Postgame Quotes - UCLA at USC
POSTGAME QUOTES
USC 80, UCLA 67
Los Angeles (Galen Center)
January 19, 2019
UCLA interim head coach Murry Bartow
opening remarks
“Obviously, that was a tough game. We turned the ball over too much. When you go on the road, you have to play close to perfect and we didn’t. They have three really, really good players in Rakocevic, Boatwright and Mathews. They all played great. All three of them played great games. I thought that in the first half, defensively, we did some good things. But in the second half, they [USC] really opened it up. They just played better than we did. We turned it over too many times. Their star players hurt us, and we collectively did not play well enough to win.”
on USC pulling away early in the second half
“Well, there was a lot of good play by them and not very good defense by us. Against their zone, they played zone for most of the game, we did not attack it very well. But I thought their zone was good. Boatwright, Rakocevic and Mathews, those are three really good players. They all had great games. They just had spurts against us. We didn’t, it was just a bad run for us there in the second half.”
on how difficult it is for a team to try and rally and addressing the team’s free throw issues
“It’s not easy. It’s not easy. We aren’t a great free throw shooting team, but hopefully we can improve. And then we do turn the ball over a lot. When you go on the road and you turn it over a lot, it’s just hard to win.”
on moving away from the 1-3-1 zone in the second half against USC
“Probably should’ve used it some in the second half, and we didn’t. It’s a 1-3-1, which really goes to a 2-3, but it’s kind of a 1-3-1 look initially. But yeah, in hindsight, we probably should’ve gone to that some in the second half.”
on USC totaling 26 assists and if that defined how the game was played
“Well, I thought that they moved it well. I don’t know how many we ended up having. We had 13 and they ended up with 26. I thought they did a good job. We’ve been playing pretty exclusively in zone. We started the game in man, and we played a little man. But, our zone has been pretty darn good. But they picked it apart. Boatwright is good against the zone. Rakocevic did some good things against the zone. They moved the ball well.”
on the team’s offense and how the Bruins can improve
“We need to practice hard this Monday and on Tuesday and Wednesday. The last two games, it has been a lot of zone offense versus pretty good zones. I thought USC’s zone was good. Oregon State’s was good. But over the last eight minutes, it has pretty much been zone offense and we’ve been too stagnant.”
on freshman Moses Brown
“Well, he is a key guy for us, obviously, and we love Moses. It probably wasn’t one of his better moments.”
on how he addresses improvement with free throw shooting
“It’s a dilemma. You have a decision to make. Do you hardball it or do you talk a lot about it, I mean, it can become mental. My philosophy is just to rep it a lot, not to harp on it and harp on it and to harp on it. But just to get a lot of reps. You have to shoot with the right technique. And is he shooting with the right technique or as best as he can and you keep repping it, that’s about all you can do. And you know, he [Moses] has struggled from the line all year.”
on how he thought the team responded to a road environment with a rivalry game
“We didn’t play great. But I thought USC played well. When you are on the road, you just have to play really really really well to win. And we had 20 turnovers and, again, their three stars really hurt us. We just didn’t play well enough to win.”
UCLA sophomore Kris Wilkes
on how tough it is to lose to the crosstown rival
“You know, it’s tough to lose against anyone. But especially coming down here, I think we’re the best team in L.A., and to not show that tonight, you know, it hurts.”
on why he thinks UCLA did not play well
“We’ve just got to trust one another more, [like] in the first half. We had a lot of open looks, trusting one another as a team. Mentally, second half, it just wasn’t the same. In order for us to win more games and to, you know, beat them the next time that we play them, we’ve got to play a whole 40 minutes trust each other.”
on if anything that USC did on defense significantly altered UCLA’s plans on offense
“No. They hadn’t done anything that we had not seen before. You know, they just played defense, and we didn’t take advantage of it and score the ball.”
on how much his team has emphasized the 1-3-1 zone defense in practice
“We have been working on it the last couple of weeks. I think that it worked a little bit tonight. We got a couple of turnovers from it.”
on whether the 1-3-1 defense may have been more successful to deploy in the second half
“I mean, yeah, we might’ve gotten some more stops, but it wasn’t our defense that was messing us up. It was our offense, as well.”
on issues around trust and being able to trust teammates on the court
“We’ve just got to keep going with what has been working. You know, whoever is doing good or whoever is just hot, just sharing the ball and trusting one another. We’ve got to keep moving the ball. I don’t think that we did that a lot in the second half. We were just 1-on-1 a lot, and we had a lot of stagnant basketball on offense. That didn’t help us out at all.”
