POSTGAME QUOTES
Indiana 98, UCLA 97 (2-OT)
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial)
January 31, 2026
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Defense was awful all night. We deserved to lose. We went through a stretch where we were pouting and letting one shot affect the next shot. We couldn’t score for a long time, that’s how we got down 10, missing wide open shot after wide open shot. Because we acted like somebody stole our favorite toy, and we’re a three-year-old. Our defense was awful all night, for the most part.”
on the defensive effort of the final play
“Our defense was awful all night. We went over that play five times yesterday at the end of practice. Five times last night, and five times this morning. We showed that play on film 10 times in the last two days.”
on the out of bounds call, at the end of the game
“Of course, my staff told me it was our ball. I just watched it. It sure looked like it was off Indiana’s elbow. I just watched it. I’m watching it on a small iPad. I watched it one time. I don’t know, it’s what I saw.”
asking if “he got an explanation for that last call”
“Did it look like I did? What would the explanation be? It’s Indiana’s ball. What are you asking?”
asking who the ball went off of, on the review
“Who the hell cares? Who it went off of? Indiana or UCLA. They clearly said it went off us. They said, I said, everybody here on our video says it’s our ball.”
on the defensive effort in the opening 10 minutes
“Our defense was bad all night. They missed shots. That doesn’t mean it’s good defense.”
on Trent Perry’s shot making in regulation
“We went through a stretch where we couldn’t make a shot. Sometimes a lid gets on the basket. And guys fell pressure, and missed shots can be contagious, and that’s what happened to us. You got good players, and then you just got to keep on playing. One will go in. Just got to, at the end of the game, you’ve got to play it out, man. The only thing we did well tonight, in my opinion, was play out the last two minutes. Clock, score, and that’s when they actually listen to me on how to press. They didn’t listen to our scouting report for the game. I can tell you that. And that’s why you lose. Everybody thinks that you win and lose in this game because of players. And there’s only a few teams that have way better players than everyone else. The rest of the games are won by execution. Trust me, I’ve won over 500 of them, I know, and I’ve never had superior talent. Execution wins games, and its defensive execution, block out execution. Obviously baseline out of bounds at the end of game execution. When we drew up the play that they ran in our huddle and went over it 15 times and showed it five on film.”
on the defensive effort in preceding games
“What you were doing before today in life doesn’t matter, man. What the hell has that got to do with anything? And today doesn’t matter; we play Tuesday.”
on how to refocus the team after today’s loss
“You keep coaching them, man. You just keep coaching.”
on the officiating tonight
“I have no comments on officiating. No.”
on Jamar Brown’s effort tonight
“Yeah, when we lose buddy, I’m not like a lot of the people in life. I see no bright spots. I apologize, but that’s just how I feel. The guy’s one for six. He had eight [rebounds].”
on how his coaching changes during dry shooting spells
“You talking about when we’re missing shots, what do I say? I always say the same thing, no matter what. Just worry about defense, rebounding, and effort. Unlike everybody else, I don’t even talk to them about whether shots go it. Defense, rebound, effort, execution. There is no magic potion on shooting.”
on UCLA welcoming back so many alumni on Saturday evening
“Yeah, I’m so busy that I didn’t see one person. We’ve got the best, obviously, the best basketball alumni in the history of college basketball. So now that you mention it, I feel worse about the outcome – because we have the best alumni in the history of college basketball.”
UCLA senior Donovan Dent
on the officiating towards the end of the game
“There were some tough calls there at the end, and especially the charge of Eric Dailey Jr. was a big one. We just had to stay together as a group and just keep fighting through all the fouls they were calling.”
on how a tough loss like this brings the team together
“Yeah, it’s huge for us. We rallied back down late in the second half and that just builds our confidence as a team. Like we know we can fight back and win any game we really want to get into, so it just gives us confidence going into the next one. It just sucks being on the bad side of this.”
