Postgame Quotes - UCLA at Utah

POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 69, Utah 58
Salt Lake City, Utah (Jon M. Huntsman Center)
February 20, 2020

Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
on winning at Utah
“Yeah, I thought, defensively, we couldn’t play much better than we played. [Assistant coach] Mike Lewis did a great job with the scouting report. Kids did a great job following it. They’ve now learned how important it is to follow the game plan. And we’ve got guys that have improved as individual defenders, which helps your strategy as a coach. You can have all the strategy you want, but in particular, our interior defense being able to play better one-on-one defense, force six-to-eight-foot contested shots where we don’t have to help off 3-point shooters – which killed us early in the season because we couldn’t guard anybody inside – we’ve gotten better in that area. And then I would say Jules Bernard was a key to the win tonight because Chris [Smith] and Jaime [Jaquez] got the fouls, and when that happened, Jules took over. And not just offensively, when we needed him with those guys out, his defense was tremendous all night.”

on Utah being uncomfortable, offensively
“Well, like I said, when you don’t have breakdowns, your strategy looks better. It’s not rocket science. When you have breakdowns, then your strategy – ‘What the hell’s he doing? What’s the coach doing?’ We’ve improved with just being solid in our coverage and staying between our man and the basket. We’ve really improved in that area.”

on role of defense in winning eight of 10 games
“Huge. You can’t win on the road if you don’t defend. It’s fool’s gold to think you’re going on the road and putting up massive amounts of points on teams. Maybe if you get three lottery picks it’d be a different story, but that’s not who we are right now. We’ve got guys that are developing in their career, but defense travels.”

on if team has taken on new identity
“Oh, yeah, we’ve slowly changed our DNA. That’s been the biggest key, I think. But we had to go through what we had to go through for them to realize that you’re going to change our DNA or we’re not going to win.”

on momentum
“That helps. Yeah, I think our confidence is – and, for me, I’m happy for the kids because it’s tough to be, especially at UCLA, being in the spotlight, have people talk about you. They work hard, so like a guy, Jules Bernard, he’s still a young player. For him to have a night like this was huge for him and for all of them. It’s good to see them happy.”

on if turnovers are biggest concern
“Yeah, if it wasn’t for that, we win by 30. We’re still a young team at times. It shows a little bit. And Tyger [Campbell] plays a lot of minutes for a freshman.”

on facing Colorado on the road this Saturday
“I think it’s great that we’ve put ourselves in a situation to play in a meaningful game. This was, tonight. People have them still in the discussion. I don’t know what their NET [ranking] is. If it’s 74, it’s a Quad-1 win, as a road win. They’re 10-1 at home. We, obviously, the situation we’re in, we need to play the four teams we finish with, obviously, for a résumé chance. But it’s also good for our growth. When you play better teams, it forces you to look in the mirror, what you’ve got to do to get where you want to go.”

on if any particular player has sparked team’s success
“I think Dave’s [Singleton] insertion into the lineup has probably been a big thing for us here. Dave’s a guy, he can make shots, obviously, but he’s so willing to buy in to defense and hustle, the way he practices, the way he talks during film sessions. He takes everything as serious as our other guys need to take it. It’s just the maturing process. Dave’s mature. He’s more serious. Fun-loving young guys are good, but there’s a time you’ve got to be able to be focused. Dave has a senior’s mentality, I guess is what I’m trying to say. That’s helped us a lot.”

UCLA sophomore guard David Singleton
on if he noticed Utah’s offense being off
“You don’t really think about the other team’s offense. We care about our defense. Are we playing solid defense? Because, you know, some players make hard shots, some players miss open shots. That’s just how the game goes, so we have to worry about our defense [and] make sure we’re solid.”

on what it takes to play good defense
“You just stay in front of your man, hand up, don’t run by the closeout. We have to talk and you have to work on communication with each other. That’s the main key, main focus for our defense.”

of if team has changed anything, defensively
“We haven’t changed anything. We’re just doing it better. We got used to [Coach] Cronin’s style. To be honest, we started playing harder. We’re putting in more effort on defense, every game.”

on how big of a boost Jules Bernard’s performance was
“It was a big boost. Jules, he’s my brother. I saw him working in the gym all week for this moment. I just talked to him. I knew he was going to have a good game. He’s been locked in all week for this.”

on importance of getting off to good start
“Getting off to a good start is always good on the road. It doesn’t give the other team momentum, so we always want to get a good lead on the road, or every game for that matter.”

