PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 16, 2024

Tad Boyle

Tristan da Silva

KJ Simpson

Colorado Buffaloes

Postgame Press Conference

Oregon - 75, Colorado - 68

TAD BOYLE: I'm proud of our guys. I'm proud of our team. I'm proud of what they've done over the last four, four and a half weeks, and we're not going to let this one game define us, because what these guys have done over that period of time is nothing short of amazing, in my opinion.

So we've really come together. We've played well, well enough to win. Unfortunately tonight we didn't. Oregon had a lot to do with that.

I thought N'Faly Dante, he was the difference in the game. He's gone -- even when we played him at Eugene he was 10-for-10 from the field. He was 12-for-12 tonight. By my math that's 22-for-22.

And we were trying to double him. He scored out of double teams. He played extremely well. He changed shots at the rim, defensively. Oregon played better than us tonight. They deserved to win. We didn't.

We had our chances. We just didn't play well enough. I think turnovers, not necessarily turnovers, but the turnover margin -- we're dead last in the Pac-12 in terms of how many times we turn it over versus our opponents. Tonight that cost us the game because we had 13 turnovers and they had three. That's 10 extra possessions that Oregon has that we don't. That's the difference in a close game like this.

We've got nobody to blame but ourselves, but credit goes to Oregon. I thought N'Faly Dante was a beast tonight, and we didn't -- when he's scoring out of double teams, I'm not sure what else we did. We did better as the game went on, but we just gave up too many easy ones.

Q. As leaders on the team, what's the message to the guys after a game like that?

KJ SIMPSON: Obviously, a disappointed locker room, especially how far we've come and what we had to go through to -- out of all the games to lose the championship, it stings.

But we believe we've got more basketball left. Obviously, like I said, everyone's disappointed, but we can't dwell and we can't sit and mope around about this one loss.

There's more basketball left to be played and we've got to give it our all.

Q. You guys led by one after Luke's 3-pointer, a little more than four minutes remaining. What happened in those last few minutes? I know there were some turnovers. From there on offensively you seemed out of sync.

TAD BOYLE: We got some good looks. The looks we got we didn't convert. Like you said, we had some turnovers there. You can't turn the ball over, especially when your opponent is not turning it over.

So it gets down to execution. You've got to be able to finish plays when you have plays to be made, and you can't turn the thing over.

We're right there. As I look back at that last four minutes, when we got looks, I can't think of too many bad shots we took or even quick shots.

I thought our offense was better in the second half. The first half it was atrocious. When we worked and moved a little bit we got easy looks, but we just didn't have the patience to do that possession after possession in the first half.

We talked about it at halftime. I thought our guys came out in the second half and did a much better job of that. But we just couldn't stop them all night long. I think that's the bottom line. I think we had nine stops, eight stops in the second half.

That's not going to cut it because you're trading baskets, and we couldn't string together stops in the second half. That's what you have to do.

We were only down by three at halftime. We were right there. Like you said, with four minutes to go we're up one. The game's there to be had -- we just didn't finish it off.

Q. You guys seemed to get Oregon in foul trouble early but just didn't seem to be able to capitalize on that. What was the reason for that?

TAD BOYLE: It's not like we changed our game plan. We always want to play inside/out. Dante got two fouls. It kind of flipped on us because Eddie got, first part of the second half, he got No. 2 and No. 3, bang, bang. All of a sudden we're in foul trouble.

We haven't dealt with foul trouble a lot this year, but we didn't have anybody foul out. So it's not like that was the issue.

But we always want to play inside/out. But, again, our lack of patience in that first half offensively is why we only had 30 at halftime.

We scored 79 on these guys in Eugene like two weeks ago, and we have 68 tonight. We don't shoot the ball extremely well tonight. Again, we had some good looks, but I just think that turnover differential, 13-3, that's 10 extra possessions. I keep going back to that. That's the difference in this game.

Q. You talked about how well you had been clicking the last eight games last night. Even after a game where you guys got outplayed, how confident do you feel that this team will continue to click like it did during that winning streak?

TAD BOYLE: I've got a lot of confidence in these guys. There's no doubt. What we've done -- what they have done over the last four weeks -- since that loss at UCLA, which was another one-possession game down the stretch; it was a make/miss game, could have gone either way -- to bounce back and come back.

