Postgame Quotes - UCLA 83, Utah 82
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 83, Utah 82
Salt Lake City, Utah (Jon M. Huntsman Center)
January 14, 2017
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
on deciding to foul at end of the game
“Well it helps when you have fouls to give. Instead of guarding for 15, 16 seconds, you reduce it to five. We handled it really well and I thought the last one we could have had a steal on that one. The guys just handle late game really well. We made the right plays. This isn’t easy. When you come here with only one night off and a lot of guys it’s the first time coming here. It’s a quick turnaround playing as late as we did on Thursday to have to travel and play a pretty early game on Saturday. I’m just proud of our guys' effort. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well but we found a way to win. I just can’t say enough about this team. We are 18-1 and our one loss was on the road in a last-second shot. We are almost at 20 games and this team continues to do things that breed winning and I’m appreciative of that.”
on Lonzo Ball playing 40 minutes
“That wasn’t the plan but I couldn’t get him out because of foul trouble. Isaac [Hamilton] had two and Aaron [Holiday] had two and then Aaron got his third. I asked him if he was OK and he said he was OK and he played pretty well down the stretch in the second half. That was not by design but when I get two guards that are in foul trouble, sometimes I have to do that.”
on impact of winning at Utah
“This is a great road trip. We’ve won back-to-back games in the national tournament, we’ve won back-to-back games in Pac-12 tournament play and we’ve won back-to-back games in non-conference but getting that here with this team was big. We’ve played well, at Oregon we were a last second shot from sweeping there. Now here we are we’ve played six games, four of them away from home, and we are 3-1 on the road. To do that in these environments, and this is a great environment and a great basketball team, I’m very pleased.”
on overall impression of Utah
“The two transfers help them immensely. This is a very good basketball team. That’s why we are so pleased to get out of here with a win. To beat Colorado and Utah in the same weekend with a very quick turnaround, I mean we didn’t get in until about 5 o’clock yesterday, has great. It’s a very quick turnaround, really playing only seven or eight guys, so I thought our bench did some very good things. Aaron [Holiday was good, Ike [Anigbogu] was good in the second half and I thought G.G. [Goloman] really gave us some good minutes. Just really pleased with the effort.”
on Lonzo Ball’s defense
“I’ve said it all year that he can beat you in different ways. He’ll beat you with a 3-pointer that’s a dagger, he’ll beat you by penetrating when you think you have everyone covered but he finds the one guy in the corner that’s open for a shot. Tonight he made a lot of winning plays on the defensive end tonight. He was very engaged defensively. Offensively he had eight assists and we missed a lot of shots tonight so he could have had even more.
on playing zone defense
“It’s a quick turnaround and we were in foul trouble. We were not really able to contain them when they put their head down and drove it. So when you get down seven or eight we really needed to change the tempo. I thought that it did change the tempo as they started to shoot for jump shots instead of getting in the paint and that helped us.
UCLA Senior Guard Bryce Alford
on getting road win in Utah
“To me this is one of the toughest places to play, that I’ve ever played at. I’ve played at some pretty tough arenas and the way this place is set up. The fans are incredible here, they get after you right when you step on the court for warm ups. This is a hard place to play and this is my first win here and scored my first point in this building today. It’s a big time win for us.”
on trading baskets
“It’s tough. It shows a lot about this team’s amount of heart that we were able to do that. We struggled at times on the defensive end, giving up wide-open three’s and way to many lay ups. But we will learn from it and continue to get better.”
on having fouls to give on the final Utah possession
“It was huge. It was really good coaching by our coaching staff to call that timeout and let us know. The players knew it too so we did a good job of taking down the clock from 12 to five seconds. It makes it a lot more difficult for them to call something. And they didn’t have any timeouts so we knew that if we were able to take the time down we could make it really hard on them.”
on getting a win with a defensive stop
“This game almost had flashes of Oregon, I was sitting on the bench and when the shot went up I was just saying ‘don’t go in, don’t go in’. But TJ [Leaf] did a great job of contesting him and forced a tough shot. And then Tom [Welsh] is automatic at the line and hasn’t missed yet so it couldn’t have worked out better.”
on what this win means
“It’s my first win here in Utah and it’s my first road sweep. If you can get a road sweep, especially at these two schools it’s huge in a conference race. I don’t know if there’s another tea that will do that this year in this place and if there is there won’t be that many. We know this was big and more importantly we don’t play them again so they don’t get another chance at us.”
UCLA Junior Center Thomas Welsh
on getting the final stop
“It’s very encouraging. They gave the ball to their best player and he had a pretty good shot at it. But I think we made some smart plays at the end, especially with the fouls at the end. We just knew we had to get that stop.”
on using fouls at end of the game
“I think it disrupted their rhythm. We cut down seven seconds on the clock, from 12 to five. It was huge to give them that much less time because they weren’t able to run a play. All they could do was get the ball in and get a shot up so I think it was big.”
on being a gutsy win
“I don’t think that we can compare wins but this is a great win for us. This is a tough place to play and they are a good team in a great atmosphere. We were in a tough spot but we kept fighting and battling and it came down right to the end.”
UCLA Sophomore Guard Aaron Holiday
on defensive adjustments
“They had 28 points in the paint in the first half so the emphasis was just stopping them from getting into the paint.”
on being a gutsy win
“I think that we can play with anyone because we can play at a fast pace. It’s just a matter of us getting stops and getting our offense going. But I guess you can call it gutsy because we actually had to do it on the defensive end.”
on Utah as a team
“They are a very good team. They have the size, they have guards. They just have combo guards, there is no main point guard so everyone can score. So I felt like they were really good. We just tried to come in here and stop them the best way we could. ”
on trading baskets
“It can get tough because it’s tough getting scored on. But we know what we can do on the floor so that’s what we just keep in our mind.”
