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CBS SPORTS CLASSICDecember 21, 2019Mick CroninJules BernardJaime Jaquez Jr.Las Vegas, Nevada North Carolina - 74, UCLA - 64 THE MODERATOR: Let's start with some questions for the players. Q. You guys had a nice run to start the second half with the back court pressure. Can you talk about how that was effective and what you were able to do with that? JULES BERNARD: We have long, athletic athletes and when we put our mind to it, play with energy on the defensive end, I think that press really -- because we have a lot of length, so when we start pressing, we're able to get steals, deflections, and disrupt their offense going down. So that's, we try to get us back into the game with our press. Q. The affect of the turnovers, particularly, in the first half, seemed like that seemed to get in your way. JULES BERNARD: For us? Obviously, turnovers hurt us a lot, especially in a game like this where every possession is important. We were down, I think, 13 at the half, and we had, I don't know, a good amount of turnovers, 14. So those are just 14 possessions where we could get fouled and put two points on the board. So every possession, especially in games like this, are extremely important, and those turnovers definitely hurt us. Q. Jaime, is it nice to see Jules come back from injury and add what he was able to add today? JAIME JAQUEZ JR: Yeah, definitely. He was a huge part of the game. He hit a lot of threes, a lot of big shots, caught it in the passing lanes, got rebounds, played really, really hard and we're glad to have him back and he was a huge help during this game. Q. For either player, even though you lost, are there some positives that you can take from this game, things to build on? JULES BERNARD: I think the press is definitely a positive. I think we're going to have to do more of that during the season. We know, we see what our length can do on the defensive end if we actually play hard and play aggressive on defense, and actually try to get deflections. And we have been preaching toughness all season, so we have to continue to try to build off certain spurts, like, we had a great first eight or so minutes because -- to the second half. So we just got to build off that and try to continue those habits, especially on the defensive end. Q. Jules for you, are you tending to slow down little bit more on offense? And are you finding more success doing that, do you think? JULES BERNARD: Yeah, I try to. Coach has told me that I have to utilize my strengths, being under control, being a strong guard that I am. So if I'm out of control, that takes a way my strengths. So he's trying to get me to play slower and I'm trying to listen as much as I can and do what he tells me on offense. So definitely slowing down is going to help me a lot as a player. And it will help my team because it is less turnovers. Q. I realize the turnovers came in a lot different ways, but was there any common theme? Maybe playing too fast as a team or anything that kind of fed into so many turnovers? JAIME JAQUEZ JR: I think we weren't very under control when we got the ball. We had some travel calls, some just losing the ball, just some fumbling, some silly errors that we had. I think just slowing down was probably the biggest thing that we could have done to stop those turnovers. Q. Jaime, when you look at the three-point shooting, did you like the looks you were getting or just a matter of not making them, or do you think you were taking some that, as a team that were ill advised? JAIME JAQUEZ JR: There was some that I thought I had good looks at, but others maybe I could have drove the ball, draw the foul. That's probably what I should have done during those threes that I missed. Getting the one-on-one in the bonus. Q. I know you guys are kind of looking for building blocks along the way here, but is it hard to kind of go through this process right now? Obviously, you're adding stuff that's going well and -- but losing games at the same time. Is that process hard to go through right now for you guys? JULES BERNARD: We're competitors, every single person on this team, our coaching staff. We're all competitors. So we're not going to dwell on the losses. We're going to take what -- we're going to learn from them, and we're going to take what we did well, and we're going to take what we need to work on, and we're going to try to improve. But we know that there are ups and downs, so we just have to continue to fight. And we're all competitors, so we're going do keep competing this whole season and try to get next to where we need to. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll let you get back to your team and take an opening statement from Coach. MICK CRONIN: Well, we lost the game in the first half. In particular, the last 10 minutes of the first half. So we're just, we're not capable at the high level against a team that's got, you know, they're out there playing either fifth-year seniors or eight Top-60 recruits. We're just not capable of sustaining playing smart, playing hard. We got beat to multiple loose balls. And the turnovers give us absolutely no chance. But that said, in defense of my players, I thought that the officials took the first half off. You watch that -- I mean, you watch the game, that -- and North Carolina won, so don't misconstrue what I'm saying. The game was officiated two separate, two separate halves. All you got to do is look at the fouls per half. Q. I was a little confused as to that -- MICK CRONIN: Well, we had 20 fouls in the second half. North Carolina had 13. First half, six and seven. So in the first half, we're trying to drive the ball and guys are being fouled the entire time. We got fouled on four or five shots, we got fouled on multiple drives. And now, when that happens, you got to be tough, you got to be able to deal with it, you got to play off two feet, and we didn't and it killed us. And, in fact, the last couple games we haven't been able to score inside at all in the half court, so we're searching. We're searching on the offense in there for somebody to give us -- somebody we can put the ball in his hand, and he can get a basket or a foul or he can get his teammate a