UCLA sophomore Trent Perry
on the last play defensively
“At the end of the day, I’m just proud of how we fought. We sent a good team to double overtime and I'm glad we fought through that. Unfortunately, we were on the other end of the game and we lost, but I’m just proud of how we fought and came together. We’re going to carry on with this lesson and move on to the next one.”
on the struggles in the second half
“Number seven, Nick Dorn, he had some pretty big shots and even though he shot six of 15, he still had some big shots and he got hot. We just had to talk a little bit better, but yeah we can’t just lose shooters like that in the end.”
on his mindset with his last second shots
“I just wanted to win. Everyone had this certain energy that we aren’t going to lose the ball game. Unfortunately we lost, and the shots mattered, but we still lost and there’s nothing really else to say about it.”
on how a tough loss like this brings the team together
“From my point of view, I feel like early in the season we would have gone down and held our heads. Sometimes even in the second half when the offense wasn’t going our way, we still came together and had some big stops and big shots. I’m proud of our team for the way we fought tonight."
Indiana head coach Darian DeVries
his thoughts on the victory
“Road wins are incredibly hard, especially when we thought we had the win. Everyone just needed to step up and everyone really contributed to this win.
on the problem at the end of regulation
“We just had a hard time getting the ball in. Someone stepped out of bounds. We had some veteran stuff out there, but overall, we were able to get the win. We just have to watch guys leaving their feet on the pass.”
on Nick Dorn’s play
“He was great. He’s been really coming along.”
on the team huddle at the end of regulation
“Tuck [DeVries] did a great job of rallying the guys. He basically told the guys to flush it. This is a really hard-fought game. Both teams made great plays and were looking to get a win.”
on the overall effort of his team and how several players fouled out
“Our guys showed a lot of guts. There was a lot of character. We had to play a lot of guys. We had guys in spots that they’ve never been in before.”
on what they take from this
“For a group, another thing we can learn is the good and the bad from today’s contest. It’s a great win, we’re going to recover, get to the hotel and get ready for ‘SC. We can’t celebrate too long. This is how this league is.”
Indiana junior Nick Dorn
on how he played today
“I thought I played pretty well. There’s a couple things I could have cleaned up.”
on his overall improvement
“I just stay in the gym, seeing shots going in helps my confidence.”
on the huddle they had at the end of regulation
“We were just trying to be resilient. We knew he had to keep fighting. The job was not finished.”
Indiana 98, UCLA 97 (2-OT)
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial)
January 31, 2026
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Defense was awful all night. We deserved to lose. We went through a stretch where we were pouting and letting one shot affect the next shot. We couldn’t score for a long time, that’s how we got down 10, missing wide open shot after wide open shot. Because we acted like somebody stole our favorite toy, and we’re a three-year-old. Our defense was awful all night, for the most part.”
on the defensive effort of the final play
“Our defense was awful all night. We went over that play five times yesterday at the end of practice. Five times last night, and five times this morning. We showed that play on film 10 times in the last two days.”
on the out of bounds call, at the end of the game
“Of course, my staff told me it was our ball. I just watched it. It sure looked like it was off Indiana’s elbow. I just watched it. I’m watching it on a small iPad. I watched it one time. I don’t know, it’s what I saw.”
asking if “he got an explanation for that last call”
“Did it look like I did? What would the explanation be? It’s Indiana’s ball. What are you asking?”
asking who the ball went off of, on the review
“Who the hell cares? Who it went off of? Indiana or UCLA. They clearly said it went off us. They said, I said, everybody here on our video says it’s our ball.”
on the defensive effort in the opening 10 minutes
“Our defense was bad all night. They missed shots. That doesn’t mean it’s good defense.”
on Trent Perry’s shot making in regulation
“We went through a stretch where we couldn’t make a shot. Sometimes a lid gets on the basket. And guys fell pressure, and missed shots can be contagious, and that’s what happened to us. You got good players, and then you just got to keep on playing. One will go in. Just got to, at the end of the game, you’ve got to play it out, man. The only thing we did well tonight, in my opinion, was play out the last two minutes. Clock, score, and that’s when they actually listen to me on how to press. They didn’t listen to our scouting report for the game. I can tell you that. And that’s why you lose. Everybody thinks that you win and lose in this game because of players. And there’s only a few teams that have way better players than everyone else. The rest of the games are won by execution. Trust me, I’ve won over 500 of them, I know, and I’ve never had superior talent. Execution wins games, and its defensive execution, block out execution. Obviously baseline out of bounds at the end of game execution. When we drew up the play that they ran in our huddle and went over it 15 times and showed it five on film.”
