the lead and we just kept battling and had some really good performances individually and I thought Luke O'Brien off the bench was terrific. J’Vonne Hadley just battled his tail off, KJ (Simpson) and Cody (Williams) was terrific tonight. Eddie (Lampkin) obviously fought to foul trouble, but really a good win for us.”
On how good the team can be when Cody Williams is healthy
“The thing about Cody, all of his shots tonight, were great shots I really felt like. I think people are starting to play him as a driver a little bit because he's a good driver obviously and we want him to drive the ball and be aggressive. He made a really nice drive and dish in the first half to Eddie, dumped it off and obviously I’ve been watching him in practice, his shooting and he's starting to come now. Four or five weeks out of the lineup is tough for anybody, especially a freshman but he's showing what he's made of, he's a special player and he's a great teammate, that's the thing. If Cody came in here trying to get his and trying to take over the team, he's really blended in well, and our players appreciate that, and he appreciates them. It's a good mix right now. I thought J’Vonne Hadley’s minutes, people don't talk about him enough in terms of the little things that he does for our team. Moving the ball, sharing the ball, he made some really nice plays tonight and got to the foul line, guards every single night, competes every single night. I can't say enough about that kid too.”
On what needs to improve from the bench
“They’ve just got to be ready when their numbers called. Luke (O’Brien), I thought Luke’s minutes tonight we're great. Julian's (Hammond) still working himself back into the groove. He did some good things; he just didn't finish. I said it on the radio, we've had five turnovers this year, we've stepped out of bounds on the sideline or the corner of the court and those are the things we’ve got to get rid of. They’re just the mental stuff. The physical stuffs going to be fine and Julian's a good player and he's going to play himself back into shape and we're going to need him at times tonight. He wasn't at his best. KJ played well; Cody played well. The thing I love about our team is, it can be a different guy on different nights and Julian's an important part of this basketball team and basketball program, so he's fighting through a lot of pain right now. He's fighting through an injury, that's not easy, but he's showing great toughness and great resilience. I'm trying to show patience with him, I want him to show patience for himself and he knows he can play better than he played tonight, and he will, there's no doubt in my mind.
On the defense in the second half
“We talked against Oregon about guarding the ball, because in the first half, they drove it a few times and they put their heads down and go, they got some good athletes and good players. They've got great shooters and they were shooting 41% as a team from three coming into this game in league play. We really talked about just if they drive it and make it tough too, we'll live with it, but we'll get takeaway threes from shooters. I thought we let guys get loose a little bit, sometimes ball watching. They had eight for the night, six is our number or less but I was pleased with the defensive effort in pretty much the whole game except for a few lapses and it's those lapses we’ve got to get rid of where they earn everything they get. We don't give them anything. (Jackson) Shelstad’s three at the end of the first half was a lapse. We had a couple in the second half that were lapses, we’ve got to get rid of those but other than that, I thought we were pretty darn good, and we forced eight turnovers, we want to be more aggressive. I looked at the same numbers at halftime and wasn't too happy with their percentage, but we got a pretty good lead and forced eight turnovers so sometimes you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”
On J’Vonne Hadley becoming more comfortable taking three-point shots
“It's big. The thing I love about J’Vonne is he doesn't hunt them; he takes them in rhythm. He made the one and he took the second one which was a wide-open look, kind of a heat check thing which I’ve got no problem with. When he's open, I wanted to let it fly. He doesn't need to hunt them, and he doesn't hunt them, but when he's open and he knocks a few down, it just gives us a whole new dimension to our team because tonight was one of those nights where Eddie was in foul trouble, obviously it wasn't the normal Eddie that we normally see offensively and J’Vonne Hadley, he's got a good low postgame. Tristan da Silva’s got a good low post game, Luke O'Brien was five for five inside the arc tonight. We’ve got guys, other than just Eddie, that can play down low and score around the basket but J’Vonne Hadley, when he's a true inside and outside threat, makes him really hard to guard because now it opens up and his ability to handle the ball and put it on the floor and drive and we ran a couple ISO plays for him out of timeouts tonight. He did a great job in those and again, important piece of this this team is J’Vonne Hadley.”