shot. Q. Did Jules make a case to be, potentially, one of those guys today? MICK CRONIN: Yeah, it was great. I told you guys it was a shame when went down because he's really, really been trying. He's been trying to listen to me in practice and really slowing down, like he had mentioned, and using his strength. He's always in the gym working on his game. He's one of our most dedicated guys. So I absolutely. It really crushed -- it was crushing when he went down the day before the Notre Dame game. And I was worried he was out for a long time. Q. Then, I was confused as to what the call was on Jalen when they -- MICK CRONIN: They called it on North Carolina, and then they changed it and called it on us. Q. It was a review? They were reviewing it? That was what the delay -- or the timeout was for? MICK CRONIN: Yeah, the problem was the same foul happened in the first play of the game against Notre Dame and Jalen turned and it was a foul on Jalen. Now, North Carolina guy turns and elbows Jalen in the mouth and it's a foul on Jalen. Just, as a coach, all you want is consistency. Again, that, you got to find ways to win games. I won 89 games my last three years and these same guys were all ref'ing. So you got to be tough enough to deal with it. Just right now, our guys, it threw them off. Q. In terms of the officiating, would you say that they were trying to, obviously, change? MICK CRONIN: It's two different halves. You saw it. It's two different halves. For both teams. It's just two different halves. Totally. But I will say that we were in the bonus with 13 minutes left in the game and never shot the bonus. Q. Would you say there's some positives to take from your press, though? MICK CRONIN: Yeah. The problem is once we stop scoring. You can't press, if you don't score. So I've coached pressing teams before and the problem is you can't press -- I mean, you got -- I guess, theoretically, you could -- it's hard to press a turnover. But, yeah, no question, just, really, it's almost like forced therapy to try to get guys to play hard. But then you're trying to generate offense. Right now as a coaching staff we're just trying to figure out ways to generate offense. So we get some steals, get some layups, because we're really struggling five on five in the half court right now. Where do we go with the ball. What's happened is we played 10 games and teams figured out that you just, you got to double and triple team Cody and Jalen when they catch it down low. And they have taken that away from us. And now we're 4-21 from three. We were 2-15 at Notre Dame or 3-15, something like that. So that's where we're really struggling in the half court. Q. Do you like the looks you're getting from three or? MICK CRONIN: Some of them. I mean some of them are wide open. Yeah. I mean, I would have to look at the film, but we had some pretty good looks, to be fair. What really kills us, because that happens, again, I've won games with these numbers. We shot -- didn't we shoot 42 percent? Shot 42 percent for the year and went to multiple NCAA tournaments. The problem is you can't turn the ball over -- the real problem is, when you're missing all those shots in the first half, we had zero second chance points. Zero. Now how are you going to win? If you're shooting -- if you have a team that's not shooting the ball well, theoretically it means a lot of opportunities for offensive rebounds. So much so that the teams are going to get some up, you're going to get some. But it's been a strength of ours, it's why we won a lot of our home games. Q. Seems like there was a little bit more tendency to drive the ball, Chris Smith was a little bit more aggressive in doing that. Is he coming along in that? MICK CRONIN: He's got to learn to pass -- it this is all of our guys -- Tyger's got to learn to shoot when he's open. And he got in the lane a few times, and nobody helped, all he had to do was lay it in. And we got some other guys that when they drive the ball there's three guys on them and we got to find the open man. So we did get some shots when we did drive the ball and find the open man. It's not that -- it's not that hard -- you got to drive the ball and score or get fouled; and if you can't, you got to find the open man. If you can't, that's because somebody's helping, you must find the open man. We struggled mightily in this area. Why is which why, when we can't pound it inside, we have to now generate offense from our guards. I'm not giving away -- people got film, so I'm not giving you the, you know, the secret sauce, everybody already knows. Like we can't, in the half court, we can't pound it inside, we have to, we hesitate, some of those threes were hesitating. We struggled to know when we're open and then when we drive the ball we don't shoot sometimes. When we drive the ball we got to create for each other. Three assists in the first half. Q. Are you seeing some signs they're getting better at it though, would you say? MICK CRONIN: I think we got to get a lot better at it. I think we, against high major teams, I just gave it to you, we got to get better at executing some things and being able to score from a screening and strategy standpoint. Whatever we're trying to execute, we got to make sure that we execute it. We can't, we don't have enough, we just don't have enough, we don't have four first round picks running around just getting their own, we got to be a really good execution team, we got to maximize our possessions, because we don't have somebody who can hit threes five feet behind the line and bail us out when we don't execute. I got to find a way to get Jalen and Cody back to being a factor in the post. That's really killing our offense the last three games. We haven't been able to go inside and come away with anything. As soon as they trap us we got to be ready and we got to pass out and get wide open shots outs of it. We got no chance to win, guys, with 23 turnovers. Not against North Carolina or not against a great coach in LeVelle Moton at North Carolina Central. Can't win with 23 turnovers. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, coach. MICK CRONIN: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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