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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2014Askia BookerTad BoyleXavier TaltonLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Arizona – 63 THE MODERATOR: We'll open with a summary from Coach Boyle and then questions. COACH BOYLE: Well, obviously, we're disappointed in this result, but we lost to a darn good Arizona team. I think the first thing you have to do is tip your hat to them. They're a hell of a team, hell of a program. They've had an unbelievable year. We knew they were good defensively, and we knew we were going to have to make some shots to beat them. We couldn't get going. Their defense had something to do with that. Our offense had something to do with that. You put those two things together. Again, second half‑‑ I thought in the first half we really battled. Hit a three there at the end to go up three. In the second half, that thing got away from us quick. If Arizona makes shots and the way they guard consistently, they've got a chance to win a National Championship. So, yeah, you've got to be lucky to do that. You've got to win six games. But they're a good team, and that game got away from us in the second half really quick, combination of things, transition defense, quick shots on offense, and not guarding the ball and their second shots. One of the things we talked about before the game and we talked about at halftime was offensive rebounds. They averaged over 12 a game. I think they got 13 tonight, and it seemed like every one of them was for a basket. We just didn't do what we had to do to win this game. We battled for 20, 25 minutes. I'm proud of our guys. We've got a lot of fight, a lot of heart. We've gotten better over the last three weeks of the season, but it was a disappointing end. But our season's not over. That is the good news. We've got to regroup, and we will. These guys are resilient. They're tough. We've come a long way here recently. So we're not going to let this sidetrack us. We've got to put it behind us and move on and figure out where and when we're playing next. Q. Arizona seems to be really good at not only getting momentum plays but taking advantage of them. They had that block of XJ's dunk attempt. How big was that sequence what it could have done for you and what they did after that? COACH BOYLE: Yeah, that was a big play. It was a big momentum play. And their fans travel well. Our fans were great when we gave them a chance to be great about something. Not much in the second half there, but their fans got into that. But that was a big‑time block. We've had trouble for some reason getting to the free‑throw line here in Las Vegas. We are a team that averaged over 22 free‑throw attempts in the regular season, over an 18‑game schedule, and we get to the free‑throw line less than 15 times a game here. That's frustrating. But we've got to figure out how to put the ball in the basket. One thing about Arizona is you better match their physicality, because they're a very physical team. They're a very athletic team, and they're relentless on the boards. We battled, but we got beat. At 41‑25 on the boards, it's kind of the tale of the game in my opinion. Q. Not to take anything away from Arizona's effort, but did fatigue play any role today, just three games in two nights? COACH BOYLE: I don't know if it did or not. Our guys are young. They're resilient. They take care of themselves. I know Arizona subbed early, and we tried to get to our bench a little bit early in the game. I felt like the USC game we probably expended more energy than we should have, because, again, part of that was USC. Part of that was we didn't take care of business like we felt like we should have, and had these guys maybe play 20, 25 minutes rather than 30, 35 minutes that game. I don't know if it did or not. That's not an excuse. These guys are young. They're used to playing AAU ball where they're sometimes playing three games in a day, much less three games in three days. I don't think it did. If it did, it's our own fault for not getting the bye, so... Q. Askia, when they start getting on that roll, what is going through your mind, and what are you guys trying to do to stop it? ASKIA BOOKER: I mean, when they're on that roll, I think we had great defense. We just couldn't get a rebound, and it's hard to get out in transition and run and get easy baskets when they're jumping over your backs and they're dunking the ball. Those are big momentum swings. On the offensive end, you just want to slow the ball down and get the ball to the post or inside to the paint, and maybe you kick it out and maybe you get fouled and take away the momentum a little bit. But we didn't do that very well. We just kept giving them chances to get in transition and get easy baskets. Q. A similar question for Xavier: During that run there was the reverse dunk by Nick, and then there was a dunk by Hollis‑Jefferson and then the block all within a minute. What's that do to you guys mentally? Not only to be on a run, but to see those kind of plays coming into succession? XAVIER TALTON: Well, I think being on the court is definitely draining to an extent. But us as Colorado and what we try to do, we try to have mental toughness, and I think it slipped a little bit today. Q. All three games in the tournament you guys have a scoring drought of around five minutes. I think today it was over 6. What was causing that? COACH BOYLE: Combination of things. Number one, quick shots that don't go in and you don't make the defense work. Number two, we don't get the ball moved as much as we need to. I thought in the first half our offense was really good. Our guys showed a lot of patience, and we moved it side‑to‑side. We were really screening well. In the second half, we made a lot of one‑on‑one plays. We didn't make the extra pass. I think that's one of the problems. That shows up in your assists column when you have five assists as a team for the game, because our guys were trying to attack the basket. These guys