on what team needs to do going into Saturday’s game at Colorado
“We’ve just got to talk on defense, communicate and it’s going to be a rebounding war. Colorado’s a very physical team. We have to keep them off the glass and then we have to stay solid and not turn the ball over.”

on if it feels like a new season
“We don’t have that mindset. It’s still the same season. We still look at the losses we had non-conference because it reminds us [of] the mistakes, it reminds us what loses and it reminds us what wins games. So, no, it’s not a new season. Still the same season. We’re just playing harder.”

on if he feels they have momentum
“We take it one game at a time. Obviously, winning’s great, but we don’t really look back on our wins. We’ve got to focus on the next game because this game’s over. It doesn’t matter anymore in terms of playing for the next game, getting ready for the next game.”

UCLA freshman guard Tyger Campbell
on winning at Utah
“We just had a good game prep. Coach talked a lot about how they’re 10-1, they’re a different team at home, and we just tried to lock in and focus. Our main thing was stopping transition buckets and we did a good job of that in the first half and we kind of let up a little bit in the second half. Our main focus was just defense, keeping everybody contained.”

on offense
“We just were getting good shots. I would think, I don’t remember exactly what shots we took at the beginning of the game, but I’m pretty sure they were open and they were the shots we wanted to get. So, we just weren’t forcing anything. We were just kind of letting the – a big thing that Coach said was just letting the game come to us.”

on what happened during Utah’s comeback in second half
“At the end, that’s when we’ve got to come together. We put together some good possessions at the end of the game. Obviously, the turnovers and we couldn’t really get stops down the stretch, we’ve just got to work on keeping control of the ball, being confident ball handlers. Sometimes, I decide to say I’m a confident ball handler, but their defense was really good at the end of the game and they got the best of me.”

on Saturday’s game at Colorado
“Well, for us, every game is meaningful, all season. So, we’re just taking it one game at a time. Like Coach says, it’s a one-game tournament. We got this one done. We’ve got Colorado on Saturday and we’re going to try to get the win.”

UCLA sophomore guard Jules Bernard
on what the Bruins did well
“Well, I think our scout defense was excellent. We knew who we were guarding. We knew the tendencies and that enabled us to help off of certain players and then guard players a little bit closer. I think we were really tuned in to the scout defense and just playing physical on the defensive end. That helped us a lot. I think we held them to 21 points in the first half. I think our defense was a big part of this win.”

on his offensive performance in first half
“Well, for me, I think my defense started it. I got a steal and a dunk, so that sort of got my juices flowing. And then I got a wide-open shot off a great pass from Cody Riley. And after that, I was just in the flow of things and I felt comfortable. And then trying to slow down and make the right play, then they started playing me for my shot and I would take it in. I just tried to play smart and [took] what the defense gave me.”

on team’s biggest growth, defensively
“I think we’re a lot focused and a lot more physical on defense. Now that we sort of know the teams that we play a lot, we know their tendencies a little more and we’re sort of focusing a lot on those. I think the biggest thing is our physicality and toughness.”

on Saturday’s game at Colorado and chance to make statement
“Yeah, of course. We’ve been, throughout this past couple weeks, we’ve been going by one-game tournament. We focus on one game at a time and we’re going to give all our effort for that one game. We’re coming into this Colorado matchup looking to do the same thing we did here: play physical defense, play tough and play tough. Hopefully we get the win.”

on team’s confidence of late
“I feel like we’re getting a lot more confident. We’re getting more comfortable. And then, I think just knowing we have our defense to fall back on, that sort of gives us that sort of [comfort]. If we continue to play tough on the defensive end, I feel like we’re going to be more comfortable on the offensive end because we know we… could stop other teams from scoring.”

on defense of interior players
“Yeah, our bigs have done a great job playing solid defense, not only forcing their players, their bigs to shoot tough hook shots and tough shots in the post, but also helping off on the drives and blocking shots off the glass and getting our fastbreaks started. Our bigs have definitely done a great job and helped us a lot.”

on importance of keeping Utah off 3-point line
“Yeah, it was important. We knew who their shooters were. Twenty-five [Alfonso Plummer], he came off the bench and he got it going a little bit. But it was important that we stopped their 3-point game and sort of funneled them into the paint because we’ve been playing physical. Our bigs have been playing physical. And we know we rebound the ball really well, so if we force them to tough shots in the paint, we have a great opportunity of getting the rebound. That was the main focus.”