Colorado-Arizona Quotes
vs
Grace College (Ind.)
Oct 19 (Sun)
12 p.m.
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening statement:
“I've done a lot of these postgame press conferences after losses, and some after wins as well, but sometimes it's necessary where we just have to tip our cap to the other team. I thought Arizona played great tonight. I really do think they deserved to win, they were the more aggressive team. They made shots and they were physical and we didn't play well enough to win, that was obvious. I look at two areas that cost us this game, one of them is second chance points where they got 23 of them. Some of those points were off turnovers, another 23, so 46 of their 99 points were a result of us not taking care of the basketball and not limiting them to one shot. Both those things were on our offensive and defensive boards. There's always three things we want to focus on to beat the team we're playing, three on offense, three on defense, and if we can do those things on that board, we usually win.”
“But when we don't, like tonight, it's tough and especially when you play against a team like Arizona who's very good, and they're well coached and they play hard and our guys compete, they played hard, they didn't back down. I'm proud of their effort…but our execution wasn't good enough for our ball movement, even though I thought we still got some really good looks, even in the second half, early in the second half, we got good looks and didn't make them. They got good looks and made them and you know it goes from a seven-point game to a 12 or 13 point game, and we're playing catch up from there. That's a hard team to play catch up with when you can't stop them and they shoot 53 percent in your building and scoring 99 points.:
On what he saw during Arizona’s early 11-0 run:
“Well, I thought we gave them some threes and you know look (Caleb) Love, and we knew Love’s got deep range, we knew he's never met a shot he doesn't like, he's a good player. He really is, and he's a good road player. I think he's averaging somewhere around 19 or 20 points on the road, and he's averaging around 20 for the season. Road or home, he's not afraid of the moment by any means, and we let him get going a little bit. (Kylan) Boswell, who's been struggling, he made a couple shots and we just weren’t good enough. Again, they made some good shots, we had a lot of open looks that didn't go in. When you're playing against a team that’s No. 8 in the country and that's playing well, you have to make it because they're a good defensive team as well.”
On Eddie Lampkin’s early two fouls:
“We had to play small at that point, they played through their bigs. We were looking to double the posts, we did a good job of that at times. We got leg whipped a few times, and Arizona is as good as anybody in the country about playing inside and really looking inside and having a presence in there, and that's why they're really good. We need to maybe take a page out of their book, but we gotta do it. We do it at times, but we just don't do it as consistently as they do. So yeah, Eddie picked up two vowels. We made a little run there at the end and we cut it to seven. I thought we were in very good shape coming out of halftime.”
On playing catch up
“Our guys kept fighting. If our guys went away and they quit and they stopped competing, I'd say yeah, but no, obviously it just puts you in a hole, and that hole is hard to get out of, especially when you can't string together stops. Again, when somebody shoots 53% from the field and scores 99 points in your building, your defense isn't good enough. Part of that has to do with second chance points, part of that has to do with not taking care of the ball, and part of it has to do with your defense. I credit them, I don't discredit our guys because our guys fought and scratched and clawed and they gave everything they had, we just weren't good enough. Come back with any two files. I mean, that's and it's, it's such a physical game, and Arizona is such a physical team.”
On how the defense can change for the rest of the season:
“It can change if the players decide they want to make a change. That's how it can change. Their coach isn't going to change what he stresses, what we practice, and what we work on. We work on guarding the ball. Obviously, we may need to work on boxing out a little bit better. We've been pretty good with turnovers. But again, with Arizona, when you turn over against them, they're going to convert and more often than not so. But to answer your question bluntly, it's when our players decide, this is what we're going to do. And they go out there and do it on a consistent basis. That's when it'll change. UCLA has done it. They're out there, they're playing at a high level defensively. And they weren't earlier in the season. So, it can happen, but we must commit. KJ mentioned it like we got to commit to making it happen. We cannot talk about it. Right now, we've been talking about and we do it sometimes. Other times, we don't. It's why we are where we are.”
On Luke Obrien’s health status
“His ankle wasn't right. He was limping in the second half. So again, if you're limping, you're not healthy. He wanted to play. It was his decision. He'll decide if he goes against UCLA. Every ankle is different. But he was obviously not 100% tonight.”
