Oregon 82, UCLA 64
January 24, 2015
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
on his initial thoughts about Saturday's game
“Defensively, in the second half we were a little better, but in the first half we were not very good. It's hard because we have not had to play this way all year. It's not an excuse, but we are not a deep team to begin with. With Tony [Parker] being gone, it doesn't just affect us offensively, but it also affects our defense. We have got to get home and hopefully Tony will be healthy and will be able to help us on the next homestand. It was an issue being short-handed on the road, and playing a team that got awful hot was very hard.”
on Isaac Hamilton
“We've got to leave him alone and just let him work through this. Hopefully he can shake it once we get him, because we need him. A lot of guys go through things like this. Obviously, we need him. He is such a good player and hopefully we can get on a roll here. We need his production. Kevon did not get a lot of minutes because he was in foul trouble. But after a slow start, he was very god. I thought that Bryce and Norman throughout the game gave us a really big lift, which we really needed. We'll just need more guys to step to the front. Hopefully, that's going to happen.”
on if there's one area that needs the most improvement
“We knew we had depth issues. One of the positives from this trip is it gives guys like Thomas and G.G. get a lot of minutes, and that's going to help their development. Moving forward, that will be able to help us going down the stretch. It is what it is, where five of our five seven league games were played on the road. The first two we had to play on the heels of a really tough non-conference schedule.”
on moving forward from this road trip
“As coaches we need to figure things out. If we do have to move forward one more week without Tony here, we will have to figure that out. It's about staying positive, whether it's difficult or not, we have to stay positive. We believe in this team. They're going to continue to hear that from us. We have to get better and continue to work on the things that we need to work on.”
senior guard Norman Powell
on what contributed to the loss
“Honestly, we just did not compete and came out lackadaisical. Our offense was OK in the first half, shooting round 40 percent, and we were driving to the rim and getting fouled, but on defense we just slcaked off. We weren't contesting shots the way that we should be. They were hitting them. They are an up and down team and they like to score, and that's what they did. They shot 75 percent in the first half and we didn't put any pressure on them. They hit shots and we really dug ourselves into a hole defensively.”
on the coaching staff's halftime message
“Compete. Fight. You have to show some energy and some heart and just pressure them. We have to do whatever it takes to make some shots. We got it down to about 13 and then it just fell off the table. We have to learn how to do that for 40 minutes and keep the high energy and the high intensity and to not take plays off. It's about having heart and just playing through adversity, whatever it is – bad foul calls, missed foul shots, turnovers – and we've got to just believe in one another and keep fighting.”
on the team not playing hard for a full 40 minutes
“It's really frustrating. But my job is to stay positive, and I believe in this team. I like everybody on this team. We have a lot of very skilled players, guys who can play and compete. It's just hitting a switch to get everybody on the same page and to fight hard. I've got to get these guys motivated and ready to play. We've got to get those jitters out of the way. Whatever it is on the road, I've got to be more vocal and more intense and to get into them more so that we can be ready to compete for all 40 minutes. When we compete for 40 minutes, it's tough on our opponents. We have so many weapons. We need to make it hard on teams on defense by pressuring them and trying to take them out of what they want to do. But it's just about competing for a full game on a consistent basis.”
on what he can do to help the team
“It's just to lead by example. That's all that I can do. Motivate these guys. Off the court, you know, taking these guys to lunch or to breakfast and just talking to them and trying to make sure that they've got their head in the game and that our guys are mentally focused for the game that we have coming up. We need to be ready to fight. We have been practicing really tough with a lot of intensity, so we need to carry that over to the games, going forward.”