Colorado-Houston Quotes
vs
Grace College (Ind.)
Oct 19 (Sun)
12 p.m.
Colorado vs. Houston
Feb. 8, 2025, CU Events Center
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement
“Our guys battled tonight. I can't fault them at all for their fight and their effort. They gave great effort. I thought our defense in the first half was terrific. Our rotations really battled down the stretch. In terms of the stat sheet the two things I looked at immediately were turnovers. We only had 12 against Houston. If you'd have told me that before the game, I'd have taken it. We want to be 11 or fewer, but given our opponent today, I'd have taken that. But also, we knew rebounding was going to be a key to this game. To me, the difference in this game was two things. It was the rebounding differential, and obviously they outscored us 18 to seven on second chance points. The second thing is, J’Wan Roberts made plays down the stretch for them. He really put them on his back and made some tough shots. So the defense was there but that's what really, really good players do. He's, to me, an all conference player, and he played like it down the stretch. We didn't get stops the other night against Utah, the last four minute media time out, but at the end of the game, and tonight, we didn't, we didn't do it either. It was an 11-0 run the other night, and today was an 8-0 run. Those are the differences in the game, but our guys battled, and we got to build on the positives. There's times during the season, and I think we're at one of those times right now, where you can play better. You can get better, and still not win a game. Based on the schedule, based on who you're playing. That's where we are, I'll take the effort we had. I told these guys in the locker room, if we continue with that fight and the togetherness and build on it and become more consistent through a 40 minute game, we will be rewarded at some point. I really believe that.
On how difficult it is to win in this league
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Kelvin Sampson, he’s been around this game a long time and the way his teams play, the toughness they play with. I said this before the game, Houston is the gold standard, in my opinion, and not just in the Big-12. I would say nationally, Houston's the gold standard when it comes to defense and rebounding. You guys know me well enough that that's what we aspire to be, but that's who they are. It's nice, very nice of him to say nice things about me. You coach this game long enough, maybe you have years like this, maybe you don't, but when you do, you just appreciate how hard it is to win a game in a league like this. We've come up short in games that are winnable down the stretch. We gotta keep the faith. I have great respect for Houston, the way they play the game and how tough they are. To me, Kelvin Sampson is a top five coach in the college game today, in my opinion. Nobody asked me my opinion, but that is my opinion.”
On the encouragement of making comebacks throughout the game
“One of the reasons for that time out was to try and settle our guys down and say, it's about defense, and it's about rebounding. We told our players before the game, Houston makes it difficult to score, so we're going to have to just get great shots. Tonight, I'm glad he [Julian Hammond] was shooting the ball, because we needed that from him tonight. Sometimes you might get an open look in the first five to 10 seconds of the shot clock. Against Houston, you better take it, because you may not get one the next 20 seconds. That's a little bit different from our philosophy, we want to get paid touches and we want to play inside out. Another stat I think was really telling tonight in the game is the points in the paint, where Houston had 42 and we had 20, and that's who they are. They play through. J’Wwan Roberts is an all conference player, and he made plays for his team down the stretch when his team needed him to make plays. That’s what great players do. He's terrific, and we knew it. We knew he was going to his left, and he was the one down the stretch. He went right on BD and got fouled, but he's a good player.”
On having a bigger lineup out of the gate
“It was a combination of two things. Number one, we just wanted to try to rebound the ball as best we could. Trevor's [Baskin] a really good rebounder for us, but Assane’s [Diop] probably our best, if you go rebounds per minute. Trevor, I felt like, with that second unit, would give us a little bit more, because against Houston, you got to think about defense and rebounding, but you also got to think about how you can score. I felt like Trevor would give us a little bit better scoring punch with that second unit when we went to the bench. Again, who starts for this team really doesn't matter. Who finishes probably means a little bit more, and that's going to change game to game based on who's playing well and who's not playing well and who's in the groove. Julian, tonight, I didn't feel like we could get him off the floor. We had to get him some rest, I can't play him for 40 minutes. I'm not going to complain, because there's nothing I can do., but you these three-minute media timeouts, and five of them in the second half, that's 15 minutes of rest for Houston. They got tired, but we used to have a huge advantage at home, but with the three minute media timeouts and five of them in the second half, the advantage is not what it used to be. It's not going to change, but I do believe it, because we've won a lot of games in this building, and we've come up a little bit short this year. That hurt us tonight, because these guys were a little bit short, short handed.”