On his message to Cody after his performance tonight:
“The thing with Cody is he just can't press. I don't want him to feel like he's got pressure on him and the weight of the world on him. But the nice thing is that Cody's got a group of teammates who are veterans and that he doesn't have to. I want him to be aggressive under control and he did that at times tonight. Other times, he struggled a little bit, but I knew Arizona was going to get into him physically. Even Arizona State tried to go at him like that. He just has to understand that it's coming. It comes with the territory to some degree and so my message to Cody is going to be this the same thing it was when he first arrived on campus and said, ‘Cody, you're a freshman. You're going to have good nights and you're going to have bad nights. You have good practices and you have bad practices. You got to put the bad ones behind. You got to learn from the good ones and continue to get better every day in practice and from game to game. You can't let tough nights like this effect tomorrow, or effect Monday or effect next Thursday. Just come back and keep doing what you're doing.’ He's a hell of a player. He's smart. He wasn't the only one that wasn't at his best tonight. There were a handful of guys that weren't at their best, but I thought they fought and they competed. As a coach, that's all I can ask. And we'll get better. I believe in this team. I'm certainly not giving up on anything or anybody. But we have to play better than we did tonight when we're playing against really good teams to give ourselves a chance to win. The building was ready. It's ironic that the best crowd of the year to only lose in this building. Our fans were great. I apologize to them.”
Colorado Players
Tristan da Silva, Sr., F
On the momentum after the first two minutes of the game
“Honestly, I don't even know. I will have to watch the film again. I don't really know.”
On Arizona stopping them during runs
“Obviously, they're a good team. They're number eight in the country. They’ve got really good players, really good coaches so credit to them. They're a well-coached team and I feel like they’ve got the toughness to handle adversity, especially on the road, they've been a good road team.”
On what was difficult defensively
“I feel like we gave him too many buckets off turnovers, off of second chance points, especially on the glass. Just giving away possessions on offense and then on defensive if you don’t rebound obviously the possession is never going to be over until you get that board.”
On their mental effort
“I feel like we know what we’ve got to do. It's not like it's a surprise that (Oumar) Ballo grabs offensive rebounds, he's low down there so I feel like there were just a couple possessions or multiple possessions where we didn't do our job well enough. Obviously, they're a great team even if you play good defense for 25 seconds and they take a tough shot, they can still make it because they have good players and coaches. Those shots are not going to beat us. I feel like the offensive rebounds and the turnovers is what helped them beat us.”
On the message to his team
“This is not going to define us. I feel like Coach talked about it just now as well. We had some really good shots on offense, we had some good possessions on defense, so we know what we're capable of and we just have the opportunity to go out there and prove that on the road.”
KJ Simpson, Jr., G
On their momentum
“They just never got rattled. They never got rattled. That's why they rank for reason. That's why they have the success they have for a reason. Good team like that, they play poised, they play under control, no matter how many points the other team scores, no matter what the run is, and that's what that's what really happened. Every time we scored, they never hung their heads or got frustrated with one another, they just stuck to the game plan and just kept on playing.”
On the arguments with the Arizona players in the second half
“I just felt like a couple other guys, they're already up, there's no need to go out of your way and talk trash, especially a younger guy. I felt like just unnecessary stuff and as a leader I'm just wired to stick up to for my teammates, just be a great teammate and I felt like they're getting disrespected and stand up and show them that I have their back. At the end of the day, it's on me though, I need to do a better job of keeping composure. I can't get too high headed in a situation like that. I’ve just got to keep playing. That's basketball, stuff happens it’s just competitive.”
On what needs to turn around
“We have to just make that our identity. I feel like a lot of times we talk about it, but we let our offense dictate our defense and once we have that defensive mindset of just taking pride in every possession and holding teams to force tough shots and take away some “give me” baskets, then our defense will start to rise and then hopefully so will our offense as well. Our offense isn't our issue, its defense right now and I think we just need to shift in our focus, understanding that's where we need to prioritize ourselves.”
Arizona Head Coach Tommy Lloyd
On responding after the triple overtime game against Utah –
"I knew our guys would respond. Those are guys who are competitors and they are winners. We knew everybody was trying to make excuses for us and we didn't make any excuses, we knew full well we could come here and lose to a good Colorado team today and it had nothing to do with three overtimes on Thursday."
On the second half –
"I think we stayed the course. We felt really good about how the first half ended. We felt like we should have been up more, maybe had a call or two we didn't think went our way at the end, but that's how it goes on the road and you got to hang with it. Earlier in the year we were struggling making that first push of the second half for whatever reason, we couldn't quite pinpoint it. But today we made that first run in the second half. We had a couple three's right off the bat, and then played some good defense. I think we won that first segment by nine points, which is what championship teams do."
On playing Colorado for the second time –
"We literally didn't even address that game, because two of their three best players didn't play. When you put Cody Williams and Tristan da Silva in, we knew it was gonna be a lot harder game. We got the best of them tonight, today's game could have gone in a lot of different directions. They're a really good team, and for some reason, we kind of got the best of them so I'm not going to overthink it. I got a ton of respect for them and I'm thankful to our guys, we were rock solid in our approach."
On Omar Ballo –
"Omar Ballo is a dominant big. We know Zach Edey is in a class of his own but I think when he was playing at his highest level, he can be one of those next guys and we're not trying to say this or that or somebody's better than Zach Edey, but We got all the respect in the world for him. But when Omar Ballo plays like he did tonight, we're a special team."