On the scoring run late in the second half
“It was big…like I said, that shows the resiliency, the competitiveness. We let Oregon back in the game…and Oregon is a good team, they got good players and they're well coached. If you make mistakes, Oregon is going to make you pay, whether that's guarding the post inside with (N’Faly) Dante, whether that's hitting threes, whatever. So, the key with Oregon is, you’ve just got to be rock solid and don't make mistakes. You’ve got to make tough shots. I thought KJ’s defense on Jackson Shelstad was terrific tonight. We did a great job on that. He's a good player. Cody had him a few times in the second half, Keeshawn Barthelemy is a good player…we know that, we had him here. We did a good job of him in the second half. I was pleased with our defensive effort tonight and intensity. I still think we can be better, but it's a step in the right direction.”
On the difference between the first and second half
“I think it's nice when Luke comes in and he knows he's not coming out, and sometimes that's hard when you're a guy coming off the bench, you come in and get a minute in the first half. He came in, he didn't really get extended minutes, but in the second half of that, he knew we needed him to play. When you have a guy in foul trouble, you need somebody off your bench to come in and give you that lift…and tonight that was Luke O'Brien. So tomorrow or Saturday, it might be Julian Hammond. It might be Assane Diop, who knows who it would be. We're going to need different guys on different nights, even from our bench when we have foul trouble or, knock on wood, an injury.”
On 24 points on 13 turnovers
“I think when you get live ball turnovers, especially if they're on the free throw line or above, you can get out and go. KJ had a couple, and he would have had 26 if I let him go in and dunk that last one, but I thought that how we forced eight turnovers in the first half, I'm sure that's something that Coach Altman talked to his team about is that they can't turn it over as much as it was 8-3 at halftime. And that's one area, as I looked at the numbers, Oregon has been much better than their opponents as a turnover margin, which is something that we have not been great at this year: our turnover margin. We get less turnover than the team we're playing. That has to happen with our defensive aggression and dictating. When we are that way, like we were against USC in the second half, we can be pretty explosive offensively, because sometimes good defense turns into good offense.”
On Tristan’s resiliency and leadership
“He was stressed, and he was frustrated. Obviously, he didn't play his best coming out at halftime. He had three of our four turnovers out of the chute. What I like about Tristan is that he knows when he's good, he knows when he's not good…and he had a couple of really good looks and out of bounds under plays, he missed both of them…but then two plays later, he got a wide open three in the corner and didn't hesitate, he knocked it down. His resiliency, his maturity, his belief in himself and his teammates is pretty special. He's very important to this team, just like many guys are, but he showed why he's a senior and why he's a leader, because he knocked that thing down - he didn't let the mental part of the game and his frustrations hurt us, even though his turnovers were hurting us. He was as frustrated as anybody, but we're plus nineteen with Tristan in the game - that shows you how important the kid is to us.”
On Cody’s impressive defensive positioning
“Cody's a really good defender because he's so long - he's got long arms; he's got good feet. he does a great job of keeping the ball in front of them, and when guys do get downhill, he shows his hands, and he just makes it known that he's tough to score over because he's so damn long. He gets a block shot, great. I don't talk about block shots. If they come, they come. We talked to Cody, and one of the reasons he came here is he knew that we were going to expect him to be a big-time defender on the perimeter. That we were going to push him there, and the thing I love about Cody is he's a willing defender. He's a good offensive player, we all know that he showed that tonight. Always has been his whole life. Very few of those guys really want to dig in on the defensive end - Cody does, KJ does…so to have two guys in your back cart that can guard, it allows you to beat a team like Oregon because of their defensive presence - and Cody's got it.”
Colorado Players
KJ Simpson, Jr., G
On how much they felt like this needed to be a statement game
“That road trip was a lot for us mentally. The thing with this conference is, you look all around, and teams are getting beat. Everybody's capable of beating anybody on any given night, so we can't pay attention to where we are in standings and the team that we're playing. They're undefeated, but we have to go in and approach them as any other team. These practices that we were having, we were really mentally locked in on defense and ready to go get a win on our home court.”
On what they did in the final 10 minutes to pull away and take this one down the stretch
“Just get stops. Obviously, we knew it wasn't going to be easy. Oregon's playing a lot of great basketball right now and credit to them. They have really good pieces to that team, and a great coaching staff. We knew coming in it was going to be a battle, but we couldn't get down on ourselves. In timeouts, huddles, and during free throws we just stressed that we know how to play defense. No matter what happened on offense, as long as we guarded, got stops, and ran a transition, that's when things started to open up for us.”
