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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2014Askia BookerTad BoyleJosh ScottLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Colorado – 59 THE MODERATOR: Coach Boyle, an opening statement on the game. COACH BOYLE: Well, sometimes you've got to win ugly, and we won ugly tonight. There is no doubt about it. When you don't play your best and you're off your game with multiple guys on multiple levels and you figure out a way to win, that is a testament to your mental toughness. I challenge these guys, not only Askia and Josh, but our whole team after the Utah game. I heard Coach Enfield speaking here at the end, but when it's a game that shots aren't going in and you're struggling offensively and the whistle is not going your way on either side, that's where mental toughness really has to take over. That's where I think our team over the last two weeks has made tremendous strides. We talked about the timeouts. I saw heads nodding. They get that. So when you win and you don't play your best, that's a testament to your mental toughness. I thought we showed that. We made just enough winning plays down the end. I thought Askia's play defensively there, hustle play, got us an extra possession. We knew they had to foul us. No foul called and our guys came down. They got a good look, and if that goes in, we're probably still playing. But plays like that are winning plays, and we made just enough of those tonight. We'll have to make a lot more tomorrow against a very good Cal team. But we knew USC, this was their last breath, and they've got good, talented players. Byron Wesley is a heck of a player; he played well tonight, Pe'Shon Howard as well. They've got good players. Nothing is easy this time of year, that's for sure. So rather than ramble, we'll take questions. Q. Askia, you've been a part of the last three years in this tournament. It seems like this first round game always seems to give you guys a little bit of a fit. What is it about this game, do you think? ASKIA BOOKER: It's nothing in particular. I just think it's a new arena. I mean, we played here once this year, but we haven't practiced on the floor. I don't know if that might be an excuse, but at the end of the day we're not going to make excuses. The game was close. Josh probably had six points in the first half. He's usually in the 12s, 13s, and Xavier was a little frustrated. But at the end of the day it comes down to defensive rebounding, and if we can do that, whether we win by 10 or 1, as long as we win, that's what matters. Q. You guys only had 13 turnovers on the day, but all of them came in the first 28 minutes of this game. You turn it around and didn't have any the last 11, 12 minutes. What was the difference there that you guys started taking better care of the ball? ASKIA BOOKER: This man right here. He kind of got upset about us turning the ball over because he knows it was allowing them to get out in transition and get easy buckets. But at the end of the day, defense is not the only thing. You have to take care of the ball. Because at the end of the day, you can't get your defense set if you turn it over and they're in transition and scoring easy buckets. I think we just wanted to eliminate those easy buckets and make them score over us in the half court set. Q. You guys played Cal just five days ago; it's a one‑point overtime game. Can you talk about what little thing you maybe need to do better to get over the hump against them? ASKIA BOOKER: Yeah, I think we need more plays like I had tonight, those winning plays. Cal is a very good team, especially with Justin Cobbs and Richard Solomon, those two players, they lead their team very well. Although it was a close game, we just played them, those guys are just as capable of making the plays that we are, but it's going to come down to who is mentally tough. Coach uses those two words a lot, and tonight we were mentally tough and we're going to have to carry that over to tomorrow to hopefully get the victory. Q. Josh, your sentiments? JOSH SCOTT: We've just got to make some plays down the stretch there that we didn't. We let them get too many offensive rebounds at the end of the game. So I think the little plays will be big and they've got to be ours. Q. Josh, I wanted to ask you about your game tonight. Obviously, it was a struggle with your shot for much of this game, but you kept at it and had some big buckets later on. First, talk about how frustrating it was for you; and second, how key you were down the stretch? JOSH SCOTT: It was frustrating. I think that was pretty obvious I was pretty frustrated. But I thank my teammates a lot for having confidence in me to keep getting me the ball there at the end. It tells me that they still have confidence even when I might not have the most confidence in myself at the time. So I appreciated them. Nights like these happen. Q. Coach, I'll ask you the same thing I asked Ski. Is there something about this first round game? COACH BOYLE: You know, I don't know. I go back to our last year in the Big 12. We played a game like this against Iowa State in the first. I just think tournament basketball, you saw the first game between Utah and Washington, tournament basketball, everybody's got new life. Everybody's got a fresh start on