Postgame Quotes – UCLA vs. Pepperdine
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 107, Pepperdine 98
November 27, 2020
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
on team’s perseverance, lack of execution
“Yeah, what I would say, though, Ben, is we shot 44% for the game, we got to the foul line 37 times. I think that’s a recipe for winning 95% of your games, offensively. And only having 12 turnovers in about 100 possessions, that puts you probably top 10 in the country. So, again our problem, I thought, was defensively the first half, we just couldn’t get the job done. Now, like Coach (Darren) Savino tried to tell these guys, Kessler Edwards is a draft choice, probably this year. Colbey Ross is as good a college guard as there is in the country. He just happens to be wearing a Pepperdine uniform. If he was wearing a different one, then everybody would know. All you’ve got to do is watch. All you’ve got to do is ask (Gonzaga head coach) Mark Few and (Saint Mary’s head coach) Randy Bennett and (BYU head coach) Mark Pope, the guys in that league. So, they’re hard to defend, but our first three halves of basketball this year, our defense wasn’t up to par and that’s on me. But we did what we had to do adjustment-wise at halftime and the guys stepped up their effort and energy and our second-half defense, we held them to 30%, 20% from three. That’s why we were up 70-64. We just didn’t finish the game. We’re playing small, we couldn’t get a rebound, they hit two threes off second shots. A lot of film that we’re going to show tomorrow as we take ice baths. I’m going to put my head in a bucket of ice and I’m going to have Tyger (Campbell) and those guys take cold tubs – Jaime (Jaquez Jr.) and Chris (Smith) -- played 50 minutes. We’ve got to play a lot smarter. We had a lot of really ill-advised fouls. Like I told our guys, there’s a difference between effort and ignorance. So, there’s a time for effort and there’s a time to be smart. We’re still learning that, because we tried to lose. But our effort got us the win on the second shot on the free throw. We were dead in the water.”
on what he told team at halftime
“Well, I told them real quick at halftime, they needed to understand that everybody we recruit against, everybody we play against, is really happy to see us losing. And nobody’s going to be afraid of us because it’s easy to play against us. You just get any shot you want and we’re not taking anything away from our opponents. Not enough energy, not enough toughness. You guys alluded to this, I don’t know which one of you it was last game – two blocks and one steal [against] San Diego State. At halftime of this game, it was still two blocks and one steal. We had zero and zero in the first half. Guys stepped up, did a much better job defensively, except when it was 70-64 and we gave up two straight threes to let them tie the game. And then we got back to defending. Fatigue killed us on our transition defense. That’s really the only way they could score, we weren’t getting back and… Ross was just playing downhill on us. A lot of guys happy in the locker room, they fought out a win against a good team. I put them in a tough spot when we did this tournament. I wanted to play Pepperdine and my assistant coaches told me I was nuts, but like Tracy Murray said – and I agree with him – the only way to get better is try to best play some really good teams early and deal with reality.”
on what went into decision to play Jaylen Clark and Kenny Nwuba less in this game
“Yeah, Jaime, Chris and Tyger are headed for the cold tub. I’m going to join and put my head in after dealing with that. Jaylen, I was worried that he sat too long. My fear when a guy’s sitting there way too long is it’s tough to put him in because he’s not in the flow of the game. Couldn’t play Kenny because they were spreading us out and picking and popping. Their big guys shoot threes, so it’s tough to play Kenny. We’re very proud of the guys. We had to go with the shorter rotation and we really, when you look at it, for us to be able to be plus-11 on the glass – they’re a high-major lineup. They’ve got an NBA small forward at 6-8 out there and they’re playing two other 6-9 guys and we win the rebounding battle. Give our guys a lot of credit for their battle and their fight and we’ve just got to continue trying to improve and get better. I thought our offensive execution, like I said earlier, had a lot to do with our lineups. We don’t practice without Jalen (Hill) or Kenny or Cody (Riley). We don’t practice a lineup with Jaime at the 5 or Jules at the 5. We had to play a lot this weekend, so we got more comfortable with playing with no center and really five guards. The more the game went on, I think I got more comfortable with how to get our guys in some strategic advantages with that small lineup. That was important for us. It hurt us against San Diego State. We got caught standing around a lot when we were playing with the no-big-man lineup.”
on what specifically stood out about Chris Smith
“Twelve rebounds. Real simple. Twelve rebounds. If I had told him why I’m so confident that Kessler Edwards is going to get drafted in the NBA is because, as a sophomore, he had 60 blocks and he can defend. He had 60 blocks and he averaged seven-and-a-half rebounds a game. Everybody knows if you’ve got size and you can make a shot, people are looking for the three-and-D guy, which means you’ve got to play some D and you’ve got to rebound. So, when he rebounds and he defends, he’s a real player. He’s got a real chance. He’s got a real chance to impact the game. It’s just a matter of competing on the glass and rebounding the ball. That’s really how I gauge things for he and Jaime.”
on if there is a chance Jalen Hill and Johnny Juzang play against Long Beach State
“God, I hope so, Ben. How’s that answer for you? God, I hope so. They’re both, I think, Jalen moves to the probable list. He’s been dealing with tendonitis. I think it’s important to have guys’ mind ready and he's got to have his mind ready. It’s hard. I’m a guy that ended my illustrious Division 2 career early, with a knee injury. You’ve got to kind of go with the player on that. Johnny’s out of the boot and our medical staff and him are working on that. He has no pain. It’s just something we saw trying to prevent an injury. Trying to be preventative with Johnny and do the best thing for his career.”