University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
Postgame Quotes: USC 89, UCLA 75
January 14, 2016 | Men's Basketball
POSTGAME QUOTES
USC 89, UCLA 75
January 13, 2016
UCLA Head Coach Steve Alford
“I thought USC really played well. We just can't figure out a way to guard. Until we defend, we're going to continue to be on the short end a lot. We out-scored Arizona and we out-scored Arizona State, but we can't keep giving up scores in the 80's and 70's. We pick a night where Bryce [Alford] and Isaac [Hamilton] had bad shooting nights; both bigs were really good inside, but we just can't overcome it because we don't guard. You're not always going to shoot the ball well. We didn't shoot it bad, we shot 44 percent, but we didn't get to the free-throw line; we got killed there. I thought we valued the ball well, I thought we did a lot of good things, but when we have tough shooting nights it's going to be hard on us because we're so poor defensively.”
On what the team needs to do to fix the defense…
“I guess we just have to keep working. We have GG [Gyorgy Goloman] back now and we needed to get him through this game with just a couple of minutes. We have to get him in the mix. One thing Alex Olesinski does is play hard, so maybe he gets in the mix, we might have to make some changes. From that standpoint, it's just kind of who plays because we're 18 games in and we're just not guarding anyone. We have to find combinations that will defend.”
On if USC did anything they didn't expect…
“No, this is what we've been seeing on tape. [Chimezie] Metu got away from us, he was terrific, probably a career-high for him. Other than him going crazy, the team did what we've been seeing all year on tape. They have a lot of confidence and they played that way tonight. We couldn't take away a thing. The things we game planned and the things that we tried to take away, we just couldn't take anything away because of our defense. That's been our Achilles heel all year. Our losses other than one, the majority of our losses are because we can't guard. We give up 89 points and you just can't give up 89 points at home or on the road and expect to win. We're doing that too often.”
UCLA senior center Tony Parker
On what went wrong …
"We have to be more active. They play well together. We have to find ways to guard for long periods of time. We just missed shots we normally make. It's not going to happen often, but that's basketball. We have to play active with our hands out. They out-rebounded us, which is unacceptable and they got the 50-50 balls.”
On this USC team compared to the teams in the past…
“They play well. This is a more experienced team. My freshman year, USC had a really good team. They just added two freshmen and they get it now. They are growing and they keep growing and they are playing well. It's just like Tom, Isaac and Bryce. We've been playing together and we're just going to keep getting better by playing together.”
UCLA sophomore center Thomas Welsh
On if he was surprised by Chimezie Metu's performance…
"Not really, I played against him in high school and he is a really skilled player. He also had some great opportunities.”
On tonight's loss…
“This is a tough one for sure. Once we get that practice in, we should be okay. We just have to keep working hard.”
On the team's defense…
“We just have to bring more fire, more passion. I just don't think we bring that energy defensively. We have to bring that intensity every night and right now, we are not doing that.”
USC Head Coach Andy Enfield
“This was obviously an important win for us, being a Pac-12 game. We are now 4-1 [in the Pac-12]. We are just trying to take every game and put equal importance on it. This is obviously a very tough place to play, Pauley Pavilion. UCLA is a great team, they have great players, and they're so well coached. They are so explosive here at home. I think they won 12 straight Pac-12 games here before tonight. We knew it was a great challenge and a challenging atmosphere to come in here and play. We are fortunate and I'm proud of our players that we withstood their run and played well.”
On the game plan tonight…
“The plan was to try to contest their threes and try to keep them off of the boards. [Thomas] Welsh and [Tony] Parker are the two best rebounders in our league and it was important to keep them off the glass. I thought Parker did a tremendous job getting low post position the entire game. He's so tough to stop; he's such a great player. We traded twos for threes for a while and it worked out for us.”
USC sophomore guard Jordan McLaughlin
On the game plan tonight…
“The game plan was limiting them to one shot so we had to rebound. That was huge. Thomas Welsh and Tony Parker have averaged four offensive rebounds a game, so we tried to keep them off the glass. Our guards had to come down and rebound as well. We just tried to shoot good shots. Guys needed to play for their teammates and everybody was knocking down shots.”