On how reassuring it is to be able to respond and pull away
“It's great but it doesn't surprise me much, because I expect that from us. We have the talent on this team to pull that off, and we've done it a lot this year so far. It does feel good, we just have to stress it and carry that over to other games when things aren't going our way.”
On how big those waves are for momentum when you are able to turn defense into offense so quickly
“Huge. We're a team that likes to run in transition. If we can get teams to turn over the ball and play at our pace, the sky's the limit for us. That's how we want to play. That's what Coach stresses and I think that's when things started to open up for us. We started to really lock in on defense. That's how we want to play.”
On what it's going to take to make sure you guys have that same mentality when the crowd is not going for them
“We have a quick turnaround but at the same time you want these games and show that we are capable of doing it. It'd be one thing if we didn't go out there and show it, but we have shown that we're more than capable of doing it. So there's no excuse.”
Cody Williams, Fr., F
On how good it felt when you saw the first three go down
“Yeah, it's just different coming off a wrist injury. Game reps are different from just shooting and practice reps. I knew it would come around. I just had to keep shooting it. My teammates trusted me, gave me open looks and I knocked them down.”
On what the process has been like with the wrist injury, and getting the body and mind right-
“I think the biggest thing when I was injured was just staying locked in. It's hard especially when you're not able to practice. You’ve got to stay in shape and still get your form shooting in. The biggest thing was just staying locked in. I knew coming back, there would be a little bit of rust, kind of getting a feel for the game. Tonight, I just feel like it really clicked. Staying the course and trusting my coaches and my teammates helped me get going.”
On if he felt a little rusty and if there was a different kind of comfort level?
“I'd say just getting back into the groove of it. Coming back, after being out for like, five, six weeks and then coming to playing a game, just takes a little bit to get back into the flow. It's really easy when you have a whole bunch of great players surrounding you. It makes it easier for you to get back acclimated into the system.
Opening Statement
"Really a good win over a quality team, quality coach, quality program. I’ve got a lot of respect for Oregon. They came in here 5-0 and I was looking at the numbers today, game day, especially 8:30 p.m. tip, you’ve got a lot of time to look at numbers. It's not like they've been dominating people, they’ve just been grinding and winning close games and we knew they were going to make a run in the second half, didn't like the way we started second half, especially offensively. We turned the ball over our first four possessions, but our guys really had a lot of grit tonight, showed a lot of grit and a lot of toughness and a lot of competitiveness and I know that that's what this team is made of, and they showed it tonight when they had to. They bowed their backs when they took the lead and we just kept battling and had some really good performances individually and I thought Luke O'Brien off the bench was terrific. J’Vonne Hadley just battled his tail off, KJ (Simpson) and Cody (Williams) was terrific tonight. Eddie (Lampkin) obviously fought to foul trouble, but really a good win for us.”
On how good the team can be when Cody Williams is healthy
“The thing about Cody, all of his shots tonight, were great shots I really felt like. I think people are starting to play him as a driver a little bit because he's a good driver obviously and we want him to drive the ball and be aggressive. He made a really nice drive and dish in the first half to Eddie, dumped it off and obviously I’ve been watching him in practice, his shooting and he's starting to come now. Four or five weeks out of the lineup is tough for anybody, especially a freshman but he's showing what he's made of, he's a special player and he's a great teammate, that's the thing. If Cody came in here trying to get his and trying to take over the team, he's really blended in well, and our players appreciate that, and he appreciates them. It's a good mix right now. I thought J’Vonne Hadley’s minutes, people don't talk about him enough in terms of the little things that he does for our team. Moving the ball, sharing the ball, he made some really nice plays tonight and got to the foul line, guards every single night, competes every single night. I can't say enough about that kid too.”
On what needs to improve from the bench
“They’ve just got to be ready when their numbers called. Luke (O’Brien), I thought Luke’s minutes tonight we're great. Julian's (Hammond) still working himself back into the groove. He did some good things; he just didn't finish. I said it on the radio, we've had five turnovers this year, we've stepped out of bounds on the sideline or the corner of the court and those are the things we’ve got to get rid of. They’re just the mental stuff. The physical stuffs going to be fine and Julian's a good player and he's going to play himself back into shape and we're going to need him at times tonight. He wasn't at his best. KJ played well; Cody played well. The thing I love about our team is, it can be a different guy on different nights and Julian's an important part of this basketball team and basketball program, so he's fighting through a lot of pain right now. He's fighting through an injury, that's not easy, but he's showing great toughness and great resilience. I'm trying to show patience with him, I want him to show patience for himself and he knows he can play better than he played tonight, and he will, there's no doubt in my mind.
