Postgame Quotes - UCLA 81, California 71
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 81, California 71
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
January 5, 2017
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
opening statement
“There were a lot of lessons in this game that I am excited about. This is a team that has to continue to learn things. We probably shot the ball and scored close to the fewest points in a half but that is probably our worst shooting second half. This is a very good defensive team. They hang their hat defensively and I think we learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully our players did. In the first half when you make 17 field goals and shoot 52%, things are clicking. You score 44 and you are up 20, you just think it's going to happen again. No it is because of the work you put in and we didn't do that in the second half. We got lazy and careless offensively, the ball stopped moving, we got stagnant, and then we didn't defend. In the first half, I thought that was as good defensively as we have had any 20 minutes all year long, and then again we thought it was going to be easy and we shut it down in the second half. Those are valuable lessons to learn. You can't do that in this league. The league is too good. But with that said, it was a tremendous win. We had some guys play really well and we needed to have another good assist game of 18-9. We took care of the basketball, but we just did not rebound or defend in the second half like we did in the first half. It will be good for us to watch this tape before we move on to Stanford.”
on teaching lessons after a win and a loss
“A 10-point win is frustrating the way we played in the second half but we are 15-1, 2-1 with a 10-point win. I can at least watch tape with them in a civil manner versus a loss where the film room gets darker and you are in there a little bit longer and the noise is a little bit louder. We want at this point in the season, 16 games in, if we can learn valuable lessons by still winning that shows and proves the character of those guys, which we have talked about all along. They didn't break. They bent a little bit but they didn't break. I don't want to take away from what we did in the first half because I don't think Cal has been down 20 points at half all season long, let alone at half time. I thought we did some really good things to a very good basketball team. We just got careless in the second half.”
on what he saw from team when Cal was making a run
“Our spirits weren’t very high. I told Lonzo, ‘We have empowered you and you have got to get everybody in and chew them. It can't just be me because my voice just becomes that same voice all the time.’ So the more Zo will chew or Bryce will chew, those are guys that have to huddle everybody up and say we have gotten some bad shots here and we have taken some bad shots, let's move it. We are in the bonus so let's get to the free throw line. Let's make them guard us. At the other end, let's stop somebody. We are giving up straight line drives and we are giving up backboard stuff, and I don't think that was really communicated player to player. So those are good lessons, especially for Zo. We have empowered Zo to do those things and I think he understands that. I think that is the point in time where he has got to be very vocal.”
on Lonzo’s play when shots aren’t falling
“He defends. He had three steals and a lot of deflections. I think he can just continue to lead our team by being even more vocal with them. I am not going to worry. As long as he takes good shots, if the three ball doesn't go in, get to the line more. But I thought he did a nice job defending and that was key. He and Bryce I thought did a really good job in the last two minutes of kind of getting us to settle down and play with some poise. I thought Bryce played really well. I thought he made some huge shots for us. This isn't an easy team to make threes on and he makes 5 of 7. I thought those were big keys for us.”
UCLA Senior Guard Bruce Alford
on takeaway from the game
“Each game presents you with different things you can learn. Every Pac-12 game is going to be a grind for 40 minutes regardless of what you do in the first half. We have to continue to play hard. I think we did a good job in the last minute of weathering the storm and figuring it out.”
on the crowd and the atmosphere at home
“We’ve had games that have been really electric in here. But the steadiness of the crowd has been awesome. We’ve had a couple games over break where the students have been gone and they’ve still shown up. We’ve seen it and we acknowledge it so thank you to everyone that shows up.”
on pace team wants to play at
“We try to play at an even higher pace in practice than we do in the games. We go at each other in practice. One of our biggest things is pace and space. We did a great job of that in the first half. But a lot of that has to do with defense as you can get out and really space the floor that way. It’s not so much about getting the shot up early but about flying around. We are a quick, fast team so we are trying to set screens and move around a lot side-to-side.”
on role as a leader and Lonzo maturing as a leader
“I’ve always been a vocal guy on the court. These guys probably get annoyed with me with how much I talk. Lonzo came in as a quiet guy on the court but loud in the locker room and off the court. On the court he just takes care of business. His development on talking more on the court is not something we need from him all the time. But when he does talk he does a great job with it. That’s what we needed him to do.
