Postgame Quotes – UCLA vs. BYU
POSTGAME QUOTES
BYU 78, UCLA 63
Maui Jim Maui Invitational
Lahaina, Hawai’i (Lahaina Civic Center)
November 25, 2019
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening remarks
“Well, I give BYU credit. We couldn't finish the game. We're a young team, still figuring out, finding our way. But they made it hard on us, so I think you got to always give the other team credit. Obviously, not happy with our defensive effort, but they have a lot to do with that. [During the] last nine minutes, they did a tremendous job of putting us on defense for 30 seconds, a couple times we didn't get crucial rebounds that broke our back. When they went to their small lineup, it really hurt us. But give them credit. We're still growing as a team, trying to figure out how hard we have to play to be a good basketball team. We’re a work in progress.”
on BYU’s ability to hurt the Bruins from the 3-point line and on the inside
“Oh, yeah. I thought they made a couple of really hard shots. One that was a desperation shot that hurt us. But overall, [our] nine freshmen and sophomore factor hurts us. I've coached veteran teams, and when you
know when you got a young team you can just, you’ll see the other team taking their level of intensity up and
your guys struggle. You can see your team. And we alluded to it, Prince is the one veteran out there for us. When he went down, it had an effect on the game. Hey, I'm a big believer. Yes, they're really hard to defend, okay. Once we started taking away the three, what really hurt us was we were getting beat off the dribble. But a mark of a young team is we, when you hit a point in the game with seven, eight minutes left, where we missed a dunk, we had a bad turnover. In a game like this, you can't do that against them. They are going to go put you on defense for 30 seconds and wear you down. It wears you down. When you play teams that play BYU’s style, you have to really take care of the ball. So what I would tell you is our 13 turnovers, in my mind, in a game where they were running the shot clock, when you play a team that's going to run the shot clock as long as they are, you can never turn the ball over. Like I told our guys before, we cannot win this game. We have to have eight turnovers or less to win this game, which would have given us a chance to get fouled more and get more second-chance points. We had 13.
on if there was any reason that sophomore David Singleton didn’t play as many minutes
“No, just strategy. He missed a blockout. Right now, I'm trying to find, just trying to find five guys that can
get a stop. That competition changes everything, but hopefully our guys – let’s make it real simple. Our guys, we
were giving up about 62 a game and we were 4-0. Last two games, we have given up 83 a game, you know, on
average. Can't win that way. So and nothing against, it wasn't David. He didn't do anything in particular. Just
searching for five guys who can get a stop together. And it's a struggle right now and until it's not a struggle
we're going to continue to struggle to beat that word to death.
on trying to shepherd a younger team through the season
“I mean, hey, look – we're 17 and 15, and we lost our best three players. It's going to be a process with the whole building. I knew it. So there's going to be ups and downs with it. It's like I told the guys, have you two choices – you can quit and go home, make excuses, which seems to be popular in today’s society with young people. Or you can stand and fight and learn how to be a guy that can defend, learn how to be a guy that never gets beat, learn how to be a guy that never turns the ball over, learn how to be a guy that remembers the offense and can execute. You got to stay in the ring and fight. The second thing I would tell you is, for us, until we learn how to respond, it seems that there's a, when they hit a couple of baskets, I got to teach these guys how to respond. You cannot turn the ball over. We had a crucial, Tyger had a crucial turnover. And then Chris cut on top of Jalen and it was just two really crucial turnovers. They're hard enough to defend, like, you got to be able to get shots off. What did we shoot for the game? I don't have a stat sheet. Yeah, 45 percent? In the last five years of my career you would struggle to find a loss where we shot 45 percent. We're just not there yet defensively and rebounding. Our shooting percentage isn't the issue. On offense, our turnovers are our problem. Now, you can't go, in a game like that, again, you're going to have to make free throws.”
on the strategy that goes into game-planing with such a quick turnaround
“Same thing for Chaminade.”
