PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2021

Tad Boyle

Colorado Buffaloes

Postgame Press Conference

Colorado - 61, California - 58

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement by coach.

TAD BOYLE: Look, March is all about surviving and advancing, tournament basketball. I think it was Coach Valvano that came up with that, if I'm correct. But we survived tonight and we're advancing. But we didn't play our best basketball. Cal had a lot to do with that. I thought they, they're so physical and they got hot going in the second half. We fouled three three-point jump shooters in the second half. I mean, just, you should never foul one. We fouled three of them. One of them I was just like, I'm not sure. But whatever, I mean, we can't do that. We got two timeouts and we get a five-second call on our press offense.

So, look, we didn't play our best basketball. We were sped up. Cal sped us up for some reason tonight. We were rushed. Evan was rushed in the first half, McKinley was rushed, D'Shawn was rushed. We had a -- we didn't make any plays in transition. For as good a defense as we played, we didn't get any, we didn't capitalize on our transition offense at all tonight.

So you got to figure out a way to win when you don't play your best, we did that tonight, and we weren't at our best. And but again Cal had a lot to do with that and I've got great respect for what Mark Fox is doing. They have had a rough year in terms of wins and losses, but, man, they have been in every game and tonight's another example. They didn't give up and they made it hard on us. So we got a quick turnaround tomorrow to play the Trojans.

Q. The defensive job by Eli on Matt Bradley, obviously Bradley's a guy that has kind of torched you guys the last couple years, but he hit a couple shots late, but Eli seemed pretty motivated from the get-go tonight?

TAD BOYLE: Eli was terrific and did an unbelievable job. And, again, I think Matt Bradley was scoreless until we fouled him on a three-point jump shot and he made three free throws and saw the ball go in the basket, and then he started feeling it a little bit. But we held him scoreless at halftime. We were trying to double-team him in any handoffs or ball screens that he was a part of, to try to get the ball out of his hands and we did a good job of that and I think it frustrated him in the first half. But he's a good player and he torched us in Berkeley for 27. So we had to come up with something. I thought we did a good job of that, for the most part. They scored a couple times out of it. Anticevich hit a three there in the corner because we didn't get to him. But Eli was terrific all night and I don't know how many of his 10 he got on Eli. I know the three free throws were not on him. But terrific effort from a First-Team All-Defensive player.

Q. Earlier this week you talked about wanting to get your post guys going a little bit more offensively, and both Evan and Dallas tonight were able to get themselves going, probably more in the first half for Dallas, Evan more so in the second half. What did you see from those two tonight, just their ability to finish and get to the line and then how encouraging was that to get your post offense going again?

TAD BOYLE: Yeah, we need those guys to get going because if you look at their numbers over the last five or six games, they both have struggled a little bit from a percentage standpoint, relative to what we normally expect out of both of them. I thought Dallas with a terrific in that first half. He kind of kept us in the game and hit the three and then hit a 15-foot jump shot. They went to zone there at the end when I called the timeout. I wish he would have shot that one because Dallas is a good shooter. But you're right, he kind of kept us going in the first half, and then Evan got going emotionally in the second half, and he plays so hard and he's got such a passion for the game that, those guys are important to us. Jabari Walker, great minutes off the bench. Jeriah Horne, again, wasn't probably his best tonight but did some really good things for us. And rebounding the ball is going to be key for us. We play USC tomorrow night. They're the longest team in our league in terms of length and height, so we're going to need to rebound tomorrow night. But I thought we battled on the boards tonight and our bigs were a big part of that.

Q. Looking ahead to tomorrow night, you guys have beaten USC twice, what do you expect them to do differently against you guys tomorrow night? Do you expect them to change things up or?

TAD BOYLE: I don't know, Coach Rohn has that scout. I know he was watching them on the plane on the way out in hopes that we would be playing them tomorrow night and we are. So I'll probably have a better feel for that in the morning after Coach and I get together when we get back to the hotel tonight and talk about our game plan and what USC's been doing here recently. As a head coach you don't get the opportunity to probably watch as many games as you would like to sometimes. You catch pieces of them. But USC's a very talented team. We know that. They present a lot of problems. Obviously they beat UCLA on the road, which is hard to do. Tahj Eaddy is playing very well, and obviously Evan Mobley, look at the post-season awards he got. He's a terrific player. So USC's got great personnel, so I don't know what they're going to do. But this time of year you don't see a lot of changes in terms of what people do, but there might be some nuances here or there that we'll have to either anticipate or we'll have to adjust to tomorrow night.

Q. Jabari had some moments tonight where, you mentioned a little bit, but there was some sloppy moments from you guys and he just looked like a bull in a China shop to kind of get you guys going, get you back into a flow. For him to have that in his first ever post-season game that's pretty big-time stuff, right?

TAD BOYLE: Yeah, absolutely. The thing about Jabari all year long, is he plays with no fear, doesn't play with any hesitation, he believes in himself, and his motor is just so good and he just gets his hands on so many balls, rebounding the ball. I mean, he snatched a rebound tonight with one hand, which we don't teach, but he went up and got it and he finished, didn't get the foul, but he put the ball in the basket. It was just a big-time play by a guy, who just, he just comes in and plays with zero fear. So Jabari, it's great to have him back. He hit a big-time three that McKinley hit him on and didn't hesitate, he knew he was going to shoot it before he caught it and he stepped in and knocked it down. The thing I like about our team is our depth in the post. Dallas Walton and Evan Battey start for us, but you got Jabari and Jeriah that come off the bench. That's four guys that you can depend on on any given night, and Jabari was good in his minutes tonight. But had some freshman mistakes as well, but I was overall pretty pleased with him.

Q. Curious, with the two overtime games ahead of yours, including the double overtime right ahead of yours, this thing tipped off about an hour late. I realize it was the same situation for you and Cal. But wondering, is there any kind of inherent challenge to you get geared up to play a big game and then you kind of find yourself in a hurry up and wait situation?

TAD BOYLE: Yeah, not really. It's just part of it. These kids have played and a lot of them have played in state tournaments in high school and that happens and it happens in AAU events that they play in coming up, so, yeah, not really. Here's what I like about our team. Our team is enjoying this moment and they were, in today's technology world, they had the game on on their phones, they were following it, they were just enjoying themselves. And I want them to do that because I think, what I don't want is I don't want us to play tight, I don't want us to play like, oh, my God, you know, if we don't win this game, the world's coming to an end. I want them to enjoy the moment, enjoy March Madness, and part of that is watching other people that you're going to compete against and obviously we're going to play one of those two teams tonight, so they watched a lot of that game down the stretch, so that hopefully that will help us in our preparation tomorrow.

But this time of year, especially in league tournaments like this, there's no secrets, there's no secrets that we have that USC doesn't know about. I don't think there's a lot of secrets that they have that we don't know about. It's just who is going to execute and play best tomorrow night. We're going to have to play well to beat them. We're going to have to play better than we played tonight, I can promise you that, and I really believe that we will.