UCLA Freshman Forward TJ Leaf
on dunk in the first half
“I saw an opening, jumped and tried to dunk it. Luckily he missed a little bit. It was a good dunk.”
on defense against Ivan Rabb
“We tried to double-down, that was a huge part of the game plan. He did get 20 points and 17 rebounds so we have a long way to go on that. Doubling down was a big part of the game plan and in the first half it worked pretty well. In the second half we got away from the defensive scheme and just weren’t as into it as we should have been. But we are still growing.”
on measuring himself against top competition
“[Ivan] Rabb is a really talented player and he plays hard. That’s something that really motivates you to play and get into it with him on the court. It was fun to play against him.”
UCLA Freshman Guard Lonzo Ball
on second half
“It’s a learning point. We let our foot off the gas a little bit and they came back on get it a little too close. But we were able to pull it out.”
on becoming a more vocal leader
“I think it’s getting better every game. After this game I felt like I should have talked a little bit earlier. I have Bryce and Isaac helping me the entire way and I appreciate their help.”
on making 3-pointer to end the half
“Coach puts the ball in my hand to make plays when there is limited time on the clock. I just try and make plays. That time a shot it and I’m just happy it went in.”
on being a freshman and a leader
“It’s pretty easy. Bryce and Isaac the whole time have given me the green light to do what I want and I’m just grateful to be playing with them.”
on adjustments made during the second half
“We knew we weren’t guarding right. They really came back with a couple minutes left and we just didn’t guard. That’s the one thing we have to keep working on. We know our offense is going to be there and it did again tonight. It’s the defense they we need to keep working on.”
California head coach Cuonzo Martin
opening statement
“We heard that they were a great team, and I think in the second half we didn’t play as cool.”
on the play of Ivan Rabb
“I don’t think that he was passing. What we really have to work on with Ivan is to get better at posting him up.”
on the 16-3 run
“We just turned the ball over. We have to really go back and look at the film. We have to execute and really find the right man to pass the ball to. There are no excuses.”
on the play of Jabari Bird
“You’d have to ask him specifically how tough it was. He is fine physically; he did really well rebounding, but he had two bodies on him all night.”
on the play of Don Coleman
“Coleman is a fighter. He’s a competitor and a tremendous player. I knew he could defend Lonzo Ball. I have a lot of confidence in him.”
California Guard Grant Mullins
on his three-point shooting
“I just took what the defense gave me, and I’m not worried about playing against top talent. I have faith in my game.”
on if he was intimidated by Lonzo Ball
“No, I don’t think so. We’ve seen good players before, and we’ll learn from this. We just have to get better, especially on the defensive end.”
on the team’s seven assists
“They really guarded Ivan (Rabb) in the post, and they were really good at switching, which took away the pick and roll. From that, it just made us rely more on defense.”
on the play of Don Coleman
“I’ve seen him every day in practice, so I’m not really surprised. I’m not surprised by what he did tonight.”
California Guard Ivan Rabb
on his career-high 20 rebounds
“I’ve always been a good rebounder; I just need to get in better shape. I was not willing to lie down today, and I just didn’t see enough fight in my team, so I wanted to lead by example.”
on the team’s first half performance
“We were really stagnant, and we took a lot of bad shots. I just didn’t have what it took in the first half. I just had to remind myself to keep pushing; I should have really done that at the beginning of the game. We almost laid down today. We just have to bring it, and it’s unacceptable. We can’t lay down on anybody.”
on the play of Don Coleman
“He’s not really afraid of anybody. He does what he does. He just brings it all the time.”
on the team’s performance overall
“Everything is about effort, and tonight we just didn’t bring it.”