(follow up) on thoughts in general about the fast turnaround to Tuesday
“Don't know. Never done it. Never been in the loser's bracket. Get some rest and play. At some point you got to have some pride and character and it's about fortitude.”
on how you teach guys to communicate and dig in on defense
“The sad part is you can think that you’re good at it, based on your competition. But then when you play guys that can expose you, it’s just like anything else, it’s like you turn up the pressure on the pipes and you’ll see how strong they are. The team that takes care of the ball and keeps you on defense forever, you're going to
find out how well you communicate. You're going to find out how well you stay in front of the ball. Again, they did a great job. I can sit here and be upset with my guys. They do a tremendous job with what they do. But I think offense is, our offense really hurt us. I mean, there were times I was upset with our defense – there were a few crucial blockouts. But they're a team, because of their lack of size and strength, that we should have been able to, like early in the game we should have been able to score inside. Cody missed a bunch of chippies that he normally makes. I think that obviously hurt us. You got to score on them. And then the second thing is the turnovers killed our offensive rebounding. They just killed us, killed our offensive rebounding. So against them, you have to really be efficient on offense when you play any team that runs this spread Princeton stuff, because if you run, you throw one pass and turn it over they're going to go down and throw 17 passes and make you chase them around. We didn't get the job done with that.”
UCLA sophomore Jules Bernard
on BYU’s ability to make 3-pointers, as Hofstra did last week, and also score in the paint
“BYU did a good job of moving the ball a lot and also, like, dribbling and kicking out to the three. I think that once they established their paint presence we started keying in on the paint presence and they just kicked it out for threes. We knew they were going to be good on offense, but we just got to stay strong for 40 minutes. We played for about 30 minutes strong on defense and then we let off the gas. So it's just about sustaining our effort on defense and focusing on what teams do, especially like a team like BYU who runs their offense really well.”
on when Prince Ali got injured and briefly left the game
“He's one of the leaders on the team, so it was kind of scary. It looked like he was hurt pretty bad. But in times like that, collectively as a group, we have to come together and make sure we don't give up runs, especially when one of our leaders are out. I think that we're a young team, and we have to learn that throughout this year, but we're glad that he's okay.”
on the challenge of not getting the results you want so early in the season
“I think as basketball players we all know that you're going to have wins and losses. We fight every day in practice and in games, and losses are going to come. We're going to make mistakes, but that's part of the process. We have to grow and as the season goes on, hopefully those mistakes are to fix themselves. But losses come. We have to learn from them.”
BYU 78, UCLA 63
Maui Jim Maui Invitational
Lahaina, Hawai’i (Lahaina Civic Center)
November 25, 2019
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening remarks
“Well, I give BYU credit. We couldn't finish the game. We're a young team, still figuring out, finding our way. But they made it hard on us, so I think you got to always give the other team credit. Obviously, not happy with our defensive effort, but they have a lot to do with that. [During the] last nine minutes, they did a tremendous job of putting us on defense for 30 seconds, a couple times we didn't get crucial rebounds that broke our back. When they went to their small lineup, it really hurt us. But give them credit. We're still growing as a team, trying to figure out how hard we have to play to be a good basketball team. We’re a work in progress.”
on BYU’s ability to hurt the Bruins from the 3-point line and on the inside
“Oh, yeah. I thought they made a couple of really hard shots. One that was a desperation shot that hurt us. But overall, [our] nine freshmen and sophomore factor hurts us. I've coached veteran teams, and when you
know when you got a young team you can just, you’ll see the other team taking their level of intensity up and
your guys struggle. You can see your team. And we alluded to it, Prince is the one veteran out there for us. When he went down, it had an effect on the game. Hey, I'm a big believer. Yes, they're really hard to defend, okay. Once we started taking away the three, what really hurt us was we were getting beat off the dribble. But a mark of a young team is we, when you hit a point in the game with seven, eight minutes left, where we missed a dunk, we had a bad turnover. In a game like this, you can't do that against them. They are going to go put you on defense for 30 seconds and wear you down. It wears you down. When you play teams that play BYU’s style, you have to really take care of the ball. So what I would tell you is our 13 turnovers, in my mind, in a game where they were running the shot clock, when you play a team that's going to run the shot clock as long as they are, you can never turn the ball over. Like I told our guys before, we cannot win this game. We have to have eight turnovers or less to win this game, which would have given us a chance to get fouled more and get more second-chance points. We had 13.
