PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 8, 2023

Tad Boyle

Tristan da Silva

Julian Hammond III

Colorado Buffaloes

Postgame Press Conference

Colorado - 74, Washington - 68

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Colorado. Coach, if you'd like to make an opening statement and then we'll take some questions.

TAD BOYLE: Yeah, that was a gutsy win, I thought, by our guys. Obviously we're down a bunch of bodies and we know that, but Washington is too. They had a couple guys that weren't here tonight. So I thought we played with great resolve down the stretch, great toughness. I was not real pleased with the way we ended the first half or the way we started the second half offensively or defensively.

So we kind of, in my mind, we let Washington back in the game. But to their credit they didn't go away. We knew they were going to probably make a run at some point. We just didn't want it to be right out of the chute at halftime.

But these guys bowed their backs. They made plays when they had to make plays. I thought Julian was terrific down the stretch. Tristan did a great job when he got the ball in the high post against their zone. Then late when they went man, we knew we had to kind of grind 'em out and get 'em in ball screens, and Julian made some really good reads, and we made some plays when we had to make plays. That's how you win games in March. Your players have to make plays down the stretch, and we did that, because that game could have gone either way. So give Washington credit for their fight, but our guys fought too and I'm really proud of 'em.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions.

Q. Earlier in the season you kind of questioned this team's toughness more than a few times. You just mentioned in your opening comments, has that evolved a little bit as the season has gone on? As you said, it seemed like you guys played with a lot of toughness today.

TAD BOYLE: I do. I do. I just think, especially in games like this. It's an 8-9 game, we've had a disappointing year based on our standards and our expectations internally. So you find out in games like this who wants their season to continue and who doesn't, and I thought our guys played like they wanted it to continue.

The toughness shows up in rebounding. We were plus nine. Our guys did a good job, again, making those 50/50 balls. Jalen Gabbidon, I thought gave us great minutes in that first half, you know, diving on the floor, got us some extra possessions. So it was a team effort. Nique got some big rebounds down the stretch defensively.

Obviously these two guys were great offensively for us, but it was a team victory because there's a lot of guys that laid it out on the line tonight. You know me, I just call it like it is, as I see it, with toughness. When I see it, I compliment these guys and pat 'em on the back. When I don't see it, I challenge 'em. Tonight we saw it, without a doubt. We're going to need that tomorrow against UCLA because the one thing they are is tough.

Q. Julian, given the nature of the up-and-down nature of the season, how nice was it to come out and have this kind of performance individually and collectively?

JULIAN HAMMOND III: It was great. It feels good to play good all the time, but it's just important that we win at this point because you know if we lose our season's over with, because we have been up-and-down. We've won a lot of games that, or we've lost a lot of games we should have won, and so we feel like our record should be better, but given where we're at, we're just fighting to win every day and to keep our season going pretty much.

Q. For either of you, over the last minute, I think four or five guys made key plays, a steal, a three. So many of you contributed. How does that leave you feeling as a team? Is it even a more special feeling than had one guy taken over down the stretch?

TRISTAN DA SILVA: Yeah, definitely. I feel like kind of unites us more. Everybody kind of has their part in the victory. I feel like it's every game everybody contributes to winning, but especially with those key plays you kind of get more of that feeling.

Q. Luke O'Brien, another double double, 13 points, 10 rebounds. He's become invaluable to this starting lineup and to this team. Can you touch on his importance the past couple, like toward the end of this stretch and then continuing to this tournament.

TAD BOYLE: Yeah, absolutely. Luke's become a really integral part of this team and this rotation, especially with the injuries that we've had, J'Vonne Hadley's to be specific. His energy, his rebounding, his offensive rebounding, I think it's a little bit contagious too because Luke brings it and I think his teammates appreciate him for that. I know I certainly do. He's made a great strides.

Sometimes injuries, you can always look at it as a negative, but you can also look at it as a positive. So the injury to J'Vonne Hadley was a negative, but it was a positive for Luke. The injury or the illness that K.J. had was a negative for K.J., but it was a positive for Julian.

So you always, I would say, again, next man up, you got to use it and look at the silver lining. The silver lining is opportunities are there for other people. Luke has made a tremendous stride in his game and he's become a really, really important part of this team and our success down the stretch.

Q. Julian, I talked to you a little bit about this earlier in the week, but once again, subbing for K.J. you come up with a big game. How have you been able to kind of go about that task of stepping into the starting lineup and responding?

JULIAN HAMMOND III: I'm just prepared every day. I feel ready to go when I get the opportunity. It's a bigger role, so I know I'm going to have to do more than what I usually do. But I don't feel like it's any extra pressure or anything. I'm just going out there and playing, having fun, and doing what I can do.