On Making L.J. Cryer work for his shots
“He's a big part of their team. He does a great job of moving without the ball. They do a great job of setting screens for him. I thought Andrej, for the most part, did a good job. Sometimes we were switching, when they went with [Terrance] Arceneaux at the four, we started switching a little bit more. When you switch on to Cryer and you got a big guy that's on him, they got to understand, now they're guarding the league scorer of the other team, the best player. The best perimeter shooter, I should say. They got a lot of good players, but Cryer is important to them. I know he has 15 points on 17 shots. That's phenomenal. [J’Wan] Roberts has 20 points on 11 shots. That's not phenomenal. That's why, to me, he was the player of the game. I thought we did a good job on Cryer. I thought Sebastian Rancik, his defensive, was really good tonight. He did a commendable job. Houston's got players that could go at the end of the shot clock, go get theirs. They beat us in the one on one game tonight, because sometimes when you play good defense, it comes down to guarding the ball late in the shot clock. They play good defense, so it comes down to, we gotta build a score against one of their guys off the bounce. They did that better than we did tonight, and credit to their players.”
On how to keep the teams heads up
“I just say, ‘Guys, we gotta concentrate on getting better every day.’ That's all we need to talk about. That's all we need to think about. We can't think about a record. We can't think about who we play next. Gotta get better tomorrow. Get better on Monday. Get better on Tuesday. The way we play, we gotta become more consistent. That's been a struggle for us all year long, and we have to have an identity. We're going in the middle of February and we don't have an identity. I mean, what are we good at? We're a good free throw shooting team, but we got to the free throw line 16 times a night. You play league play, they're going to even things up, and you're not going to have a huge free throw advantage. So, we got to have an identity outside of that, and right now we don't. I'd like it to be defensive rebounding, like Houston. Then, I know we got a chance to win, win some games.”
How you find team identity this late in the season
“I think you got to practice it. You got to preach it, show it to them on film. Teams in the past have done it. Players in the past have done it. This team hasn't, these players haven't. Again that goes back on me. I'm the coach.”
On the team’s emotional side of the game
“Yeah, if you came to our shoot around this morning, you wouldn't know our team was 0-11. If you came and watched today's game at the event center, and you didn't know anything about Colorado or anything about Houston, you wouldn't guess that Colorado was 0-11. The way we played and the heart that we played with. Now, we weren't tough enough, that comes up in the rebounding column. But I'm proud of you guys for sticking and that's what we have to continue to have, because the only way we get out of this is with that. With the competitiveness, at some point we just gotta say, ‘We're not gonna do it anymore, and we're gonna be plus 12 on Houston, on the glass.’ But that's not who we are right now, we're not capable of doing that. Until we are, and it doesn't matter if you're playing Houston at home, or if you're playing Kansas now, which we have next, it's not gonna be any different.”
Colorado Players
Julian Hammond III, Sr. G
On his high-scoring game and high number of threes:
“I feel like I've been struggling a little bit lately. So I’ve been getting in the gym all week and getting up shots so that in the game I can feel a good rhythm. I got a couple of good looks, and then I felt pretty good going off of that.”
On if he has to create shots for himself against good teams like Houston:
“No not really. The game is just happening so fast. I'm not looking like ‘Oh I'm in this position, I need to get a three off here,’ or anything like that. It's just I made a couple, and I felt in rhythm coming into my next few shots. So that's why I took them.”
On how the team keeps their head up after another loss:
“Obviously it's frustrating losing games. We've lost 12 in a row now. It is hard, whether you want to say it or not. It is hard to stay positive at all times. But we know we still have eight more games. There is a conference tournament. We have something to look forward to. Just because we lost today, it doesn't mean that we won't play Kansas on Tuesday. So we just have to move on. We’ve got to come ready to practice tomorrow and the next day and just be ready to go.”
On the guards coming together:
“Yeah, it's good to see them. Von [Javon Ruffin] started off a little bit slower, and he's been coming along a lot better. RJ [RJ Smith] has been a little up and down, so we want to see him be a little more consistent. Felix [Felix Kossaras] is a young guy. He doesn't know how much he's playing, when he's gonna play, and stuff like that. So just to see everybody start to turn that corner is encouraging coming down the last few games of the season. Because at this point we all know that in the conference tournament, we have to play all these teams again and we want all of our players, especially in the guard room, to be hitting on all cylinders at the right.”
Andrej Jakimovski, Gr, F
On what made Houston difficult to deal with off of rebounds:
“I think they're really good rebounding their misses, especially number 13 [ J’Wan Roberts] and number 8 [Mylik Wilson]. They're a really good team defensively. They're a really good rebounding team. I think we did a really good job defending. But like you said, rebounding was the key tonight and they got 12 more than us. That's why I think we lost the game. One the reasons for sure.”