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Postgame Quotes - UCLA 86, Oregon 78 (OT)
UCLA 86, OREGON 78
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
February 17, 2018
The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach Steve Alford
opening statement
“Obviously, we’re really proud of our guys. I thought they really battled. It was a typical game that we have with Oregon, a typical game that Dana (Altman) and I have had over our careers. It’s always hard-fought, and the flow of the games come and go. Different teams make different runs. I just thought we handled it. We had major foul trouble and played the first half without Aaron (Holiday) and then built an 11-point lead but had to take him out with four fouls with about 11 minutes to go. He did a tremendous job playing the last seven minutes with four fouls. He’s just a special player. He makes play after play. Tom (Welsh) for his entire career just gives you so much consistency. Again tonight 14 (points) and 14 (rebound), a couple of assists, a few blocks. I thought Prince (Ali) really gave us a big lift off the bench that was much needed. And I thought Kris Wilkes did some really good things with his length. I thought he was really good in a lot of ways. Just a good, gritty win. We separated ourselves by a couple games now from other teams, so that’s good.”
on the importance of winning for Thomas Welsh in his last home game
It’s not just Tom. It’s four seniors in Tom, G.G. (Goloman), Alec (Wulff) and Ike (Okwarabizie). I’d love to get them in the game, but the importance of this, the game was so tight and so close that I wasn’t able to do that. They haven’t really been in the rotation, so I didn’t want to mess that up with the guys. But they’ve got to be ready because both those guys practice so hard and get the guys ready to play. All four of those guys, and I’ve got three special managers who just do everything behind the scenes in Nick (Griffin), Sam (Schmall) and Joe (Preston). And Kaviyon (Sadrolashrafi), our student trainer. Those are eight special guys. You want that for all of those guys playing last game in Pauley.”
on Kris Wilkes’ three-point shooting
“I think he’s shot the three ball for his freshman year pretty good. He had 19 again tonight, so he’s averaging somewhere between 13-15 points as a freshman. He’s been in double figures a lot more than he hasn’t. I think his consistency for a freshman has been really good. He has really developed into a really nice player early on in his career. This was obviously a huge game with a lot of pressure on him, and I thought he stepped up and did a lot of really good things.”
on whether making three-pointers was a point of emphasis
“No, because I thought it went through the post. I thought our efficiency in the first half was tremendous. We made nine threes in the first half and shot 48% so we got good shots. Our guys make good shots. It’s when the ball doesn’t touch the paint, then it’s a bad shot, and I thought that happened a little bit in the second half. That’s why Tom had four assists. We have to play through Tom on the low post. He’s that good, he’s that talented. And when we do that, we get really good shots. As long as the ball hits the paint and goes to the post first, I love those kick-out threes because I think those are a lot easier shots than dribble-dribble-dribble-fire.”
on what happened after taking Holiday out and the lead disintegrating while Holiday was on the bench
“Aaron was on the bench. I hate to make it simple, but we’ve played 27 games, and if you look at all 27 of our games and what our plus-minus is when he’s on the court versus when he’s off the court, you’d be totally amazed at what that is. That’s how important it is and that’s how good he is. We’ve said it all along. I think he is, in my mind, the Pac-12 Player of the Year. It’s one of two guys – it’s either (Deandre) Ayton or it’s Holiday. I think that’s clear now with two weeks to go now. Obviously Ayton is on a team that is leading the league, and I think he’s very special and has had a special year, but nobody has meant more to their team than what Holiday has meant for us. Our plus-minus when he was on the floor had to be somewhere between 15 and 20 and we were up by seven or eight. When he went out, we were up 11; I bet his plus-minus was beyond 15, and our plus-minus when he was on the bench was probably minus double digits. That’s the way it’s been all year. That’s why I play him so much. It doesn’t make you a good coach to understand to keep Aaron Holiday in the game. The other team increased their pressure, increased their traps, we turned the ball over, we didn’t get good shots, we didn’t defend. That’s how important Aaron Holiday is to us.”
on the team’s strong play late in the game
“When you look at what’s happened to us since Michigan, Stanford on the road, we’ve really learned a lot of valuable lessons. We made our free throws in overtime. We’re down four with three to go, and we really have to fight and grind just to get to overtime, and we have to be careful because G.G. has four fouls, Aaron has four fouls, so it’s not like you can get super aggressive. And if you’re Aaron, you have to be super-smart along the way with that, and he did a brilliant job. We made shots, we made plays, we got the stops we needed to get it into overtime, and then we did a terrific job in overtime. I love the poise we played with.”
