California 64, UCLA 62
February 7, 2015
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
opening remarks
“I thought both teams really played hard. I loved our guys' efforts. We just didn't close the game. We had a great start to the second half. I didn't particularly like the start of the game, but the start of the second half was really good. We out-rebounded them and did a lot of good things on the road, but we just didn't close it. The last two and a half minutes, I think it was a 7-0 run by them, so we just couldn't close the game out, and that's something that we have go to work on. I'm proud of our guys. I thought we played really well on this road trip, and now we got to get home and we're sitting with five of the next seven at home. We've got to protect at home. We have to win our home games.”
on any similar trends between the win at Stanford and the loss at California
“I think that, in my opinion, those are two different games. We had a 15-point lead in the first half and got that up to 20 in the second half. Stanford is the best offensive team in the conference, and they can make shots. They score. We held them to a point total that they probably haven't had in two and a half months. It's two different games. We did a lot of good things in the Stanford game that helped set ourselves up for that win. We did the same thing here tonight. When you go on the road, you want to give yourself a chance to win. Tonight, we gave our ourselves a chance to win. We just didn't make the plays down the stretch. We had some turnovers. We had a lot of missed front-ends, which we normally don't do. We missed some free throws in this game. There was a loose ball that we didn't came up with late that we needed to get. It's little things that you have to be able to do, especially on the road. Our guys will learn from it. The effort that they gave was tremendous.”
on Norman Powell's shot attempt in the game's final 15 seconds
“Well, that's our senior. We put him in a high pick-and-roll, and I thought that he got a good look at it. Obviously, it didn't go in. But we got a good look. We got a 12-footer. It was a pretty good look. We had Bryce spotted up in one corner and Isaac in the other. I thought it was pretty decent execution. It didn't go in. I will never blame guys for shots that don't go in, as long as you work to try and execute.”
on if tonight's loss sets the team back
“You can't let it set you back. We beat a very good Stanford team, and we got beat by a team that's hot right now. They came in with a lot of energy and a lot of confidence like we had, and we got a split. We talked about this in the locker room. You look at last year's team that finished 12 and 6 in the league. That's plus two at the end of the season. If you want to be plus two at the end of the season, you've got to win your home games. If you don't win a home game, that's minus one, and if you win a road game, that's a plus one. Well, we are at plus two right now with seven [games] left. We can match or do better than what happened with last year's team, as far as what happened in league play. That's impressive with the number of guys that we lost. I'm proud of our guys. They worked hard and we couldn't make enough plays at the end. We gave ourselves a chance. Now we've got to go home again with two games against two teams that beat us. We've got to beat both of these teams at our home.”
on California's success shooting corner three-pointers
“Well the last one, I don't think I could've asked anybody else to contest any better than that. Kevon contested that. I mean, that's the highest arc shot we've seen in a long time. That was a great contest. The senior made a couple threes, I think he's shooting 20-something percent on the year. They had some guys that ended up making some shots. But we defended [Jordan] Mathews, who hurt us in game one with his three-point shooting, so that didn't hurt us. I will say, threes ended up being a pretty big difference because they made nine and we made three. Free throws were a wash, and we out-rebounded them. The difference in this game ended up being they got nine threes and we got three threes.”
on UCLA's struggles at the free throw line
“It's hard. We haven't been a great foul shooting team all year. We have a lot of guys who struggle at the free throw line. The key is making sure we're getting there, and then we just have to be tough enough to make them. On this road trip, we did a lot of good things, and foul shooting wasn't one of them.”
on trying to get the ball to Kevon Looney
“Well, I think we tried to do that for most of the game. Tony [Parker] got a lot of touches. This was easily Tony's best game. This was our first loss with Tony [in the lineup] in our last seven games. He's improving, the team is improving, we are getting the ball to him inside. The pick-and-rolls have been good, and the post-feeding has been good. We shot nearly 47 percent on the road. Those are a lot of good things. It's just, if you see in those last two minutes, we had a turnover and we did not get a loose ball, we missed foul shots, and those are all things that we can correct. But, the effort by the guys was tremendous.”
UCLA forward/center Tony Parker
on California taking the lead in the final minute
“We have just got to make shots. I mean, I missed a layup. And then they went on a 7-0 run and they hit two threes. Wallace played a great game, just a great game. On that last play, he draws a lot of attention which he's supposed to do, and he kicked the ball out. He made an extra pass. He believed in his teammate. His teammate knocked it down. That was just a great play.”
on the mood in UCLA's locker room after the game
“We needed to get a sweep here. We needed to sweep these schools. We were really more than capable of beating Cal, but they came out and wanted it more than we did. They played harder than we did. In those last few minutes and in the first half's first 10 minutes, they played harder than we did. I mean, that was the difference in the game. We ended up coming back and got it together, but they really turned it up on that 7-0 run at the end.”
on seeing Stanford nearly come back Thursday and Cal take the lead in the 30 seconds
“We have to close out games. Tough teams finish games. We didn't finish the game well, at all. You look at the game on Thursday, and Stanford finished the game on something like a 27-6 run. We didn't finish that game. That is going to cost you. With Stanford, we got lucky when Chasson Randle missed a trey that he was capable of hitting. And today, they got it to a shooter and he made it. Norm had a good drive, he drew the attention, he missed it. So, we've got to move on.”
on what makes the team excel when he's productive inside
“It just about high-percentage shots. That's what it is. I've got to make high-percentage shots. I'm sure I'll watch the film later today, and I'm probably going to see that I missed some chippy layups. That's unacceptable on my behalf.”
on how this loss will affect UCLA in the Pac-12 standings
“Oh, it hurts bad, very very bad. We need that sweep. That was a sweep that we needed, and we didn't get it. We needed this game. They played like they wanted it more than us, and they got it.”