on the defensive effort in preceding games
“What you were doing before today in life doesn’t matter, man. What the hell has that got to do with anything? And today doesn’t matter; we play Tuesday.”
on how to refocus the team after today’s loss
“You keep coaching them, man. You just keep coaching.”
on the officiating tonight
“I have no comments on officiating. No.”
on Jamar Brown’s effort tonight
“Yeah, when we lose buddy, I’m not like a lot of the people in life. I see no bright spots. I apologize, but that’s just how I feel. The guy’s one for six. He had eight [rebounds].”
on how his coaching changes during dry shooting spells
“You talking about when we’re missing shots, what do I say? I always say the same thing, no matter what. Just worry about defense, rebounding, and effort. Unlike everybody else, I don’t even talk to them about whether shots go it. Defense, rebound, effort, execution. There is no magic potion on shooting.”
on UCLA welcoming back so many alumni on Saturday evening
“Yeah, I’m so busy that I didn’t see one person. We’ve got the best, obviously, the best basketball alumni in the history of college basketball. So now that you mention it, I feel worse about the outcome – because we have the best alumni in the history of college basketball.”
UCLA senior Donovan Dent
on the officiating towards the end of the game
“There were some tough calls there at the end, and especially the charge of Eric Dailey Jr. was a big one. We just had to stay together as a group and just keep fighting through all the fouls they were calling.”
on how a tough loss like this brings the team together
“Yeah, it’s huge for us. We rallied back down late in the second half and that just builds our confidence as a team. Like we know we can fight back and win any game we really want to get into, so it just gives us confidence going into the next one. It just sucks being on the bad side of this.”
UCLA sophomore Trent Perry
on the last play defensively
“At the end of the day, I’m just proud of how we fought. We sent a good team to double overtime and I'm glad we fought through that. Unfortunately, we were on the other end of the game and we lost, but I’m just proud of how we fought and came together. We’re going to carry on with this lesson and move on to the next one.”
on the struggles in the second half
“Number seven, Nick Dorn, he had some pretty big shots and even though he shot six of 15, he still had some big shots and he got hot. We just had to talk a little bit better, but yeah we can’t just lose shooters like that in the end.”
on his mindset with his last second shots
“I just wanted to win. Everyone had this certain energy that we aren’t going to lose the ball game. Unfortunately we lost, and the shots mattered, but we still lost and there’s nothing really else to say about it.”
on how a tough loss like this brings the team together
“From my point of view, I feel like early in the season we would have gone down and held our heads. Sometimes even in the second half when the offense wasn’t going our way, we still came together and had some big stops and big shots. I’m proud of our team for the way we fought tonight."
Indiana head coach Darian DeVries
his thoughts on the victory
“Road wins are incredibly hard, especially when we thought we had the win. Everyone just needed to step up and everyone really contributed to this win.
on the problem at the end of regulation
“We just had a hard time getting the ball in. Someone stepped out of bounds. We had some veteran stuff out there, but overall, we were able to get the win. We just have to watch guys leaving their feet on the pass.”
on Nick Dorn’s play
“He was great. He’s been really coming along.”
on the team huddle at the end of regulation
“Tuck [DeVries] did a great job of rallying the guys. He basically told the guys to flush it. This is a really hard-fought game. Both teams made great plays and were looking to get a win.”
on the overall effort of his team and how several players fouled out
“Our guys showed a lot of guts. There was a lot of character. We had to play a lot of guys. We had guys in spots that they’ve never been in before.”
on what they take from this
“For a group, another thing we can learn is the good and the bad from today’s contest. It’s a great win, we’re going to recover, get to the hotel and get ready for ‘SC. We can’t celebrate too long. This is how this league is.”
Indiana junior Nick Dorn
on how he played today
“I thought I played pretty well. There’s a couple things I could have cleaned up.”
on his overall improvement
“I just stay in the gym, seeing shots going in helps my confidence.”
on the huddle they had at the end of regulation
“We were just trying to be resilient. We knew he had to keep fighting. The job was not finished.”