UCLA senior center Thomas Welsh
on what it meant to get a win in his last home game
“I really can’t put it into words. My time here has been a dream come true. It’s been more than I could’ve asked for. To be able to finish like that with a win, with my family all here, it really doesn’t get any better than that. I’m so grateful to the UCLA family and everything all the people here have done. It’s just been incredible, really.”
on his mindset coming down the stretch in overtime
“It’s my last home game, I’m a senior, it’s Senior Night. You have five minutes left, the game’s tied. It’s just about leaving everything you have out there on the court. I think we did a really great job of that. Just tried to get some guys fired up and get a little run going. We did a really good job of putting some points on the board and closing that game out really well.”
on his last shot at Pauley Pavilion being a 3-pointer
“It’s special. I think it shows how my shot’s progressed to now being able to shoot threes. To have that last shot be a made three in overtime at Pauley—it’s pretty dang special. It’s going to be something I remember for a very, very long time. It’s just really awesome.”
on the importance of Aaron Holiday
“That moment when we were up by nine or 10 points and he picked up his fourth foul and had to sit for a little bit and they cut down the lead. I think it just goes to show just how much he impacts the game offensively and defensively. He gets us in our sets offensively and he’s a great defender on the ball, locking out their best player every single night. Like Coach (Alford) was saying, I think he’s definitely a major candidate for Pac-12 Player of the Year… He’s playing really, really well for us.”
UCLA freshman guard Kris Wilkes
on the win
“It felt real great. The last time we played them, they got us up there. It felt good just to sweep the whole week. Good win.”
on finding his shot from distance
“I didn’t think it was a great game. I thought it was cool. I missed a couple of easy buckets—a lot of easy buckets. I couldn’t hit threes the last game or the game before, but I just felt it tonight. I felt it when I was warming up. I’m just glad it went down.”
on what Aaron Holiday brings to the team
“Leadership, for sure. Leadership, scoring, giving it up when he doesn’t have an open shot. Just helping other teammates overall. When he gets in foul trouble, me, personally, it’s like ‘Dang. We need him.’ So I’m glad we were able to help him out on D [so] he wouldn’t get another foul. It helped out and we won.”
UCLA junior guard Aaron Holiday
on making 16 of 33 from 3-point range
“I think we usually shoot a lot of threes. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. Our main focus is to get out and run and shoot open shots.”
on closing out Oregon
“It just shows toughness and how much we’ve grown from the beginning of the year. Obviously, our tough losses were on the road. I think Michigan was one of them, Stanford. We were up—and big—we just let them come back. We’ve obviously learned from that. I guess we got the job done tonight.”
on playing for seniors
“It’s great. Before the game, I just tried to make it as clear as I can to get it done for the seniors. I felt like toward the end of the stretch, when they got the ball out of bounds at the last second, we really toughed it out and got it done. I feel like that was for the seniors tonight.”
Oregon Head Coach Dana Altman
opening statement
“We really put ourselves in a poor position. We really weren’t shooting the ball well, especially at the free throw line. In regulation, we shot five-for-ten, and in overtime, we missed a front end [of a one-and-one situation]. We also had a bad stretch when we went down by 11 points.”
on where they go from here
“We just have to get ready for the Arizona schools. Last year we won these close road contests, but we just couldn’t get it done this year. These have been some tough losses, but we just have to go home and prepare.”
on guard Troy Brown
“I feel like he really had some good looks, but he didn’t hit the shots. It’s really tough to have a game like that, but I really like the seven assists. We’ve had our share of winning close games on the road, but this time we just couldn’t get those.”
Oregon redshirt junior forward Paul White
on UCLA scoring out of the gate
“They really came out of the gate scoring. You can’t get people going in their own building, it’s really hard to stop.”
on 13-0 run
“It was really about our defense; once we locked in and discovered our defensive principles, it helped us out a lot. Once we discover our defensive potential, the sky is the limit for our guys.”
on where they go from here
“We just wake up the next day and improve. People win the lottery and improve their financial situation overnight, and I feel like we can do the same thing.”
on his overall performance
“I feel like my performance was ok. I am my most critical critic, so I’m always hard on myself. I know that if I were to hit that three in overtime, that would have tied the score at 81. But overall, I thought I could have done better.