On the defense in the second half
“We talked against Oregon about guarding the ball, because in the first half, they drove it a few times and they put their heads down and go, they got some good athletes and good players. They've got great shooters and they were shooting 41% as a team from three coming into this game in league play. We really talked about just if they drive it and make it tough too, we'll live with it, but we'll get takeaway threes from shooters. I thought we let guys get loose a little bit, sometimes ball watching. They had eight for the night, six is our number or less but I was pleased with the defensive effort in pretty much the whole game except for a few lapses and it's those lapses we’ve got to get rid of where they earn everything they get. We don't give them anything. (Jackson) Shelstad’s three at the end of the first half was a lapse. We had a couple in the second half that were lapses, we’ve got to get rid of those but other than that, I thought we were pretty darn good, and we forced eight turnovers, we want to be more aggressive. I looked at the same numbers at halftime and wasn't too happy with their percentage, but we got a pretty good lead and forced eight turnovers so sometimes you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”
On J’Vonne Hadley becoming more comfortable taking three-point shots
“It's big. The thing I love about J’Vonne is he doesn't hunt them; he takes them in rhythm. He made the one and he took the second one which was a wide-open look, kind of a heat check thing which I’ve got no problem with. When he's open, I wanted to let it fly. He doesn't need to hunt them, and he doesn't hunt them, but when he's open and he knocks a few down, it just gives us a whole new dimension to our team because tonight was one of those nights where Eddie was in foul trouble, obviously it wasn't the normal Eddie that we normally see offensively and J’Vonne Hadley, he's got a good low postgame. Tristan da Silva’s got a good low post game, Luke O'Brien was five for five inside the arc tonight. We’ve got guys, other than just Eddie, that can play down low and score around the basket but J’Vonne Hadley, when he's a true inside and outside threat, makes him really hard to guard because now it opens up and his ability to handle the ball and put it on the floor and drive and we ran a couple ISO plays for him out of timeouts tonight. He did a great job in those and again, important piece of this this team is J’Vonne Hadley.”
On the scoring run late in the second half
“It was big…like I said, that shows the resiliency, the competitiveness. We let Oregon back in the game…and Oregon is a good team, they got good players and they're well coached. If you make mistakes, Oregon is going to make you pay, whether that's guarding the post inside with (N’Faly) Dante, whether that's hitting threes, whatever. So, the key with Oregon is, you’ve just got to be rock solid and don't make mistakes. You’ve got to make tough shots. I thought KJ’s defense on Jackson Shelstad was terrific tonight. We did a great job on that. He's a good player. Cody had him a few times in the second half, Keeshawn Barthelemy is a good player…we know that, we had him here. We did a good job of him in the second half. I was pleased with our defensive effort tonight and intensity. I still think we can be better, but it's a step in the right direction.”
On the difference between the first and second half
“I think it's nice when Luke comes in and he knows he's not coming out, and sometimes that's hard when you're a guy coming off the bench, you come in and get a minute in the first half. He came in, he didn't really get extended minutes, but in the second half of that, he knew we needed him to play. When you have a guy in foul trouble, you need somebody off your bench to come in and give you that lift…and tonight that was Luke O'Brien. So tomorrow or Saturday, it might be Julian Hammond. It might be Assane Diop, who knows who it would be. We're going to need different guys on different nights, even from our bench when we have foul trouble or, knock on wood, an injury.”
On 24 points on 13 turnovers
“I think when you get live ball turnovers, especially if they're on the free throw line or above, you can get out and go. KJ had a couple, and he would have had 26 if I let him go in and dunk that last one, but I thought that how we forced eight turnovers in the first half, I'm sure that's something that Coach Altman talked to his team about is that they can't turn it over as much as it was 8-3 at halftime. And that's one area, as I looked at the numbers, Oregon has been much better than their opponents as a turnover margin, which is something that we have not been great at this year: our turnover margin. We get less turnover than the team we're playing. That has to happen with our defensive aggression and dictating. When we are that way, like we were against USC in the second half, we can be pretty explosive offensively, because sometimes good defense turns into good offense.”