UCLA 81, California 71
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
January 5, 2017
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
opening statement
“There were a lot of lessons in this game that I am excited about. This is a team that has to continue to learn things. We probably shot the ball and scored close to the fewest points in a half but that is probably our worst shooting second half. This is a very good defensive team. They hang their hat defensively and I think we learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully our players did. In the first half when you make 17 field goals and shoot 52%, things are clicking. You score 44 and you are up 20, you just think it's going to happen again. No it is because of the work you put in and we didn't do that in the second half. We got lazy and careless offensively, the ball stopped moving, we got stagnant, and then we didn't defend. In the first half, I thought that was as good defensively as we have had any 20 minutes all year long, and then again we thought it was going to be easy and we shut it down in the second half. Those are valuable lessons to learn. You can't do that in this league. The league is too good. But with that said, it was a tremendous win. We had some guys play really well and we needed to have another good assist game of 18-9. We took care of the basketball, but we just did not rebound or defend in the second half like we did in the first half. It will be good for us to watch this tape before we move on to Stanford.”
on teaching lessons after a win and a loss
“A 10-point win is frustrating the way we played in the second half but we are 15-1, 2-1 with a 10-point win. I can at least watch tape with them in a civil manner versus a loss where the film room gets darker and you are in there a little bit longer and the noise is a little bit louder. We want at this point in the season, 16 games in, if we can learn valuable lessons by still winning that shows and proves the character of those guys, which we have talked about all along. They didn't break. They bent a little bit but they didn't break. I don't want to take away from what we did in the first half because I don't think Cal has been down 20 points at half all season long, let alone at half time. I thought we did some really good things to a very good basketball team. We just got careless in the second half.”
on what he saw from team when Cal was making a run
“Our spirits weren’t very high. I told Lonzo, ‘We have empowered you and you have got to get everybody in and chew them. It can't just be me because my voice just becomes that same voice all the time.’ So the more Zo will chew or Bryce will chew, those are guys that have to huddle everybody up and say we have gotten some bad shots here and we have taken some bad shots, let's move it. We are in the bonus so let's get to the free throw line. Let's make them guard us. At the other end, let's stop somebody. We are giving up straight line drives and we are giving up backboard stuff, and I don't think that was really communicated player to player. So those are good lessons, especially for Zo. We have empowered Zo to do those things and I think he understands that. I think that is the point in time where he has got to be very vocal.”
on Lonzo’s play when shots aren’t falling
“He defends. He had three steals and a lot of deflections. I think he can just continue to lead our team by being even more vocal with them. I am not going to worry. As long as he takes good shots, if the three ball doesn't go in, get to the line more. But I thought he did a nice job defending and that was key. He and Bryce I thought did a really good job in the last two minutes of kind of getting us to settle down and play with some poise. I thought Bryce played really well. I thought he made some huge shots for us. This isn't an easy team to make threes on and he makes 5 of 7. I thought those were big keys for us.”
UCLA Senior Guard Bruce Alford
on takeaway from the game
“Each game presents you with different things you can learn. Every Pac-12 game is going to be a grind for 40 minutes regardless of what you do in the first half. We have to continue to play hard. I think we did a good job in the last minute of weathering the storm and figuring it out.”
on the crowd and the atmosphere at home
“We’ve had games that have been really electric in here. But the steadiness of the crowd has been awesome. We’ve had a couple games over break where the students have been gone and they’ve still shown up. We’ve seen it and we acknowledge it so thank you to everyone that shows up.”
on pace team wants to play at
“We try to play at an even higher pace in practice than we do in the games. We go at each other in practice. One of our biggest things is pace and space. We did a great job of that in the first half. But a lot of that has to do with defense as you can get out and really space the floor that way. It’s not so much about getting the shot up early but about flying around. We are a quick, fast team so we are trying to set screens and move around a lot side-to-side.”
on role as a leader and Lonzo maturing as a leader
“I’ve always been a vocal guy on the court. These guys probably get annoyed with me with how much I talk. Lonzo came in as a quiet guy on the court but loud in the locker room and off the court. On the court he just takes care of business. His development on talking more on the court is not something we need from him all the time. But when he does talk he does a great job with it. That’s what we needed him to do.