Q. I was wondering, is K.J. with his situation is he even here or does he have to isolate?

TAD BOYLE: No, he's here. He's fine. As long as he's not kissing our guys we're good, you know what I mean? So, yeah, he's here. Hopefully next week if we're playing, we'll get him retested and hopefully he'll be ready to go. If he's not, guess what? He's not.

Again, Julian goes from playing eight to ten minutes a game to playing 30. I think he played 36 against Utah, plays 35 tonight. I mean, he's stayed ready and I'm proud as heck of him. I think, as you look at this program, it's too early to start talking about next year, but guys are making strides here down the stretch that can really, I think, be positive for their future, and that's a good thing for us as a program.

The biggest thing for me is this tournament now starts. This was kind of the warm-up game, so to speak, and now we're faced with playing UCLA, who is one of the top teams in the country who just had an injury to their lineup. But we know what they're all about. We've battled them. We've come up short, just like we had battled Washington and come up short.

But UCLA's a different animal. They're the best team in our league. So we got to get rest, hydrate, get these guys off their feet, and be ready to rock and roll at noon tomorrow.

Q. Maybe touch on Lawson's game. Nine points, five rebounds but only one turnover. It seems like he's made some major progressions throughout the season. It may not show up in the box score and the stats, but it seemed like his on-court presence and his on-court abilities have really helped this team down the stretch.

TAD BOYLE: I'll be glad to talk about Lawson. I want to hear from his teammates about Lawson.

TRISTAN DA SILVA: Yeah, I feel like you can see it out there, his strides that he has made throughout the season. I feel like he's way more comfortable out there. His presence in general is just, it's just really beneficial for this team. On offense he's a, he can be a loud threat, I guess. But he's putting pressure on the rim at all times. People got to respect that he's shooting, I don't know, like, 55, 60 percent from the field or so. So teams got to respect that in the paint.

And then defensively he's one of our main guys and communicating and being right with our ball screen coverage and stuff like that. So he's a huge part of our defense.

JULIAN HAMMOND III: Yeah, definitely. He's a big part of our defense. He bails us out a good amount of times. I got beat on a reject today, but Lawson was there, and it was at a big point of the game where it's like possession for possession. He steps up in those moments. He had a few dunks today. He alters a lot of shots. He can guard guards. So he's really effective on both ends.

TAD BOYLE: And he's growing. This is Lawson's freshman year. He missed like 15, 18 games last year, didn't get a lot of minutes as a true freshman. So I was really, really proud of him in terms of his growth throughout the year. One of the, there was two defensive keys tonight. One was Keion Brooks. He had had 25 and 27 against us. We hold him to 16 tonight. Did a pretty good job. He's good player. One of the keys was Brooks.

The other key was to keep Meah off the rim and dunking the ball because he's such a, he is a lob threat. Lawson didn't give him any dunks. He got one in transition at the end of the first half. He got another bucket along the way. But Lawson, not only does he help these guys guard, but he also guards one of the best lob threats in our league.

So defensively you just can't say enough about him, and offensively he's a work in progress. He's just going to keep getting better and better. He's unselfish. The thing I would love as a guard, a former guard, I would love playing with Lawson because he's not a black hole where you give him the ball on the block and it's going up.

Sometimes it will, but it will get kicked back out a lot too, so that inside out is a big part of our offense, and the one turnover was key because that's, that shows growth.

Q. You mentioned the adjustments you made with Braxton Meah and Keion Brooks. You've lost to Washington twice this year. What was different, what did you guys do different? Did you see anything different from Washington? Did they do anything different?

TAD BOYLE: We got 'em to go man in the second half. We weren't able to do that in the first two games. They basically played the zone the whole game. I thought in the first two games we got the ball where we wanted to get the ball offensively against the zone. We just didn't make enough plays.

And I thought we did tonight at times, even though at halftime you hold-em to 27 percent and they have three offensive rebounds, you would like to look down and see yourself up 16 or 18. We're up eight because we couldn't finish. But we got great shots.

As a coach, these guys will tell you, all I want is great shots. Julian came off a ball screen in the first half, had a 15-footer, shot it, missed it. No worries. Nique had a wide open three in the corner, missed it. As long as we're getting good shots, and then these guys at some point have to finish, and we did that down the stretch because we were able to get 'em to go man because I thought we attacked their zone pretty darn well. Tristan made some really good plays out of the high post, especially to Lawson in that second half early, got 'em a couple dunks, got us some threes.

So our ability to get them to go man-to-man at the end, I thought was a difference tonight versus the first two games.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much.