On Tristan’s resiliency and leadership
“He was stressed, and he was frustrated. Obviously, he didn't play his best coming out at halftime. He had three of our four turnovers out of the chute. What I like about Tristan is that he knows when he's good, he knows when he's not good…and he had a couple of really good looks and out of bounds under plays, he missed both of them…but then two plays later, he got a wide open three in the corner and didn't hesitate, he knocked it down. His resiliency, his maturity, his belief in himself and his teammates is pretty special. He's very important to this team, just like many guys are, but he showed why he's a senior and why he's a leader, because he knocked that thing down - he didn't let the mental part of the game and his frustrations hurt us, even though his turnovers were hurting us. He was as frustrated as anybody, but we're plus nineteen with Tristan in the game - that shows you how important the kid is to us.”
On Cody’s impressive defensive positioning
“Cody's a really good defender because he's so long - he's got long arms; he's got good feet. he does a great job of keeping the ball in front of them, and when guys do get downhill, he shows his hands, and he just makes it known that he's tough to score over because he's so damn long. He gets a block shot, great. I don't talk about block shots. If they come, they come. We talked to Cody, and one of the reasons he came here is he knew that we were going to expect him to be a big-time defender on the perimeter. That we were going to push him there, and the thing I love about Cody is he's a willing defender. He's a good offensive player, we all know that he showed that tonight. Always has been his whole life. Very few of those guys really want to dig in on the defensive end - Cody does, KJ does…so to have two guys in your back cart that can guard, it allows you to beat a team like Oregon because of their defensive presence - and Cody's got it.”
Colorado Players
KJ Simpson, Jr., G
On how much they felt like this needed to be a statement game
“That road trip was a lot for us mentally. The thing with this conference is, you look all around, and teams are getting beat. Everybody's capable of beating anybody on any given night, so we can't pay attention to where we are in standings and the team that we're playing. They're undefeated, but we have to go in and approach them as any other team. These practices that we were having, we were really mentally locked in on defense and ready to go get a win on our home court.”
On what they did in the final 10 minutes to pull away and take this one down the stretch
“Just get stops. Obviously, we knew it wasn't going to be easy. Oregon's playing a lot of great basketball right now and credit to them. They have really good pieces to that team, and a great coaching staff. We knew coming in it was going to be a battle, but we couldn't get down on ourselves. In timeouts, huddles, and during free throws we just stressed that we know how to play defense. No matter what happened on offense, as long as we guarded, got stops, and ran a transition, that's when things started to open up for us.”
On how reassuring it is to be able to respond and pull away
“It's great but it doesn't surprise me much, because I expect that from us. We have the talent on this team to pull that off, and we've done it a lot this year so far. It does feel good, we just have to stress it and carry that over to other games when things aren't going our way.”
On how big those waves are for momentum when you are able to turn defense into offense so quickly
“Huge. We're a team that likes to run in transition. If we can get teams to turn over the ball and play at our pace, the sky's the limit for us. That's how we want to play. That's what Coach stresses and I think that's when things started to open up for us. We started to really lock in on defense. That's how we want to play.”
On what it's going to take to make sure you guys have that same mentality when the crowd is not going for them
“We have a quick turnaround but at the same time you want these games and show that we are capable of doing it. It'd be one thing if we didn't go out there and show it, but we have shown that we're more than capable of doing it. So there's no excuse.”
Cody Williams, Fr., F
On how good it felt when you saw the first three go down
“Yeah, it's just different coming off a wrist injury. Game reps are different from just shooting and practice reps. I knew it would come around. I just had to keep shooting it. My teammates trusted me, gave me open looks and I knocked them down.”
On what the process has been like with the wrist injury, and getting the body and mind right-
“I think the biggest thing when I was injured was just staying locked in. It's hard especially when you're not able to practice. You’ve got to stay in shape and still get your form shooting in. The biggest thing was just staying locked in. I knew coming back, there would be a little bit of rust, kind of getting a feel for the game. Tonight, I just feel like it really clicked. Staying the course and trusting my coaches and my teammates helped me get going.”
On if he felt a little rusty and if there was a different kind of comfort level?
“I'd say just getting back into the groove of it. Coming back, after being out for like, five, six weeks and then coming to playing a game, just takes a little bit to get back into the flow. It's really easy when you have a whole bunch of great players surrounding you. It makes it easier for you to get back acclimated into the system.