Postgame Quotes: Washington 86, UCLA 84
January 29, 2016 | Men's Basketball
POSTGAME QUOTES
Washington 86, UCLA 84
January 28, 2016
UCLA Head Coach Steve Alford
“Well, this is the way the [Pac-12] is and I take full responsibility because we obviously weren't ready to play, and that falls on my shoulders. I thought we had two good days of prep and going into it I thought we were really good, but we weren't ready to play this game for whatever reason. That falls on me. I thought the guys did a great job of responding in the second half; we fought like crazy. I thought both teams worked really hard. [Washington] had a really good first half and we had a really good second half. Their half ended up being a couple of points better. If you look at the numbers, it's pretty even across the board. I'm proud of what our guys did in the second half; we just had a miserable first half.”
On what went wrong in the first half…
“It's hard to say. We obviously changed a lot of things and made a lot of adjustments in the second half offensively. I thought our defense was better in the second half as well. We turned the ball over a lot in the first half; I think we had 12 or 13 at halftime. It looked like we had several guys not into the game and not ready to play. That falls on me, I didn't see that and didn't get that read in practice, but we had a lot of them that were very out of character in the first half.”
On what worked in the second half…
“We started making some baskets and we started making some stops. We started winning four-minute games. I think we won four of the five and the game was tied with four minutes to go. That last four-minute game, we lose it by two. I'm not for sure exactly what got them going, but we did a very good job of coming out of halftime and executing offensively. We got good shots and shot the ball well in the second half and we got some really good stops. We got to the free-throw line. I don't know if it was just one thing we ended up doing.”
UCLA junior guard Bryce Alford
On being ready to play…
"That's a good question. I'm not really sure. We came out and got punched in the mouth and didn't react. As a leader, I have to do a better job.”
On the team's emotional state…
“It's so hard after the first twenty minutes, all fifteen of us gave it our all and the next twenty minutes we scored the ball very well, but you can't give up 86 points.”
On the team's inconsistency…
“It's not easy, as a leader I have to make sure everyone is ready. I think we had a lot of emotion the second half. It's not that hard, we just have to play that way for forty minutes. It's definitely something that is correctable.”
On what was said at halftime…
“There wasn't much to say. We just got hit in the face. We didn't do anything that we were told or taught. We were supposed to throw the first punch.”
UCLA sophomore forward Jonah Bolden
On his playing time…
"It's very important, especially with guys in foul trouble. It was important for me do to that.”
On being comfortable on the court…
“I'm starting to feel comfortable out there.”
Washington Head Coach Lorenzo Romar
Opening statement …
“Should we talk about the good or the bad? I'll talk about the good: we won. Heck of a job [by our team], after they had all of the momentum, to still stay the course. Donaven [Dorsey] came in and hit a big stretch. Bryce [Alford] got going, as we know he can. He got going, and they roared back, but regardless of what happened, we got another road victory. When you get a road victory, I don't care how you get it, that's very valuable.”
On Andrew Andrews playing with four fouls …
“The thing I thought about with Andrew [Andrews] is that we need to wait until the last three or four minutes to put him in the game because he is so good making shots and knocking free throws down. But I felt like if we didn't put him back in we wouldn't be able to stay in the game. We gambled, and down the stretch he made the big plays.”
On changing the game plan in the second half …
“Their plan in the second half was just to go at us off the dribble. They continued to drive right on us and knocked off, piece by piece, at the lead. It's not easy at all to beat this team. This is a special, special win for us. We've had several of these but this is a big one.”
Washington Senior Guard Andrew Andrews
On the team's performance…
“Great team effort. Donovan Dorsey comes in and hits that huge three after [Bryce] Alford hits a three. Noah Dickerson probably played one of his best games of the year and held us down. Matisse [Thybulle] kept us going in the first half but we have to figure out the second half thing. We came out with a win but if we want to stay at the top, we have to figure out how to play all 40 minutes. We have to figure out how to pull it all together.”