Opening statement:
“I've done a lot of these postgame press conferences after losses, and some after wins as well, but sometimes it's necessary where we just have to tip our cap to the other team. I thought Arizona played great tonight. I really do think they deserved to win, they were the more aggressive team. They made shots and they were physical and we didn't play well enough to win, that was obvious. I look at two areas that cost us this game, one of them is second chance points where they got 23 of them. Some of those points were off turnovers, another 23, so 46 of their 99 points were a result of us not taking care of the basketball and not limiting them to one shot. Both those things were on our offensive and defensive boards. There's always three things we want to focus on to beat the team we're playing, three on offense, three on defense, and if we can do those things on that board, we usually win.”
“But when we don't, like tonight, it's tough and especially when you play against a team like Arizona who's very good, and they're well coached and they play hard and our guys compete, they played hard, they didn't back down. I'm proud of their effort…but our execution wasn't good enough for our ball movement, even though I thought we still got some really good looks, even in the second half, early in the second half, we got good looks and didn't make them. They got good looks and made them and you know it goes from a seven-point game to a 12 or 13 point game, and we're playing catch up from there. That's a hard team to play catch up with when you can't stop them and they shoot 53 percent in your building and scoring 99 points.:
On what he saw during Arizona’s early 11-0 run:
“Well, I thought we gave them some threes and you know look (Caleb) Love, and we knew Love’s got deep range, we knew he's never met a shot he doesn't like, he's a good player. He really is, and he's a good road player. I think he's averaging somewhere around 19 or 20 points on the road, and he's averaging around 20 for the season. Road or home, he's not afraid of the moment by any means, and we let him get going a little bit. (Kylan) Boswell, who's been struggling, he made a couple shots and we just weren’t good enough. Again, they made some good shots, we had a lot of open looks that didn't go in. When you're playing against a team that’s No. 8 in the country and that's playing well, you have to make it because they're a good defensive team as well.”
On Eddie Lampkin’s early two fouls:
“We had to play small at that point, they played through their bigs. We were looking to double the posts, we did a good job of that at times. We got leg whipped a few times, and Arizona is as good as anybody in the country about playing inside and really looking inside and having a presence in there, and that's why they're really good. We need to maybe take a page out of their book, but we gotta do it. We do it at times, but we just don't do it as consistently as they do. So yeah, Eddie picked up two vowels. We made a little run there at the end and we cut it to seven. I thought we were in very good shape coming out of halftime.”
On playing catch up
“Our guys kept fighting. If our guys went away and they quit and they stopped competing, I'd say yeah, but no, obviously it just puts you in a hole, and that hole is hard to get out of, especially when you can't string together stops. Again, when somebody shoots 53% from the field and scores 99 points in your building, your defense isn't good enough. Part of that has to do with second chance points, part of that has to do with not taking care of the ball, and part of it has to do with your defense. I credit them, I don't discredit our guys because our guys fought and scratched and clawed and they gave everything they had, we just weren't good enough. Come back with any two files. I mean, that's and it's, it's such a physical game, and Arizona is such a physical team.”
On how the defense can change for the rest of the season:
“It can change if the players decide they want to make a change. That's how it can change. Their coach isn't going to change what he stresses, what we practice, and what we work on. We work on guarding the ball. Obviously, we may need to work on boxing out a little bit better. We've been pretty good with turnovers. But again, with Arizona, when you turn over against them, they're going to convert and more often than not so. But to answer your question bluntly, it's when our players decide, this is what we're going to do. And they go out there and do it on a consistent basis. That's when it'll change. UCLA has done it. They're out there, they're playing at a high level defensively. And they weren't earlier in the season. So, it can happen, but we must commit. KJ mentioned it like we got to commit to making it happen. We cannot talk about it. Right now, we've been talking about and we do it sometimes. Other times, we don't. It's why we are where we are.”
On Luke Obrien’s health status
“His ankle wasn't right. He was limping in the second half. So again, if you're limping, you're not healthy. He wanted to play. It was his decision. He'll decide if he goes against UCLA. Every ankle is different. But he was obviously not 100% tonight.”
