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PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2019Tad BoyleD'Shawn SchwartzTyler BeyLas Vegas, Nevada Washington - 66, Colorado - 61 TAD BOYLE: You know, first off, Washington deserves credit. They played very well, especially defensively. I mean, 13 steals. Their defense gives a lot of people problems. And I just felt like we -- 18 turnovers. The key to tonight's game was three things for us: number 1 is defend; number 2 is rebound; number 3 is take care of the ball. We did two of those three things very well. We talk about defense and rebounding all the time. That was good enough tonight. What wasn't good enough is our offense. It started with turnovers, but we also had some really, really good looks, the second half, especially, that didn't go in. And sometimes -- you don't want to oversimplify the game, but sometimes you have to make shots. And especially when they move around, they fly around. You get open looks, you've got to be able to knock them down. And we weren't able to do that in the second half. And you add that to the turnovers, and it was a rough night for us. But I do not fault our guys' effort. I don't fault their toughness. I don't fault anything about them. I love this group. I love this team. Earlier in the year I questioned their toughness. I questioned them a little bit. But since January 31st, when we lost to Oregon State at home, these guys have come so far. And we've really grown as a team. I think our program has grown. And the good news is every one of these guys in uniform tonight are coming back next year. And I hope and I pray that this is not the end of our season this year. I really would like to keep coaching these guys. These guys I think would like to keep playing together. And we'll find out our faith Sunday night when everything settles. Hats off to Washington. And don't count the Buffs out this year. Don't count us out next year. Q. I know that you don't like to say you were tired or anything like that. The second half, did some of those shots start falling because maybe you had some dead legs with seven guys out there? TAD BOYLE: I don't know. I think the players could probably answer that. Again, good looks. Didn't go in. I'm not going to blame it on fatigue. This guy, I mean, 22 points, 16 rebounds. And obviously Tyler hasn't played heavy minutes the first couple of games because of some foul trouble and things like that. But he was terrific. I knew he'd be fresh. McKinley was the one guy that played really heavy, heavy minutes. And I can't tell you how good a defender he is. He did it again tonight on Jaylen Nowell, 14 points. But took him 15 shots to get him. He just -- he just is a really, really efficient defender. And he expended a lot of energy on the defensive end. But our defense, our rebounding was really good this whole tournament. But tonight our offense and taking care of the ball wasn't good enough. I don't know if fatigue was a factor not. We're not certainly going to use that as an excuse. I thought we had enough juice in the tank to win tonight; we just didn't make enough shots and we turned the ball over too much. Q. Kind of an unfortunate irony in the game, Tyler really gets it going, but kind of coming with the caveats of McKinley and Shane having off nights, just in general, how challenging did that make it to get any momentum going in the second half? TAD BOYLE: One thing about our team is we're very well balanced. And we know - we've got a lot of guys, D'Shawn, Shane, Tyler, McKinley, everybody, Daylen really has grown up this tournament. I think Lucas hit a big three before half. So we've got enough firepower on this team to overcome one or two guys having off nights. But when you shoot 6 for 30 in the second half, it makes it really difficult and you turn the ball over as much as we did. The combination of those two things, you can handle not shooting the ball well. You can maybe -- we've even handled turning the ball over a lot. But when you put those two things together it's a lot to overcome, especially against a team like Washington. But you saw our guys, they fought, they clawed, they scratched, they tried to get back into this thing, we tried to lengthen the game the last minute and a half, two minutes, just came up a little short. Q. Matisse is obviously a finalist, one of the top defensive players in the country, when he's locked in like he is tonight, what effect does he have on that end of the floor? TAD BOYLE: Even in the first half he made some plays defensively, we're up at six at halftime. But they made a little run because of his defensive efforts. And he's -- you always have to know where he is on the floor. He can effect the game in a lot of different ways. He's a special, special defender, there's no doubt about that. I don't want to take anything away from him. And he was good tonight. Getting him out of the game, I wish we could have done it a little earlier. We tried to get the ball inside against that zone, it was a little difficult for us at times. We weren't able to knock enough shots down from the perimeter to kind of spread them out, which is what you have to do against Washington. Q. Tyler, I know you would have preferred to win, but to finally have a good game here, obviously your hometown, we've talked about, feel good to have a performance like this for you personally going out of this tournament? TYLER BEY: Yeah, today was good. I did play good. But we played good. Us losing, I still feel like we could have done better as a team. I don't really feel like -- I'm not really proud of myself because I didn't play as good as I wanted to this whole tournament. But I wanted to win today and that was the biggest game, I just wanted to win. Q. How much do you want to keep this season going? How much would you like to keep playing? D'SHAWN SCHWARTZ: I think something that's been kind of a staple of this team has been how much we love each other. I mean we say to each other every day, it's something special between these guys. And the more we can play together I think we'll be happy to do it because we all love each other and enjoy playing with each other on and off the court. Q. Do you feel like you've done enough to earn a possible NIT bid come Sunday night? TAD BOYLE: Yes, especially if you look at what this team has done since January 31st. In the month of February and certainly in the month of March we have grown by leaps and bounds. A lot of times you get judged by what you do in November or December. But especially with a young team you see the growth that these guys have made and there's 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament and 32 in the NIT. Top hundred, are we a top hundred team in the country, absolutely. No doubt in my mind now. Doesn't always work, because of the way the automatic bids work, but, yeah, I do think we've played enough. And I'd just like to -- we talk about character all the time. And I'd just like to comment on Tyler. A true to me sign of a high character guy is a guy who is more happy for the team when they win and he doesn't play well than feeling good about himself when he does play well. He played his heart out tonight. And he's as down as anybody on our team, and that's a true sign of character. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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