Postgame Quotes – UCLA vs. Purdue Fort Wayne
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 96, Purdue Fort Wayne 71 (November 6, 2018)
The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach Steve Alford
Opening statement
“Well, really pleased. Openers are always a little bit scary. I thought our guys did a lot of good things with our preparation. We really tried to do some of the things we wanted to do defensively. A little bit sloppy in the first half, offensively, and yet, it’s two halves where we scored 48 points. If we make free throws, we’re well over 100 points. Other than foul line, I thought we started to move the ball well and we’ve got a huge presence inside and as the guys learn to play through Mo (Moses Brown) and around Mo, I think things will really open up for us from the perimeter because we’d like to get more than 25 3s up and more than eight makes. It’s got to flow through Mo. It’s got to start by being an inside-out deal. For the most part, defensively, we’re very pleased, and I thought offensively we did a lot of good things. We settled down in the second half, didn’t turn the ball over as much. Meantime, we get 22 assists—that’s a good number.”
On Kris Wilkes
“Kris is a prolific scorer. I thought the two glaring things were 27 points on 11 for 19 and Moses 9 for 10. Moses in his first college game goes 19-17. Those two are great inside-out. Jaylen (Hands), I thought, really ran the show, seven assists, two turnovers. That’s huge for us. Thought Chris Smith was great off our bench. Thought he did a lot of good things at both ends of the floor. Chris is a scorer. I think the thing I liked most about Chris was he got 10 rebounds. I think that’s probably a career high, as well. Being a big guard, you need for him to help on the glass and the huge difference in this game is the backboard and that’s going to be a big key to our defense.”
On if he liked pace
“Yeah, we’ve never really had a possession problem. We’ve always been 73-plus in possessions, but I did think that when the game gets going up and down and it got fast paced, that really favored us even though they’re playing a lot of guards. I thought that favored us because now we get out in the open floor, we’re long, we’re athletic and we did some really good things that way. I think we were up 26, 27 and then they score seven straight out of a timeout and that was really the only stretch I thought was really poor for us defensively, but I thought our guys did some good things. I thought the freshman, it was good for them to get a game under their belt. Jalen Hill hadn’t played, so it was a good game for him to get under his belt. And I thought our vets did a nice job.”
On if defense will be improved by depth
“Well, I hope. And I hope we get some guys back. We don’t have great depth right now, but our rotation is really good. I’m pleased with the rotation. Cody Riley is not just a good defender, he’s a go-to guy offensively. So Cody Riley is a difference maker for us, having a power forward like that. He compliments what we do inside very, very well. Alex Olesinski is somebody we hope we get back sometime over the break. He’s a pick-and-pop stretch four that can shoot 3s and he gives us a different element, as well. Hopefully, at some point, those guys get back in the mix. That’s going to help our depth, but right now I still like our depth. And during that, I think a lot of the young guys can get some minutes and learn. I think first, when you just look at the eye test, I think [we’re] pretty physical, I think we’re long and athletic and when we’re in attack mode, we’re pretty good offensively going downhill. We’ve got a long way to go yet with half-court offense because I think once we got to half court, we stood a lot and we didn’t screen and cut like we have to do. Those things will come. That’s very usual for your opener. When you have success in transition and then all of a sudden you have to play at half court, you stand a lot. And so we’ll see how on film, be able to teach and these guys will pick that up.”
On Moses Brown
“When you think of first college games, 19 and 17—and again only 10 shots—Mo’s just special. I told him he got hammered on a foul. I’ve been telling him, ‘You don’t make free throws, the fouls are going to get harder.’ I brought him over and I said, ‘Was that a pretty hard foul?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, that was real hard,’ and I go ‘Why do you think that happened?’ He goes, ‘Because I’m not making my free throws.’ He knows. He’ll get those down because he’s really been working hard on it. I’m going to give him that one game because I do think he’ll make more foul shots and he’ll shoot more. What’s impressive is he got 19 and 17 and he only got to the line four times because I think he’s somebody that has the potential to get to the free-throw line about 10 times a game. He is long, he is big and you saw his motor tonight. When you’ve got that kind of size and you play that hard, good things eventually happen. And I give our guys credit. At halftime, he had three shots and that was our whole halftime talk was Moses has to get more than three touches, three shots. And so it’s a great credit to our guys. They found him in the second half.”
On improving 3-point defense
“We really wanted to find [Kason] Harrell. We felt like, for them to beat us, Harrell and [John] Konchar were going to have to have huge games because they’ve got some new guys playing for the first time and we loved the matchup inside, so we really weren’t worried on the frontcourt. It was really could we defend the perimeter… I have to look at the tape. We don’t like giving up 37 3 attempts, but we knew this was a team that, they like shooting that many 3s… I thought for the most part, we defended it pretty well.”
