Liberty 73, UCLA 58
December 29, 2018
Steve Alford, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening remarks
“First of all, give Liberty and Coach McKay of Liberty incredible praise. I think they whipped us in just about, other than board play, they whipped us in about every category. So, I give Liberty a ton of praise. They played really well, played hard, played tough, played smart, so I give them incredible praise. For us, I’ve been doing this a long time, 28 years, and you have setbacks, you have tough games. This might be one of the most disappointing games I’ve had. Trying to reflect back throughout 28 years, the word disappointment of just our team, and how we performed. I don’t know the last time I was this disappointed in a team. It did not look like us on any level as far as, how we’ve prepped, how we’ve practiced, how we’ve watched film, things that we’ve done. The execution was extremely poor at both ends. I’m very disappointed in how we played.”
On what he thinks went into getting outplayed …
“Poor ball-handling, poor passing, poor catching, poor shooting, poor foul shooting. One team got 32 points off turnovers, and the other team got seven. So, if you’re going to turn the ball over 24 times and give up 32 points, and then turn the other team over eight times for seven points, it’s the difference in the game. It’s 32-7 off turnovers.”
On the reason the performance was uncharacteristic based on practice …
“I don’t know that, that’s a question I don’t know. I don’t know if the players have a better answer to that than we do as coaches. I just met with my coaches. It wasn’t anything that Liberty did. They didn’t come in with a new offense, new defense. We prepared for the trap in the post. If we threw it in the post, we more times than not turned it over, and we prepped for that. We couldn’t drive the ball. I thought they were very physical, and took the ball from us several times. So, that’s a hard one. I don’t know. I just know it’s hard to win basketball games when you turn it over 24 times, and you can’t make a foul shot. We’ve had two of those now, with Belmont and Liberty at home.”
On the loss compounded by the Belmont loss …
“It has nothing to do with Belmont. It has nothing to do with our last road trip. It had to do with our focus, and how we’ve been attentive. We’ve had good practices, good film sessions. I thought things were really good going into this game. So, my disappointment is just on how we played today. It has nothing to do with, or carried over from the last two or three games. It was really more about today.”
On what caused the excess turnovers …
“I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know. These are high major players with 24 turnovers. David Singleton was the only player on the team that didn’t have a turnover, and Kenneth Nwuba. Those were the only guys on the team that didn’t have a turnover in the game. I don’t know. We’re going to have to watch tape. We have some time to try to look at tape and figure things out before we start league play, but it’s been four games now. Whether changes have to occur … I can almost promise you changes in the lineup and changes in minutes. Those things have to happen because now we’ve had four games. It’s not a one or two game deal. The inability to sustain over 40 minutes is very frustrating. Today, disappointed is the only thing that I can come up. I’m just extremely disappointed in my basketball team right now.”
On how much can be corrected by the start of conference play …
“When you talk about pass, shoot, dribble, catch, I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to watch the tape and see exactly where those issues are. How we dribble, how we pass, how we catch. It’s 7th grade stuff, but we have to go back to some drills I used to do as a player in middle school. It’s frustrating the turnovers that we have. If they’re aggressive charging fouls, those type of things … I don’t mind deadball aggressive turnovers. But the live ball turnover that we had are inexcusable. They just are, and they shouldn’t be happening. And that’s where my disappointment is. I don’t think that’s going to change when I watch the tape. It’s hard to run an offense when 24 times you have the ball and you don’t get a shot on goal. That’s hard to beat anybody. We have to try to figure it out from an offensive standpoint.”
UCLA redshirt freshman forward Cody Riley
On overcoming adversity …
“Throughout my career I’ve played basketball, there’s been adversity where [I’ve] lost games. At the end of the day, you just have to go back to the lab and try to figure it out. Us as players, with us being young, also, it’s just a lack of concentration at the end of the day and that shows up in the stats. Way more turnovers than we should ever have and it’s a lack of concentration. We’re going to have to get tougher and learn focus more in the games [to] overcome this.”
UCLA sophomore guard Chris Smith
On if the team felt flat …
“I don’t really think we went in flat. We didn’t have the worst start, but it was decent. We were off to a good start and had the lead and everything. I guess we just went downhill the more the game went on. Lost focus, lost control, lost concentration and whenever we tried to get back into it, we really only hurt ourselves. So I don’t think it was being flat, it was just bad…”
On what went into 24 turnovers …
“I think we’ve just got to care more about the possessions. The more you care about the possessions; I think we’ll be able to take care of the ball. We were trying to move it around more and be more selfless, which is a good sign. We’ve got to pass the ball… and I think we’ve just got to take care of the ball.”
Liberty Head Coach Ritchie McKay
Overall statement …
“We’ve got a group of guys with a lot of experience. UCLA made some great runs and our guys weathered the storm. UCLA is a very talented team, but just inexperienced. It was important for us in getting the victory.”
On where they go from here…
“We have confidence, but we start conference play. We play against Florida Gulf Coast on the road on the 5th (of January).”
On if he was surprised by the victory…
“We played Georgetown, Alabama and Vanderbilt, so we played a challenging non-conference schedule, so I wasn’t surprised. UCLA is well-coached and talented, but they are young, so we were not surprised.”
Liberty Redshirt Junior Guard Caleb Homesley
On how the team played tonight…
“I thought it was good. It really starts on the defensive end. We are unselfish and being unselfish opens things up for us. That’s how I usually play, defensive leads to offense.”
On where they go from here…
“This is a great win, but it doesn’t really define us. We have Florida Gulf Coast on the road, so we have to be ready to play them.”
On if he was surprised by the victory…
“No, I really wasn’t surprised because we played Vanderbilt, Georgetown and Alabama and we just came up short. We were really close in those games. We lost by less than 10. We were able to put 40 minutes together tonight.”