Postgame Quotes – UCLA at Stanford
POSTGAME QUOTES
Stanford 104, UCLA 80
February 16, 2019
Murry Bartow, UCLA interim head coach
on difficulty coming back after halftime delay
“We just got whipped. It had nothing to do with the delay or anything else. They were much more ready than us, much more high energy than us. I thought we got whipped in the first half and the delay obviously had nothing to do with it. Our defense has really been what kind of kept us in games and, man tonight, we just had no answer defensively. We tried man, we tried 2-3, we tried 3-2, we tried 1-3-1 and just couldn’t get a stop.”
on if Stanford’s Josh Sharma and Cormac Ryan surprised them
“Oh, I wouldn’t say they surprised me. We have a lot of respect for Ryan as a shooter and he hadn’t been shooting it great as of late but, all of a sudden—you know when you’re a shooter and you make that first one and then you make the second one—that rim looks really big. That’s kind of what happened with him. And then Sharma and [Oscar] Da Silva have had huge games, so no, I wasn’t surprised. I’m surprised giving up 104 points because defensively, we’ve been pretty decent. We just didn’t have an answer. They killed us in transition, they killed us in the paint, they made a lot of threes. I give credit to them, offensively. They were really superb.”
on balance beyond career games by Jaylen Hands and Jules Bernard
“Yeah, we just didn’t have enough balance. I thought Jaylen made some plays and made some shots. I love Jules because Jules, he’s an incredible competitor and so you just always know what you’re going to get out of Jules. Jules is going to give you 110 percent every second he’s on the floor, so I thought he was really good. I thought Jaylen, offensively, was good. We just didn’t get enough from maybe some of the other guys.”
on condition of Kris Wilkes after taking shot to the head
“He’s fine.”
on what the halftime delay was
“Just a really—in the first half, we could see that it was a tad loose—but then it got incredibly loose at the very end of the half and at halftime it got incredibly loose. Just non playable.”
“The rim was totally non playable to start the second half. It was just loose. It was loose. It was all over the place.”
on main difference between first meeting with Stanford and this one
“Well, it’s hard to think back to that game. Obviously, we won by 20 at Pauley, they won by 20 here. We were much better defensively in that first game and I’d say defensively in this game, we just didn’t have an answer.”
UCLA freshman Jules Bernard
on what Stanford did to succeed offensively
“I think one of the biggest things was, after that little delay with the hoops and everything--I think it was like a 30-, 40-minute delay—they came out right away with energy and punched us in the mouth right away, attacking the basket and they pushed the lead to like 19 within a few minutes. They just had energy. I guess they had energy from their crowd, the players… were attacking the rim hard and throwing lobs, getting it to their big, Sharma, and he was just dunking. I think we need to do a better job, all of us collectively, just team defense. Helping, helping the helper, keeping our man in front of us. We’ve got to keep working on it and, hopefully as we work on it, things progress and we move in the right direction.”
on what team did during halftime delay
“We sat around for, like, the first two minutes. We were trying to figure out what was going on. As time [went on], we started warming up, trying to get our bodies warm again. I don’t know what it was, I don’t know why, they just came out a little bit harder than us and it showed.”
on having good game in each of last two
“I’m just trying to play hard and produce for my team. We need sparks off the bench sometimes and when I come in I’ve just got to play my game. I’m just trying to help my team win games. We’re struggling, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. For me, I’ve got to play hard, I’ve got to come in with energy and try to pick my team up. That’s something I’ve been really trying to do these past two games.”
on if it’s tough considering they beat Stanford by 22 in first meeting
“Yeah, it’s tough. I think it’s extremely hard to win on the road. We’ve seen that in a few games here. On the road, you’ve just got to be perfect. Everything’s got to click. Tonight, there were a few things that we didn’t do well and they exploited us and, with their energy, their home energy, their crowd giving them support, they picked up on our mistakes and blew the lead open.”
UCLA sophomore Jaylen Hands
on defense
“Yeah, poor defensive effort. We gave up 104, which is bad. We tried a lot of defenses. We switched it up a lot, but we just couldn’t find one that was working for us. Got to get back in the lab and fix that.”
on what issues were
“That’s something we’re going to have to go back and look at as a team. Overall, right now in the moment, it was just a bad effort defensively. That’s all I could say about it. We’ve just got to get better from it.”
on what team did during halftime delay
“We… tried to talk about the game. It was a little different. It was cool.”
on if he feels delay impacted the game
“I mean, both teams had the delay. I wouldn’t say much on that part. Both teams had it.”
on what was working offensively
“We scored 80 tonight, so you can’t really get mad as a unit, offensively. Just couldn’t get stops. Whenever you’re putting up 80 points—and I don’t think we even shot a good field goal percentage—we put up 80 points, 38, 39, 40 percent for the game. That’s not really the problem. We just couldn’t get a stop.”
on difficulty winning on road in Pac-12
“It’s hard to win, period. It’s not easy to win anywhere. You’ve got to play good, but especially when you’re on the road, you’ve got to play even better. For not clicking on one end of the floor, it’s going to be really hard to be great in another area. I thought we were just really good offensively. We couldn’t overcome our defensive struggles.”