UCLA 83, Utah 82
Salt Lake City, Utah (Jon M. Huntsman Center)
January 14, 2017
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
on deciding to foul at end of the game
“Well it helps when you have fouls to give. Instead of guarding for 15, 16 seconds, you reduce it to five. We handled it really well and I thought the last one we could have had a steal on that one. The guys just handle late game really well. We made the right plays. This isn’t easy. When you come here with only one night off and a lot of guys it’s the first time coming here. It’s a quick turnaround playing as late as we did on Thursday to have to travel and play a pretty early game on Saturday. I’m just proud of our guys' effort. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well but we found a way to win. I just can’t say enough about this team. We are 18-1 and our one loss was on the road in a last-second shot. We are almost at 20 games and this team continues to do things that breed winning and I’m appreciative of that.”
on Lonzo Ball playing 40 minutes
“That wasn’t the plan but I couldn’t get him out because of foul trouble. Isaac [Hamilton] had two and Aaron [Holiday] had two and then Aaron got his third. I asked him if he was OK and he said he was OK and he played pretty well down the stretch in the second half. That was not by design but when I get two guards that are in foul trouble, sometimes I have to do that.”
on impact of winning at Utah
“This is a great road trip. We’ve won back-to-back games in the national tournament, we’ve won back-to-back games in Pac-12 tournament play and we’ve won back-to-back games in non-conference but getting that here with this team was big. We’ve played well, at Oregon we were a last second shot from sweeping there. Now here we are we’ve played six games, four of them away from home, and we are 3-1 on the road. To do that in these environments, and this is a great environment and a great basketball team, I’m very pleased.”
on overall impression of Utah
“The two transfers help them immensely. This is a very good basketball team. That’s why we are so pleased to get out of here with a win. To beat Colorado and Utah in the same weekend with a very quick turnaround, I mean we didn’t get in until about 5 o’clock yesterday, has great. It’s a very quick turnaround, really playing only seven or eight guys, so I thought our bench did some very good things. Aaron [Holiday was good, Ike [Anigbogu] was good in the second half and I thought G.G. [Goloman] really gave us some good minutes. Just really pleased with the effort.”
on Lonzo Ball’s defense
“I’ve said it all year that he can beat you in different ways. He’ll beat you with a 3-pointer that’s a dagger, he’ll beat you by penetrating when you think you have everyone covered but he finds the one guy in the corner that’s open for a shot. Tonight he made a lot of winning plays on the defensive end tonight. He was very engaged defensively. Offensively he had eight assists and we missed a lot of shots tonight so he could have had even more.
on playing zone defense
“It’s a quick turnaround and we were in foul trouble. We were not really able to contain them when they put their head down and drove it. So when you get down seven or eight we really needed to change the tempo. I thought that it did change the tempo as they started to shoot for jump shots instead of getting in the paint and that helped us.
UCLA Senior Guard Bryce Alford
on getting road win in Utah
“To me this is one of the toughest places to play, that I’ve ever played at. I’ve played at some pretty tough arenas and the way this place is set up. The fans are incredible here, they get after you right when you step on the court for warm ups. This is a hard place to play and this is my first win here and scored my first point in this building today. It’s a big time win for us.”
on trading baskets
“It’s tough. It shows a lot about this team’s amount of heart that we were able to do that. We struggled at times on the defensive end, giving up wide-open three’s and way to many lay ups. But we will learn from it and continue to get better.”
on having fouls to give on the final Utah possession
“It was huge. It was really good coaching by our coaching staff to call that timeout and let us know. The players knew it too so we did a good job of taking down the clock from 12 to five seconds. It makes it a lot more difficult for them to call something. And they didn’t have any timeouts so we knew that if we were able to take the time down we could make it really hard on them.”
on getting a win with a defensive stop
“This game almost had flashes of Oregon, I was sitting on the bench and when the shot went up I was just saying ‘don’t go in, don’t go in’. But TJ [Leaf] did a great job of contesting him and forced a tough shot. And then Tom [Welsh] is automatic at the line and hasn’t missed yet so it couldn’t have worked out better.”
on what this win means
“It’s my first win here in Utah and it’s my first road sweep. If you can get a road sweep, especially at these two schools it’s huge in a conference race. I don’t know if there’s another tea that will do that this year in this place and if there is there won’t be that many. We know this was big and more importantly we don’t play them again so they don’t get another chance at us.”
UCLA Junior Center Thomas Welsh
on getting the final stop
“It’s very encouraging. They gave the ball to their best player and he had a pretty good shot at it. But I think we made some smart plays at the end, especially with the fouls at the end. We just knew we had to get that stop.”
on using fouls at end of the game
“I think it disrupted their rhythm. We cut down seven seconds on the clock, from 12 to five. It was huge to give them that much less time because they weren’t able to run a play. All they could do was get the ball in and get a shot up so I think it was big.”
on being a gutsy win
“I don’t think that we can compare wins but this is a great win for us. This is a tough place to play and they are a good team in a great atmosphere. We were in a tough spot but we kept fighting and battling and it came down right to the end.”
UCLA Sophomore Guard Aaron Holiday
on defensive adjustments
“They had 28 points in the paint in the first half so the emphasis was just stopping them from getting into the paint.”
on being a gutsy win
“I think that we can play with anyone because we can play at a fast pace. It’s just a matter of us getting stops and getting our offense going. But I guess you can call it gutsy because we actually had to do it on the defensive end.”
on Utah as a team
“They are a very good team. They have the size, they have guards. They just have combo guards, there is no main point guard so everyone can score. So I felt like they were really good. We just tried to come in here and stop them the best way we could. ”
on trading baskets
“It can get tough because it’s tough getting scored on. But we know what we can do on the floor so that’s what we just keep in our mind.”