On if Brown’s technical foul came for hanging on the rim
“No, he slapped the backboard. New York habit that we’re trying to break.”
On early shot-clock attempts from Hands
“Well, what bothered me was we got off to a good start and then we quick shot. I literally don’t mind open transition 3s. I’ve never minded that. I think, analytically, it’s a good thing, but playing this team, our whole emphasis was dominate the paint. I just didn’t think they had an answer for Moses and I think they’d agree with me on that. And so I thought we got away from attacking the paint off the drive and got away in the first half of getting the ball inside, but I do think we did a better job offensively in the second half, not as good a defensive job in the second half. When it got a little lopsided, I thought we got a little lax defensively.”
UCLA Sophomore Guard Kris Wilkes
On team’s performance in season opener
“Personally, I thought [the game] was really good—finally getting back with the team. We’ve had a lot of injuries over the last few weeks. Just to get out here and actually play the game and play somebody else, not just each other and bang each other out, it was pretty good.”
On if he feels more secure in his decision to return for sophomore year after career high in opener
“Yeah, it’s cool, but I try not to focus on any of that. Ultimately, I just want to come out here and win the game and be aggressive and lead my team to a win. Tonight, it was just going for me; [shots] went in. I thank my teammates for giving me the ball and putting that trust in me to score.”
On if the team wants to play at fast pace on offense
“Yeah, definitely. Especially offensively, I think we really want to do that. Defensively, I think there are some things that we need to work on. There were some good things that we did tonight, defensively, but ultimately, we have to play a whole 40 minutes and not just 20 minutes like we did last year. We have to get rid of that and move on forward this year and play better defense. That will help us get to where we want to go.”
On playing with Moses Brown
“It’s terrific. It’s good having a big seven-footer down there banging. We had [Thomas Welsh] last year who was a great shooter. We could drive to the bucket and kick it to him. We switched it up this year and now we got ‘Mo’, who dunks everything. It’s pretty good when you get down to the paint and have nowhere else to go, you just throw it up to ‘Mo’. That helps out a lot.”
UCLA Freshman Center Moses Brown
On team’s performance in season opener
“I’ve been waiting for this all summer, the season opener. I’ve been looking at the schedule and marking it down day-by-day, and we finally got out and did it.”
On differences between exhibition game and tonight
“[Since] it was the season opener, I kind of had some butterflies going in, but I shook it off by the time the second half came around.”
On slapping the backboard after a dunk and being called for a technical foul
“It was a technical foul. I’d done it a lot in practice. Coach [Alford] told me not to do it, but I was a little excited. I did it and he sent me out [to the bench].”
UCLA Sophomore Guard Jaylen Hands
On team’s performance in season opener
“I thought the same things [as Kris Wilkes]. Just to play against someone else—I thought we got a lot of people involved, so I thought it was a lot of fun.”
On his comfort level running the offense compared to a year ago
“I felt really comfortable. It was good watching Aaron [Holiday] play last year and kind of get an understanding of [running the offense]. I felt really comfortable trying to pick my spots and then also get everyone else involved, so I felt good about it.”
On playing with Moses Brown
“I thought he was really good. I’m pretty sure [Purdue Fort Wayne] watched our exhibition game, so I know they were game-planning for him. For him to come out and still play like that with that high of a clip, it says a lot about him.”
Purdue Fort Wayne Head Coach Jon Coffman
Opening statement
“UCLA really came to play. They did a really nice job and fixed some things in the second half. I felt like we were playing well with them in the first half. They started challenging the passing lanes and we didn’t have a great flow. I give them credit for that. Also, Kason (Harrell) unfortunately sat by me most of the game since he was in foul trouble. He’s one of our returning all-league players and that kind of changed the game.”
On where they go from here
“We’re disappointed. We’ve beaten Indiana, so this is really a gauge on what we have to do to get better. This is a new group with some players who have never put this jersey on and never played in a college atmosphere, so that affected us as well. Give credit to them (UCLA), but some of that was us. We have a lot of room for growth, especially with the new group.
Purdue Fort Wayne Redshirt Senior Guard John Konchar
On their performance tonight
“I thought we played pretty hard, especially with having such a new group. I felt like we made some progress tonight, but we just gave up too many transition points. I thought we learned a lot from tonight’s game.”
On the atmosphere in Pauley Pavilion
“I thought it was a really great atmosphere. So much history in this building. Also, being in California is a lot better than being in the cold. It’s just beautiful weather out here. Just the history for this building was great for me and my team.”