on if there was any reason that sophomore David Singleton didn’t play as many minutes
“No, just strategy. He missed a blockout. Right now, I'm trying to find, just trying to find five guys that can
get a stop. That competition changes everything, but hopefully our guys – let’s make it real simple. Our guys, we
were giving up about 62 a game and we were 4-0. Last two games, we have given up 83 a game, you know, on
average. Can't win that way. So and nothing against, it wasn't David. He didn't do anything in particular. Just
searching for five guys who can get a stop together. And it's a struggle right now and until it's not a struggle
we're going to continue to struggle to beat that word to death.
on trying to shepherd a younger team through the season
“I mean, hey, look – we're 17 and 15, and we lost our best three players. It's going to be a process with the whole building. I knew it. So there's going to be ups and downs with it. It's like I told the guys, have you two choices – you can quit and go home, make excuses, which seems to be popular in today’s society with young people. Or you can stand and fight and learn how to be a guy that can defend, learn how to be a guy that never gets beat, learn how to be a guy that never turns the ball over, learn how to be a guy that remembers the offense and can execute. You got to stay in the ring and fight. The second thing I would tell you is, for us, until we learn how to respond, it seems that there's a, when they hit a couple of baskets, I got to teach these guys how to respond. You cannot turn the ball over. We had a crucial, Tyger had a crucial turnover. And then Chris cut on top of Jalen and it was just two really crucial turnovers. They're hard enough to defend, like, you got to be able to get shots off. What did we shoot for the game? I don't have a stat sheet. Yeah, 45 percent? In the last five years of my career you would struggle to find a loss where we shot 45 percent. We're just not there yet defensively and rebounding. Our shooting percentage isn't the issue. On offense, our turnovers are our problem. Now, you can't go, in a game like that, again, you're going to have to make free throws.”
on the strategy that goes into game-planing with such a quick turnaround
“Same thing for Chaminade.”
(follow up) on thoughts in general about the fast turnaround to Tuesday
“Don't know. Never done it. Never been in the loser's bracket. Get some rest and play. At some point you got to have some pride and character and it's about fortitude.”
on how you teach guys to communicate and dig in on defense
“The sad part is you can think that you’re good at it, based on your competition. But then when you play guys that can expose you, it’s just like anything else, it’s like you turn up the pressure on the pipes and you’ll see how strong they are. The team that takes care of the ball and keeps you on defense forever, you're going to
find out how well you communicate. You're going to find out how well you stay in front of the ball. Again, they did a great job. I can sit here and be upset with my guys. They do a tremendous job with what they do. But I think offense is, our offense really hurt us. I mean, there were times I was upset with our defense – there were a few crucial blockouts. But they're a team, because of their lack of size and strength, that we should have been able to, like early in the game we should have been able to score inside. Cody missed a bunch of chippies that he normally makes. I think that obviously hurt us. You got to score on them. And then the second thing is the turnovers killed our offensive rebounding. They just killed us, killed our offensive rebounding. So against them, you have to really be efficient on offense when you play any team that runs this spread Princeton stuff, because if you run, you throw one pass and turn it over they're going to go down and throw 17 passes and make you chase them around. We didn't get the job done with that.”
UCLA sophomore Jules Bernard
on BYU’s ability to make 3-pointers, as Hofstra did last week, and also score in the paint
“BYU did a good job of moving the ball a lot and also, like, dribbling and kicking out to the three. I think that once they established their paint presence we started keying in on the paint presence and they just kicked it out for threes. We knew they were going to be good on offense, but we just got to stay strong for 40 minutes. We played for about 30 minutes strong on defense and then we let off the gas. So it's just about sustaining our effort on defense and focusing on what teams do, especially like a team like BYU who runs their offense really well.”
on when Prince Ali got injured and briefly left the game
“He's one of the leaders on the team, so it was kind of scary. It looked like he was hurt pretty bad. But in times like that, collectively as a group, we have to come together and make sure we don't give up runs, especially when one of our leaders are out. I think that we're a young team, and we have to learn that throughout this year, but we're glad that he's okay.”
on the challenge of not getting the results you want so early in the season
“I think as basketball players we all know that you're going to have wins and losses. We fight every day in practice and in games, and losses are going to come. We're going to make mistakes, but that's part of the process. We have to grow and as the season goes on, hopefully those mistakes are to fix themselves. But losses come. We have to learn from them.”