on difficulties that arise when the team just isn’t shooting the ball well
“It shouldn’t mean anything. You know, if we aren’t shooting it well, we should just start attacking the rim or something, just to change up the game. But I guess it just didn’t work out like we thought it would.”
on answering USC’s scoring runs in the first half, but getting behind in the second half
“We didn’t have an answer. We might have got a few stops, or done this or that on defense, but our offense is going to help us win, and we’ve got to score on offense to keep up with our opponents, and we did not do that.”
on how UCLA’s turnovers are hurting the team
“I think it has just caught up with us. The first couple of games, we had a high amount of turnovers. And it didn’t matter because we still won. But as you progress and get more into your season, you know, people will take advantage of your turnovers. And tonight, they took advantage of them and they scored.”
UCLA redshirt junior guard Prince Ali
on what it means to lose at USC
“Yeah, that’s tough. They’re our crosstown rival. They beat us pretty convincingly. So that is obviously pretty tough.”
on tying the game early in the second half (38-38) and what changed after that point
“We just stopped moving it. And we weren’t really moving it in the first half, but in the second half, we got really stagnant. That is something that we’re going to have to figure out soon because we’re going to play a lot more teams who are just as talented or a lot more talented.”
on why the team’s offense gets stagnant
“I couldn’t tell you. It’s just something that we have to figure out internally, whether it’s a players-only meeting or something. We’ve all got to talk to each other and figure it out.”
on Kris Wilkes having alluded to trust issues and how a team can work through that
“I mean when you have trust issues, you’ve got to talk to each other. And that’s what players-only meetings are for. I mean, if you have a probably with somebody just tell them. We’ve got to talk it out. I mean, he’s not wrong. He’s not wrong. We definitely have to figure this out, and soon.”
on how the team is collectively holding up after this loss
“Hey man, it’s chin up. Chin up. We’re good. We’ve got to keep our heads up. There are plenty more games to be played. So, we’ll be all right.”
on turnovers and free throw shooting being issues
“I’ve always said the same things. We’ve just got to figure it out and watch film. We’ve got to figure out what we’re doing wrong. It’s about valuing the ball and making simple plays. It’s things like that.”
on the contrast between wins against Cal and Stanford, versus these last two road losses
“Yeah, absolutely. That was fun. We were winning, and we were scoring in the 90s. That’s fun. We need to get back to that, absolutely.”
USC 80, UCLA 67
Los Angeles (Galen Center)
January 19, 2019
UCLA interim head coach Murry Bartow
opening remarks
“Obviously, that was a tough game. We turned the ball over too much. When you go on the road, you have to play close to perfect and we didn’t. They have three really, really good players in Rakocevic, Boatwright and Mathews. They all played great. All three of them played great games. I thought that in the first half, defensively, we did some good things. But in the second half, they [USC] really opened it up. They just played better than we did. We turned it over too many times. Their star players hurt us, and we collectively did not play well enough to win.”
on USC pulling away early in the second half
“Well, there was a lot of good play by them and not very good defense by us. Against their zone, they played zone for most of the game, we did not attack it very well. But I thought their zone was good. Boatwright, Rakocevic and Mathews, those are three really good players. They all had great games. They just had spurts against us. We didn’t, it was just a bad run for us there in the second half.”
on how difficult it is for a team to try and rally and addressing the team’s free throw issues
“It’s not easy. It’s not easy. We aren’t a great free throw shooting team, but hopefully we can improve. And then we do turn the ball over a lot. When you go on the road and you turn it over a lot, it’s just hard to win.”
on moving away from the 1-3-1 zone in the second half against USC
“Probably should’ve used it some in the second half, and we didn’t. It’s a 1-3-1, which really goes to a 2-3, but it’s kind of a 1-3-1 look initially. But yeah, in hindsight, we probably should’ve gone to that some in the second half.”
on USC totaling 26 assists and if that defined how the game was played
“Well, I thought that they moved it well. I don’t know how many we ended up having. We had 13 and they ended up with 26. I thought they did a good job. We’ve been playing pretty exclusively in zone. We started the game in man, and we played a little man. But, our zone has been pretty darn good. But they picked it apart. Boatwright is good against the zone. Rakocevic did some good things against the zone. They moved the ball well.”
on the team’s offense and how the Bruins can improve
“We need to practice hard this Monday and on Tuesday and Wednesday. The last two games, it has been a lot of zone offense versus pretty good zones. I thought USC’s zone was good. Oregon State’s was good. But over the last eight minutes, it has pretty much been zone offense and we’ve been too stagnant.”
