Postgame Quotes: UCLA 67, McNeese St. 53
December 23, 2015 | Men's Basketball
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 67, McNeese State 53
December 22, 2015
UCLA Head Coach Steve Alford
“It was not one of those games that had a great flow. I give [McNeese State] credit for that. They played a possession game and did a nice job of slowing things up. I was proud of what we did defensively. We didn't get in a great flow offensively tonight, but we didn't turn the ball over, we out-rebounded them by 19 and we held them to 30% shooting and 53 points. Those kinds of numbers are improvements defensively. Overall, I was pretty happy with what we did defensively. I would have liked to get the score a little spaced out so we could get Ike [Okwarabizie], Noah [Allen] and Alex [Olesinski] more minutes, but we just weren't able to get into the flow to do that.”
On Isaac Hamilton's play recently…
“I think he's just relaxing, he's more aggressive and he's more confident right now because he's making shots. He didn't have a lot of assists, but he didn't turn the ball over. That was something that was his Achilles heel last year and that affected him. He's handling the ball much better, he's moving better, guys are finding him a lot more and his activity is way up. We're going to need that.”
On the upcoming break…
“Our guys need a break and our coaches need a break. This has been a grind and a hard 13 games. We've really had a demanding schedule. We've had to deal with some injuries, but hopefully we're starting to get a little healthy.”
On why the scoring output wasn't there tonight for UCLA…
“I think the possessions were down because of pace; we only got 65 shots up. We got 10 to 12 less possessions and shots than what we normally get. Also, we didn't convert a lot of our offensive rebounds. We had 18 offensive rebounds, we just didn't convert a lot and we missed free-throws. We missed probably three front-ends and we go 9 of 19 from the free-throw line. The offense would have looked a lot better if we finished maybe two more offensive rebounds and some free-throws. Then, even in a slow tempo game, we score 75-plus.”
UCLA sophomore center Thomas Welsh
On being ready for Pac-12 play…
“I think so; we took a huge step tonight defensively. Like Coach said, the Pac-12 is the number one conference, so I think we're ready.”
On the slow tempo of the game…
“We expected that; they're a good three-point shooting team. We tried to pick them up at the NBA three-point line.”
On not scoring on offensive rebounds…
“They were really good at swarming to the ball really well.”
UCLA junior guard Isaac Hamilton
On what has led to his overall improvement
“Just being aggressive, trying to get guys good looks and really trying to focus on the defensive end.”
On his improvement since the UNLV game in Maui
“Like I said, I'm just being more aggressive and putting pressure more on the defense. I'm really just trying to go out there and make plays.”
McNeese State Head Coach Dave Simmons
“This is how I felt we should have been playing against Indiana. Even though it's not a victory for us, I'm proud of the kids. We played hard all night. We had our chances in the second half, but we have to go back and view the tape because we had a lull in there. We have a lot of very good players, and we've seen good progress.”
On trying to slow down Bryce Alford and the UCLA offense…
“We did a good job on Bryce Alford. He has had big nights, and we stuck with him tough. We missed a lot of shots, though. We had about 11 layups we missed, and we have to finish that play even with the contact we had. They are very physical, and we expected that type of game. We didn't back down and we took it to them.”
On what UCLA did to slow down McNeese State…
“I thought their 3-2 zone affected us. They caught us with not enough shooters in the game. Coach Alford did a great job adjusting to our personnel in the game. It was a good game.”