But, again, turnovers have been an issue with our team all year. We've done a much better job of that here recently. But even the USC win in double overtime we turned it over 21 times. But since then we've been averaging less than 10 a game. And, again, it's that differential that is the key.

But I've got a lot of confidence in these guys. We're a veteran group. We've got toughness. We've got heart. These guys -- I really think they care about each other.

The biggest thing to me is you've got to stick together. When things don't go your way and you're disappointed, that's part of life, you gotta deal with it. Gotta move on, and the sun will come up tomorrow.

Q. This is the end of the line for Colorado in the Pac-12. You're going to head back to the Big 12, where you guys were mainstays for many years. Have you any thoughts about the experience for the university in the Pac-12? I know it wasn't a long tenure, but do you have any personal thoughts about leaving and what it meant to be part of this conference?

A. Yeah, number one, the Pac-12, the tradition it has, especially in basketball, going back to the Wooden days -- and I'm proud to have been part of it for 13 years. I wish it was not going away, but it is.

We're excited to be in the Big-12, because it's the best basketball league in the country. But getting guys like KJ out of L.A. has really brought us into Southern California and Northern California recruiting, the western part of the United States. And that's going to continue.

But so it was good. It was good for our university. It's sad -- we really, really wanted to go out like we came in. And we were the first team to win the first Pac-12 tournament. Here we are in a championship game, a winnable game, and we just don't get it done.

That's going to be with us for the rest of our lives. And there's nothing we can do about that now. But I'm proud of our team. I'm proud to have represented this league. I think we were fourth in wins over that 12-, 13-year period in basketball. So we've had a good run. Now it's back to the Midwest and beyond.

Q. Tristan, what's going through your mind as you begin to process this?

TRISTAN DA SILVA: Obviously it hurts. Going through this twice in four years, as KJ and Coach said, we have a lot of basketball ahead of us, too. I've got to deal with this one. But I've got to make sure I look ahead. Don't let this one linger around.

Q. I know it's a disappointing moment right now, but what did you maybe learn about this team during your run over the last few weeks? And is there a renewed new confidence kind of for maybe whatever comes next?

TRISTAN DA SILVA: Yeah, for sure. I feel like the last eight games we played the way that we thought we were supposed to play the whole season. Kind of seeing the work that we put in pay off. Making that run, finishing third in the Pac-12, kind of put us where we wanted to be.

And I have ultimate trust in each and every single one of the players, each of my teammates. And it's a fun group to be around. It's a fun group to play with. I'll definitely miss them when all this is over.

But once again, we've still got some basketball ahead of us.

Q. Coach, I know you haven't wanted to look into all the bubble talk. But you're at this spot, how do you feel about the resumé that your team has put together?

TAD BOYLE: It doesn't really matter what I think, quite frankly. It matters what the committee thinks.

And here's what I do know: Being at Colorado for 14 years now, we've coached teams that have deserved to be in the tournament that weren't. I think about that first team that we coached with Alec Burks and Cory Higgins and Nate Tomlinson and those guys -- Austin Dufault.

We should have been in the tournament that year but we weren't. We were left out. We went to the final four of the NIT. And that was an NCAA Tournament team.

A few years later, the year Spencer tore his ACL, in Washington, we were 15-3, ranked 15th in the country and then limped in from there. We were basically a .500 team the rest of that year, and we got in the tournament because of what we did in November and December.

But we weren't an NCAA Tournament team, and it showed because we got blown out by, like, 40 against Pittsburgh that day in Orlando.

I've coached teams that have deserved to be in that weren't in. I've also coached teams that didn't deserve to be in but got in.

And so it really doesn't matter. All that matters is what that committee thinks. I look at our metrics. I look at these guys, and there's no doubt in my mind this is an NCAA Tournament team. I've known that from day one.

We had some hiccups and injuries along the way. Hopefully they'll look at the whole body of work and recognize we're one of the best of -- what is it, 37 at-large teams? I can't think of 36 or 37 better than us. But that's for them to decide, not for me to decide.

I'll say this, though, about these two guys. Dick Bennett coached in this league at Washington State. He's a hell of a coach. Coached for many, many years. He said something once that resonated with me, and that is you've got to find guys you're willing to lose with before you can find guys you're willing to win with.

And I'll lose with these guys every day of the week. I believe in them. A hundred percent. I believe in that team in that locker room, but they deserve to move on. We'll see if it happens tomorrow. If it does, it does. If it doesn't, we'll move on as well. But this team, to me, is worthy.