on freshman Moses Brown
“Well, he is a key guy for us, obviously, and we love Moses. It probably wasn’t one of his better moments.”
on how he addresses improvement with free throw shooting
“It’s a dilemma. You have a decision to make. Do you hardball it or do you talk a lot about it, I mean, it can become mental. My philosophy is just to rep it a lot, not to harp on it and harp on it and to harp on it. But just to get a lot of reps. You have to shoot with the right technique. And is he shooting with the right technique or as best as he can and you keep repping it, that’s about all you can do. And you know, he [Moses] has struggled from the line all year.”
on how he thought the team responded to a road environment with a rivalry game
“We didn’t play great. But I thought USC played well. When you are on the road, you just have to play really really really well to win. And we had 20 turnovers and, again, their three stars really hurt us. We just didn’t play well enough to win.”
UCLA sophomore Kris Wilkes
on how tough it is to lose to the crosstown rival
“You know, it’s tough to lose against anyone. But especially coming down here, I think we’re the best team in L.A., and to not show that tonight, you know, it hurts.”
on why he thinks UCLA did not play well
“We’ve just got to trust one another more, [like] in the first half. We had a lot of open looks, trusting one another as a team. Mentally, second half, it just wasn’t the same. In order for us to win more games and to, you know, beat them the next time that we play them, we’ve got to play a whole 40 minutes trust each other.”
on if anything that USC did on defense significantly altered UCLA’s plans on offense
“No. They hadn’t done anything that we had not seen before. You know, they just played defense, and we didn’t take advantage of it and score the ball.”
on how much his team has emphasized the 1-3-1 zone defense in practice
“We have been working on it the last couple of weeks. I think that it worked a little bit tonight. We got a couple of turnovers from it.”
on whether the 1-3-1 defense may have been more successful to deploy in the second half
“I mean, yeah, we might’ve gotten some more stops, but it wasn’t our defense that was messing us up. It was our offense, as well.”
on issues around trust and being able to trust teammates on the court
“We’ve just got to keep going with what has been working. You know, whoever is doing good or whoever is just hot, just sharing the ball and trusting one another. We’ve got to keep moving the ball. I don’t think that we did that a lot in the second half. We were just 1-on-1 a lot, and we had a lot of stagnant basketball on offense. That didn’t help us out at all.”
on difficulties that arise when the team just isn’t shooting the ball well
“It shouldn’t mean anything. You know, if we aren’t shooting it well, we should just start attacking the rim or something, just to change up the game. But I guess it just didn’t work out like we thought it would.”
on answering USC’s scoring runs in the first half, but getting behind in the second half
“We didn’t have an answer. We might have got a few stops, or done this or that on defense, but our offense is going to help us win, and we’ve got to score on offense to keep up with our opponents, and we did not do that.”
on how UCLA’s turnovers are hurting the team
“I think it has just caught up with us. The first couple of games, we had a high amount of turnovers. And it didn’t matter because we still won. But as you progress and get more into your season, you know, people will take advantage of your turnovers. And tonight, they took advantage of them and they scored.”
UCLA redshirt junior guard Prince Ali
on what it means to lose at USC
“Yeah, that’s tough. They’re our crosstown rival. They beat us pretty convincingly. So that is obviously pretty tough.”
on tying the game early in the second half (38-38) and what changed after that point
“We just stopped moving it. And we weren’t really moving it in the first half, but in the second half, we got really stagnant. That is something that we’re going to have to figure out soon because we’re going to play a lot more teams who are just as talented or a lot more talented.”
on why the team’s offense gets stagnant
“I couldn’t tell you. It’s just something that we have to figure out internally, whether it’s a players-only meeting or something. We’ve all got to talk to each other and figure it out.”
on Kris Wilkes having alluded to trust issues and how a team can work through that
“I mean when you have trust issues, you’ve got to talk to each other. And that’s what players-only meetings are for. I mean, if you have a probably with somebody just tell them. We’ve got to talk it out. I mean, he’s not wrong. He’s not wrong. We definitely have to figure this out, and soon.”
on how the team is collectively holding up after this loss
“Hey man, it’s chin up. Chin up. We’re good. We’ve got to keep our heads up. There are plenty more games to be played. So, we’ll be all right.”
on turnovers and free throw shooting being issues
“I’ve always said the same things. We’ve just got to figure it out and watch film. We’ve got to figure out what we’re doing wrong. It’s about valuing the ball and making simple plays. It’s things like that.”
on the contrast between wins against Cal and Stanford, versus these last two road losses
“Yeah, absolutely. That was fun. We were winning, and we were scoring in the 90s. That’s fun. We need to get back to that, absolutely.”