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Postgame Quotes - Oregon 94, UCLA 91
Oregon 94, UCLA 91
Eugene, Ore. (Matthew Knight Arena)
January 20, 2018
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
opening statement
“I told the guys in the second half I love how they competed and worked. It was just a really out of character first half. We got in foul trouble and were out of rhythm. We really haven’t had to play without Aaron [Holiday] very often and we really struggle with that. It’s a big part of what we do and this is the first time we’ve had to handle that. The start of the game was nothing like we talked about both offensively and defensively and I’m not sure why. That’s the hard part. We settled down a little bit but after that we had foul trouble so we were just trying to survive until halftime. The second half I thought we were pretty good. They had 14 assists and no turnovers at half. In the second half they had five assists and eight turnovers and we go 13 assists and four turnovers. The second half was much better in terms of the way we like to do things with tempo and how we like to guard. You can’t go on the road and expect to get wins when you only do that for one half.”
on Thomas Welsh taking 3-pointer late in game
“I’m ok with him taking the shot. Him and Aaron [Holiday] are our best 3-point shooters so I’m OK with Tom shooting that. I liked how we managed the timeouts and I liked how they did a good job of fouling and that worked out for them. I thought we did a good job with our press to get back in it and gave ourselves a chance to win it. Tom shooting that three is perfectly fine with me.”
on the team’s reaction to the loss
“I hope it’s tough. I want them hurting a little bit. That’s all part of it. We talked about it briefly and we will talk more about it this week. This is a crucial home stand. We have three here in the next two weeks. I told them that. The pressure is on them. We’re going to have to deal with that pressure of having to win games at home.”
on balancing growth of team to having to win games
“I think more than anything it’s about winning. Now you have to two teams coming into your building in Cal and Stanford who you’ve already played. So they are making adjustments and we are making adjustments. You have to bring it. I thought Oregon did a really good job of bringing it to us in the first half and it got us on our heels a little bit. We have to go home and it’s not just about protecting home but it’s about getting it done. That’s going to take a lot of effort and energy but I think this team is very capable of that.”
on cutting the lead from 18 to three in the second half
“We started getting some defensive stops that got us out running. We shot the ball well. We came out on the road and scored 91 points and shot 52 percent from the field and got to the free throw line. Board play was about even. I thought we did a lot of good things that way. We just dug ourselves such a big hole in the first half that we were almost going to have to be perfect in the last 10 minutes. And we almost were because we played awfully well in the last 10-14 minutes.”
UCLA freshman guard Kris Wilkes
on second half adjustments
“I felt like in the second half we woke up. The first half we didn’t play great on defense. Overall we shot 52 percent so it wasn’t our offense, it was our defense. In the first half I think we were just asleep and let them run over us. The second half we played great, we just started too late to comeback especially in their house.”
on Aaron Holiday being in foul trouble in first half
“It takes away a lot. We need Aaron all the time for offensive and defensive reasons. For him to go out early in the first half and get into foul trouble really hurt us. It wasn’t just him it was us too. We still should have picked it up on defense even with him out. We did make some bad plays on offense, but we did pretty solid we just couldn’t get on the boards or keep anyone in front of us.”
on team’s attitude to almost completing comeback
“It was ok. We just have to learn how to play the whole 40 minutes. We only played 20 minutes that game. They played the whole 40. We have to learn how to play the whole 40 because we are a better team. If we play our whole 40 against their whole 40 we would have won that game. We have to move on to the next game. We play Cal at home so we have to keep moving forward and getting wins.”
on losing three in a row
“We are coming back strong. We are coming home and have to defend hard. No more losses at home.”