On his message to Cody after his performance tonight:
“The thing with Cody is he just can't press. I don't want him to feel like he's got pressure on him and the weight of the world on him. But the nice thing is that Cody's got a group of teammates who are veterans and that he doesn't have to. I want him to be aggressive under control and he did that at times tonight. Other times, he struggled a little bit, but I knew Arizona was going to get into him physically. Even Arizona State tried to go at him like that. He just has to understand that it's coming. It comes with the territory to some degree and so my message to Cody is going to be this the same thing it was when he first arrived on campus and said, ‘Cody, you're a freshman. You're going to have good nights and you're going to have bad nights. You have good practices and you have bad practices. You got to put the bad ones behind. You got to learn from the good ones and continue to get better every day in practice and from game to game. You can't let tough nights like this effect tomorrow, or effect Monday or effect next Thursday. Just come back and keep doing what you're doing.’ He's a hell of a player. He's smart. He wasn't the only one that wasn't at his best tonight. There were a handful of guys that weren't at their best, but I thought they fought and they competed. As a coach, that's all I can ask. And we'll get better. I believe in this team. I'm certainly not giving up on anything or anybody. But we have to play better than we did tonight when we're playing against really good teams to give ourselves a chance to win. The building was ready. It's ironic that the best crowd of the year to only lose in this building. Our fans were great. I apologize to them.”
Colorado Players
Tristan da Silva, Sr., F
On the momentum after the first two minutes of the game
“Honestly, I don't even know. I will have to watch the film again. I don't really know.”
On Arizona stopping them during runs
“Obviously, they're a good team. They're number eight in the country. They’ve got really good players, really good coaches so credit to them. They're a well-coached team and I feel like they’ve got the toughness to handle adversity, especially on the road, they've been a good road team.”
On what was difficult defensively
“I feel like we gave him too many buckets off turnovers, off of second chance points, especially on the glass. Just giving away possessions on offense and then on defensive if you don’t rebound obviously the possession is never going to be over until you get that board.”
On their mental effort
“I feel like we know what we’ve got to do. It's not like it's a surprise that (Oumar) Ballo grabs offensive rebounds, he's low down there so I feel like there were just a couple possessions or multiple possessions where we didn't do our job well enough. Obviously, they're a great team even if you play good defense for 25 seconds and they take a tough shot, they can still make it because they have good players and coaches. Those shots are not going to beat us. I feel like the offensive rebounds and the turnovers is what helped them beat us.”
On the message to his team
“This is not going to define us. I feel like Coach talked about it just now as well. We had some really good shots on offense, we had some good possessions on defense, so we know what we're capable of and we just have the opportunity to go out there and prove that on the road.”
KJ Simpson, Jr., G
On their momentum
“They just never got rattled. They never got rattled. That's why they rank for reason. That's why they have the success they have for a reason. Good team like that, they play poised, they play under control, no matter how many points the other team scores, no matter what the run is, and that's what that's what really happened. Every time we scored, they never hung their heads or got frustrated with one another, they just stuck to the game plan and just kept on playing.”
On the arguments with the Arizona players in the second half
“I just felt like a couple other guys, they're already up, there's no need to go out of your way and talk trash, especially a younger guy. I felt like just unnecessary stuff and as a leader I'm just wired to stick up to for my teammates, just be a great teammate and I felt like they're getting disrespected and stand up and show them that I have their back. At the end of the day, it's on me though, I need to do a better job of keeping composure. I can't get too high headed in a situation like that. I’ve just got to keep playing. That's basketball, stuff happens it’s just competitive.”
On what needs to turn around
“We have to just make that our identity. I feel like a lot of times we talk about it, but we let our offense dictate our defense and once we have that defensive mindset of just taking pride in every possession and holding teams to force tough shots and take away some “give me” baskets, then our defense will start to rise and then hopefully so will our offense as well. Our offense isn't our issue, its defense right now and I think we just need to shift in our focus, understanding that's where we need to prioritize ourselves.”
Arizona Head Coach Tommy Lloyd
On responding after the triple overtime game against Utah –
"I knew our guys would respond. Those are guys who are competitors and they are winners. We knew everybody was trying to make excuses for us and we didn't make any excuses, we knew full well we could come here and lose to a good Colorado team today and it had nothing to do with three overtimes on Thursday."
On the second half –
"I think we stayed the course. We felt really good about how the first half ended. We felt like we should have been up more, maybe had a call or two we didn't think went our way at the end, but that's how it goes on the road and you got to hang with it. Earlier in the year we were struggling making that first push of the second half for whatever reason, we couldn't quite pinpoint it. But today we made that first run in the second half. We had a couple three's right off the bat, and then played some good defense. I think we won that first segment by nine points, which is what championship teams do."
On playing Colorado for the second time –
"We literally didn't even address that game, because two of their three best players didn't play. When you put Cody Williams and Tristan da Silva in, we knew it was gonna be a lot harder game. We got the best of them tonight, today's game could have gone in a lot of different directions. They're a really good team, and for some reason, we kind of got the best of them so I'm not going to overthink it. I got a ton of respect for them and I'm thankful to our guys, we were rock solid in our approach."
On Omar Ballo –
"Omar Ballo is a dominant big. We know Zach Edey is in a class of his own but I think when he was playing at his highest level, he can be one of those next guys and we're not trying to say this or that or somebody's better than Zach Edey, but We got all the respect in the world for him. But when Omar Ballo plays like he did tonight, we're a special team."