UCLA Freshman Forward TJ Leaf
on dunk in the first half
“I saw an opening, jumped and tried to dunk it. Luckily he missed a little bit. It was a good dunk.”
on defense against Ivan Rabb
“We tried to double-down, that was a huge part of the game plan. He did get 20 points and 17 rebounds so we have a long way to go on that. Doubling down was a big part of the game plan and in the first half it worked pretty well. In the second half we got away from the defensive scheme and just weren’t as into it as we should have been. But we are still growing.”
on measuring himself against top competition
“[Ivan] Rabb is a really talented player and he plays hard. That’s something that really motivates you to play and get into it with him on the court. It was fun to play against him.”
UCLA Freshman Guard Lonzo Ball
on second half
“It’s a learning point. We let our foot off the gas a little bit and they came back on get it a little too close. But we were able to pull it out.”
on becoming a more vocal leader
“I think it’s getting better every game. After this game I felt like I should have talked a little bit earlier. I have Bryce and Isaac helping me the entire way and I appreciate their help.”
on making 3-pointer to end the half
“Coach puts the ball in my hand to make plays when there is limited time on the clock. I just try and make plays. That time a shot it and I’m just happy it went in.”
on being a freshman and a leader
“It’s pretty easy. Bryce and Isaac the whole time have given me the green light to do what I want and I’m just grateful to be playing with them.”
on adjustments made during the second half
“We knew we weren’t guarding right. They really came back with a couple minutes left and we just didn’t guard. That’s the one thing we have to keep working on. We know our offense is going to be there and it did again tonight. It’s the defense they we need to keep working on.”
California head coach Cuonzo Martin
opening statement
“We heard that they were a great team, and I think in the second half we didn’t play as cool.”
on the play of Ivan Rabb
“I don’t think that he was passing. What we really have to work on with Ivan is to get better at posting him up.”
on the 16-3 run
“We just turned the ball over. We have to really go back and look at the film. We have to execute and really find the right man to pass the ball to. There are no excuses.”
on the play of Jabari Bird
“You’d have to ask him specifically how tough it was. He is fine physically; he did really well rebounding, but he had two bodies on him all night.”
on the play of Don Coleman
“Coleman is a fighter. He’s a competitor and a tremendous player. I knew he could defend Lonzo Ball. I have a lot of confidence in him.”
California Guard Grant Mullins
on his three-point shooting
“I just took what the defense gave me, and I’m not worried about playing against top talent. I have faith in my game.”
on if he was intimidated by Lonzo Ball
“No, I don’t think so. We’ve seen good players before, and we’ll learn from this. We just have to get better, especially on the defensive end.”
on the team’s seven assists
“They really guarded Ivan (Rabb) in the post, and they were really good at switching, which took away the pick and roll. From that, it just made us rely more on defense.”
on the play of Don Coleman
“I’ve seen him every day in practice, so I’m not really surprised. I’m not surprised by what he did tonight.”
California Guard Ivan Rabb
on his career-high 20 rebounds
“I’ve always been a good rebounder; I just need to get in better shape. I was not willing to lie down today, and I just didn’t see enough fight in my team, so I wanted to lead by example.”
on the team’s first half performance
“We were really stagnant, and we took a lot of bad shots. I just didn’t have what it took in the first half. I just had to remind myself to keep pushing; I should have really done that at the beginning of the game. We almost laid down today. We just have to bring it, and it’s unacceptable. We can’t lay down on anybody.”
on the play of Don Coleman
“He’s not really afraid of anybody. He does what he does. He just brings it all the time.”
on the team’s performance overall
“Everything is about effort, and tonight we just didn’t bring it.”