things. You throw the records out the window because you're playing for your life. I think that's the biggest reason is that there are a lot of good teams in college basketball. To win games in March is the most difficult thing to do. During the regular season we talk about winning away from home, but certainly in March on neutral courts and people are playing if their lives or their seasons are over. USC had four seniors playing their last game. Those kids played hard. They played with a lot of heart and a lot of energy. So sometimes I think as coaches and certainly as media that follow your team or the team you cover, sometimes not enough credit goes to the opponent you're playing against. I think USC had something to do with the game tonight, and it was a physical game. It was a rough game. Josh battled; the guy battled. They had 13‑9, and he feels like he had an awful game. He's a pretty special player. Again, we made enough plays down the stretch. You look at the numbers, defensively we hit all our numbers, rebounding we hit all our numbers. We're lucky to win. The reason is for, what Brian said, we took care of the ball better down the stretch than we did in the first half, and certainly the first part of the second half. We talked at halftime about, guys, we've got to take care of the ball, and we can't give up lay‑ups. The first possession of the second half we turn over the ball and USC gets a lay‑up. It was like oh, that was a hell of a halftime speech. But it's not like our guards aren't trying.  Ski made a good point, players have to make plays. You have to make winning plays. Sometimes it comes down to just that. But all these games are ugly sometimes. Q. Can you assess how you think‑‑ what you think the keys are tomorrow against Cal? Is there perhaps more pressure on them because they may need a win more badly? COACH BOYLE: Listen, we both want to win this game. Throw all that other stuff out the window. Cal has a hell of a Coach, Hall of Fame Coach in my opinion. They've got a great senior in Justin Cobbs and Richard Solomon, another one. And they've got others off the bench. They don't want their season to end. They don't want their Pac‑12 first game to be their last game. We want to keep playing, so it's going to be a hell of a game. What we have to do better than we did at Berkley is we have to finish defensive possessions. You look at ten offensive rebounds in the second half that we gave up and a couple of those at really critical times where if we get a stop, we're ahead, we've got the lead. We got our stop, but we couldn't come up with the rebound. So we have to finish defensive possessions. Same thing tonight. We weren't finishing defense. We had good defense, ball is on the floor, they pick it up and lay it in.  Down there at the end, Oraby's down on the floor; he comes up with the loose ball. It's a jump ball, and those balls have to be ours. Against Cal it may come down to a loose ball here, a long rebound there. It might be a made three or a missed three. But I anticipate a hell of a game tomorrow because I have a lot of respect for them and their program. I think they do as well for ours. Now we're in a 4‑5 game. Kind of like that 8‑9 game we saw tonight between Utah and Washington. We knew coming in it was going to be a hell of a tournament, and I think it's started off that way. Q. Can you talk about Booker and the way he kind of put you guys on his back a little bit when you really needed it tonight? COACH BOYLE: One of the things our assistant coaches‑‑ I allow them an opportunity to speak to our team before we take the floor and at halftime and before the game. Rodney Billups, one of the words he always talks about with our team is composure. I thought tonight Askia Booker played with and in the timeout had as much composure and acted as much like a leader as he has all year long. I thought that was critical for us. Askia made some big‑time plays, but he played with great composure. We're going to need him to do that because he's important to our team as all of our guys are. I thought John Hopkins played really well tonight. He's been really coming on of late. I was pleased with his minutes. I thought defensively he gave us some good minutes, some great defensive rebounds there in the second half. We're going to need our bench to play well, and tonight I thought they did for the most part. Q. Did you think that the game would come down to a run like you guys had the 13‑1 run there at the end? What sparked that run? COACH BOYLE: I was hoping the game wasn't going to come down to that. I was hoping the game would be one of those where we're subbing our bench in with six or seven minutes to go, but it wasn't like that. But, again, I think it gets back to the point Brian made. We took care of the ball. We got good shots on offense. We didn't turn it over, and we got stops. I think it was 50‑50, ask we got enough stops. It was 58‑50, and, again, we had trouble scoring from there, and we got enough stops to win the game. If it's 58‑50 with three minutes to go, I don't have a book in front of me, and we held them under 58, we win the game. That is something we talked about in timeouts as well. Just got to shut their water off. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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