UCLA's Selection Sunday Quotes

Selection Sunday Quotes
March 11, 2018
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)

Steve Alford, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach

on the team’s reaction to getting in the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68 teams
“Well, we’re excited. We’ve told our guys that before. It’s hard when you are in an at-large situation, it’s hard to get in. You saw that across the country with some teams that didn’t get in. It’s a hard tournament to get into, and that is why every game has meaning and every possession has meaning. That’s something that we have stressed to our guys all year, and obviously having that strong finish helped. So, we’re excited and we’ll probably have to leave tomorrow. I’ll have to get done with you all so that I can to work.”

on how he feels about UCLA playing one extra game early in the tournament
“Well, we can’t control that. There is nothing I can do. Would we rather be playing two games, instead of there, now? But we don’t control that. We know we’re in Dayton and that we are playing St. Bonaventure, so we’ve got to get to work on them and we’ll find out about our travel plans here within the hour.”

on what he knows about St. Bonaventure
“Not a whole lot. Just like you guys, we just found out. It’s been about dismissing our guys, we’re going to meet them later tonight and then our coaches will get to work on them. I’ve known Coach [Mark] Schmidt for a long time, and he’s done a very good job. He’s been there for a while, so he’s done a good job of building his program. The Atlantic 10 got three teams in, just like the Pac-12. And I did see that they’ve beat Maryland and Syracuse, and they finished second in that league. So, we know that we’ll have our hands full. When you get to this point in the year, you know that you’ll have your hands full and you are going to play good teams, no matter who they are. We’ll get to work tonight and then get a game plan together as quickly as we can.”

on whether he feels as if the Bruins are playing some of their basketball of the season right now
“We’re playing well. I think that our guys are confident. I think they’re excited. They are excited to be in the tournament. But there is finality to March. You have to put together 40 really good minutes of basketball, sometimes more than 40 minutes. But now, when you are in season four, it’s win or go home. And we are fortunate that we get to see another day, to see another season, get to play in season number four and the NCAAs is what you always build toward. And this team has been through a lot. And I’m very proud of them. That’s the thing that means the most. I’m just extremely proud of them and how they’ve stayed together. Now, they get a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament, and hopefully we will continue to play well.”

on getting one day of rest between games and how that will help Aaron Holiday
“Any time that you can get him some rest, that’s meaningful. We are not sure how much practice we’ll do tomorrow. Again, we have to wait on our travel plans because we’re going somewhere that is three hours of a time change from us. I’m assuming that we’ll probably go in the morning, so that will affect our practice time tomorrow. Obviously, we did not practice yesterday or today, so we are getting him some good rest. It’s not like at this point you are playing a game on Tuesday night, you’re not going to be somebody that you are not. Our guys know what we’d like to do offensively and they know what we want to do, defensively. It’s kind of about finding the ins and outs of what St. Bonnie is all about and trying to put together good game plan as quickly as we can to help our guys.”

on how surprised he was to see USC excluded from the NCAA Tournament field
“Very surprised. That’s a team that finished second in our league and made it to the championship game of the conference tournament. That is very surprising and I think that it’s unfortunate for our league. I think our league probably did not get the respect – and we probably deserve that respect as a league in November and December – but I keep going back to how it’s the complete body. It’s what you do throughout the entire year. Most of our league teams were so much better in January and February than what they were in November and December. We had so much turnaround, when you see the different players that were coming and going in our league. There were a lot of young teams. Even when you look at Oregon State, [Tres] Tinkle was out for all of last year. So now he’s getting back into the fold at Oregon State. Utah had a lot of new players. You look at Colorado, new players. We’ve got new players. I think that a lot of teams in our league got a lot better toward the end of the year. It’s unfortunate because our inability, as a league, to get key wins in November and December really affected us in March. But I do think that in January and February, it was a pretty tough league to play in.”

on whether this will push him to schedule more challenging non-conference games
“It’s hard. We had six scheduled and some of that too is a result of what happens. You look at Georgia Tech, they get injured, so they don’t have the year that you think they’re going to have. With Wisconsin, extremely young. They started to play well late in the year. But normally, you’re playing an ACC team and a Big Ten team and that is going to pay huge dividends. Obviously, playing Michigan, Cincinnati and Kentucky, those are really big games to play. And then we had Creighton in there as well. I’m not sure that we can do that much more to our schedule. It’s just, you have to schedule and then you’ve got to win those games. It just puts a lot of meaning on every game. That is for sure.”

on the tradition of UCLA earning a 49th berth to the NCAA Tournament
“Like I’ve said, it’s hard. It’s difficult because the parity in men’s basketball is like it has never been. It was only 30 years ago that I played, but through those 30 years, there is a lot that’s happened from the shot clock to the three-point line to there being much more parity. When I played, the national champ was probably coming from a team that was ranked somewhere in the top five or six. At least in the top 10. Now, you just don’t know because there is so much parity. To just get into the tournament is a challenge. We went 21-11 and we’re one of the last four in. So, it’s not easy. I want our guys to feel that enthusiasm and to feel that accomplishment that goes into a long season of work where now you are in the national tournament. Getting into that tournament is not a guarantee, and even if you’re in a big conference like the Pac-12, so, we’re excited about that. Now hopefully we’ll go play well, as that’s our next step.”

on whether he was surprised about being one of the last four teams in the field
“Yeah, it did surprise me that we were one of the last four in. It really did. I thought we were soundly in, with how we finished, winning at USC to beat them a second time and then finishing 2-0 against them and 1-1 against Arizona. I thought that we’d done the things in our league and then to not play Montana, an NCAA Tournament team, because of the fire situation – so who knows how that would’ve went? But that was a big game for them and us. But I thought that our complete body of work – I didn’t have a lot of anxiety that we weren’t going to be in, but again, you don’t control that. So when you don’t control something, you’ve still got some nervous times.”

on the emotions of seeing that UCLA was among the last four teams into the field
“Well, we saw that we were in, first. So to see that we were in first, that’s where your relief is. And then you are waiting on your seeding. And seeding is very important in advancing in the tournament. Obviously, we’ve got a tough road. For us to advance in this tournament, we’ll have to win three games in one week.”

on the difficulty of making a deep run in the tournament, having to open with a First Four game
“It makes it difficult to just get to the next weekend, and I think that will be our challenge, but we have to take it one game at a time. We are about eight deep. But I think we’re pretty healthy as we go into this tournament. We have been able to get Alec Wulff some run, as well, and Ike [Okwarabizie] is somebody who we can lean on occasionally. If we have to go deeper, we can. But it’s about one game at a time, regardless of whether you have to win three in one week or two in one week, you’ll get your rest tomorrow if you can get past this week. St. Bonaventure is our top priority. There is no guarantee. We don’t control anything past that. There is no Dallas trip unless we take care of our trip to Dayton.”

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UCLA's Selection Sunday Quotes

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UCLA's Selection Sunday Quotes