were getting the ball in the lane. Again, Arizona is awful athletic and they make plays at the rim. But finding that extra open guy and making that extra pass is something that we didn't do. When we go on droughts that's what happens, and when you can't get to the free‑throw line when you're attacking the basket, that makes it doubly as hard too. Arizona makes it really hard to score at the rim. Okay. Listen, they're a great defensive‑‑ they're not a good defensive team, they're a great defensive team. They've shown it game after game all season long. For that, I commend them, and my hat goes off to them. We have room for improvement offensively, whether it's against Arizona or Cal or USC. Our guys know that, and that's my job as a Coach to get us better in that area. Q. Coach and Askia, you guys in the first half were fairly effective in keeping them out of the middle and forcing them into a lot of outside shots. What do you think changed defensively for you in that second half that they were able to get more easy looks? COACH BOYLE: I don't know if Ski might have some thoughts on that. I know in the first half we talked about it at halftime. Our first shot defense in the first half was great. We held them less than 40%, field goal percentage. Now they had ten offensive rebounds. We said, okay, our first shot defense is good enough, but the ten offensive rebounds is not. If we have those cut in half in the first half, we're leading. We're leading the game. We've got momentum and confidence. In the second half, again, I get back to quick shots. I get back to transition defense and not boxing them out. There were a couple times we didn't guard the ball, we didn't guard the ball screen the right way, and Arizona made us pay. We made mistakes in the second half defensively and they capitalized on it. Where in the first half, we didn't make as many of those mistakes. We were pretty solid in our rotations and our ball screen defense and our box outs for the most part. Again, the ten offensive rebounds aside, we competed on the boards. In the second half, we didn't compete on the boards and come up with them. They did. Q. On the offensive end it seemed like when you do go through those droughts it seems the ball movement kind of stops and it sticks a little bit. Is that part of the big reason you were having trouble? COACH BOYLE: Yeah, we were talking about it. Our guys do a good job of going into Josh. And Josh has gotten double teamed basically every game in this tournament. He struggled passing on the double team tonight. We've got to get better spacing for him. We've got to make better decisions out of the double team. When we move it out of the double team, we have to get the ball moved, because there are two guys guarding Josh. Sometimes when Ski comes off ball screens there are two guys guarding him. That's when we have to get it moved, find open guy, make them rotate, and hopefully get an advantage. In the first half, I thought we did a better job of that than in the second half. So, again, that's an opportunity for improvement. Q. As you know, Sean Miller took over a program in disarray. In addition to good recruiting and the premium he puts on defense and what he's developed, what else impresses you about the program and how he's been able to develop things over the last five years? COACH BOYLE: The thing that impresses me the most is that Arizona's players get significantly better from year to year. I look at Kaleb Tarczewski's body relative to where it was a year ago, I look at his skill level. I look at Nick Johnson's game and how it's evolved and gotten better, T.J. McConnell, I can't emphasize what an addition he's been to that team. I think that kid is the difference personally. Yeah, between Arizona, and they've had good teams, but he brings an element of toughness and just unselfishness and ball movement to that team. So I think player development. That is something we pride ourselves on. If you look at these two guys to my left, Askia's gotten better every year, something as a Colorado staff we take pride in, and we want our players to continue to add to their games. There are some players in this league that are the same players as juniors as they were as freshmen. But I think Sean and his staff do a great job of player development from year to year. Q. One thing, you're an old hat of getting into the NCAA Tournament. Even the year before you got to Colorado. The preparation now that you've done it a few times, will you be doing similar things? Getting ready for next week or same or how will you prepare? COACH BOYLE: Yeah, I'm hope to get in the tournament. I'm not going to be presumptuous and say we're in, because these guys weren't with us three years ago when our team didn't get in and deserved to get in. That was a hell of a team that got left out. I think we're in, but that's not for me to decide or anybody else in this room to decide. I do know we're going to be playing in the postseason, and I hope it's in the NCAA Tournament. We're going to prepare like we always prepare. We're going to take Sunday off and get these guys rested and have a good practice on Monday. Hope we figure out who we're playing, where we're playing, when we're playing and move forward. We've got to regroup quickly. But the one thing about our guys, if you've watched us over the last two, three weeks of this season, they're resilient and they've bounce back. We had that really disappointing loss to Arizona at home and then followed up by a disappointing loss at Utah. They bounced back in the Bay Area and beat Stanford, and should have and could have beaten Cal, but came up a little short. A good two games here in this tournament. Again, Arizona is a hell of a team. My hat goes off to them. But I believe in these guys, and hopefully we're playing in the NCAA Tournament next week. We're expecting that. We're hoping for that. But we're not counting on that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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