POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 78, California 43
February 18, 2023
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Good to get Amari back on track. Also Tyger, five assists and one turnover. Amari had nine rebounds. I thought he could be a great rebounder at the guard position, which would really help us this year – and he did that tonight. Obviously, our defense was as good as it could be early in the game, and then we held them to 11 field goals for the entire game. Good effort by us. Tonight, the goal was stay focused. Make sure we’re professional and we have the correct attitude. We try to practice that hard around here. The results speak for themselves when you do that. It was good to get a lot of guys some minutes. Dylan got 17, Will got 16, Mac got 16. That was all good. Kenny’s day-to-day and Abramo, hopefully be good by Monday. He woke up with a non-COVID illness, so we just kept him in bed.”
on contributions of Amari Bailey and others
“You’ve got to be good enough … that if Tyger and Jaime don’t have good scoring nights, that Amari, Jaylen, Dave, other guys can get the ball in the basket for you. That’s the key. You’ve got to be able to win different ways and you’ve got to have different options offensively [with] multiple weapons. You can’t just be a 1-2-punch show. It was good to get [Bailey] back on track. He led us in deflections, with eight. We had 45 for the game. Will [McClendon] had six. I think Will continues to get better, continues to improve. It takes you to another level only if everybody else plays well. It can’t just be him.”
on early NCAA tournament seed reveal
“I’m going to try not to laugh and I would refer you to our administration. And this will be the only time I address it – the reason I would refer you to Martin Jarmond, I know he’s here tonight, or anybody else – when we left the Pac-12, it cost a lot of people millions of dollars and there’s going to be fallout. I even talked to my old AD, Mike Bohn, about it. I think it’s a direct result of that. I’m not going to put the pieces together for you on how that affects that, but comical. If you ask my one-word answer on that ranking? Comical.”
“We need to worry about getting better … A couple years ago, we proved your seed doesn’t matter. You’ve got to be playing well at the right time. You’ve got to be healthy. You’ve got to be playing good basketball. It bears out every year in the tournament, too.”
UCLA senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.
on the team’s focus to start the game today versus the slow start against Stanford on Thursday
“I think we had a lot more energy today just from the start. We always talk about a full 40 minutes and we didn’t have that in the Stanford game and we kind of picked it up in the second half. But this game I felt like were very aggressive through and through and it was a very good 40 minutes that we put out there.”
on keeping focus when the team moves out to a big lead
“When you’re up against a team sometimes it’s very easy to lose your focus and not care and just try to go for stats and shoot the ball every time you get it. But I didn’t think we did that tonight. I thought we shared the ball really well. Everyone played hard and we got a great win.”
on the Bruins’ sellout crowd in Pauley Pavilion
“That’s amazing. I really appreciate all the fans. I mean, this is my last year. What do we have, two more home games left? I really want all the fans to come out and support as much as they can. We got a lot of seniors on this team and we want it packed for them. It’s a great environment when Pauley is packed.”
on playing a game on his birthday with Amari Bailey whose birthday was the day before
“I think our birthdays played a big factor in this game. We were both very excited to get out there and play. I had a game on my birthday not last year but the year before. It’s always fun. I know Amari was ready to play. His birthday was yesterday. We were just excited to get out there and celebrate with a win.”
California head coach Mark Fox
overall statement
“We were very concerned whether we could score against their defense coming in to the game. That concern proved to be valid. They’re great defensively. We have to give them credit. We missed a couple lay-ups in the first half that didn’t go down. That’s not a credit to their defense, but it’s our ability to finish. I thought the environment was a little too much for some of our guys out of the gate. Their defense is elite.”
on what he tells the young guys on the team about the environment
“You just have to keep playing. The hard thing is that Monty (Bowser) went from being a back-up guy to a guy that plays a lot more, scores a lot more, but also has to handle the ball a lot more. He was skipping a couple steps.”
on UCLA’s ability to close on the defensive end
“Their recovery is elite and their ability to rim-protect is elite. Defensively, they have been terrific, especially the last couple years and now they are experienced. You have to give them credit when someone is that good with it. They are outstanding down there.”
UCLA 78, California 43
February 18, 2023
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Good to get Amari back on track. Also Tyger, five assists and one turnover. Amari had nine rebounds. I thought he could be a great rebounder at the guard position, which would really help us this year – and he did that tonight. Obviously, our defense was as good as it could be early in the game, and then we held them to 11 field goals for the entire game. Good effort by us. Tonight, the goal was stay focused. Make sure we’re professional and we have the correct attitude. We try to practice that hard around here. The results speak for themselves when you do that. It was good to get a lot of guys some minutes. Dylan got 17, Will got 16, Mac got 16. That was all good. Kenny’s day-to-day and Abramo, hopefully be good by Monday. He woke up with a non-COVID illness, so we just kept him in bed.”
on contributions of Amari Bailey and others
“You’ve got to be good enough … that if Tyger and Jaime don’t have good scoring nights, that Amari, Jaylen, Dave, other guys can get the ball in the basket for you. That’s the key. You’ve got to be able to win different ways and you’ve got to have different options offensively [with] multiple weapons. You can’t just be a 1-2-punch show. It was good to get [Bailey] back on track. He led us in deflections, with eight. We had 45 for the game. Will [McClendon] had six. I think Will continues to get better, continues to improve. It takes you to another level only if everybody else plays well. It can’t just be him.”
on early NCAA tournament seed reveal
“I’m going to try not to laugh and I would refer you to our administration. And this will be the only time I address it – the reason I would refer you to Martin Jarmond, I know he’s here tonight, or anybody else – when we left the Pac-12, it cost a lot of people millions of dollars and there’s going to be fallout. I even talked to my old AD, Mike Bohn, about it. I think it’s a direct result of that. I’m not going to put the pieces together for you on how that affects that, but comical. If you ask my one-word answer on that ranking? Comical.”
“We need to worry about getting better … A couple years ago, we proved your seed doesn’t matter. You’ve got to be playing well at the right time. You’ve got to be healthy. You’ve got to be playing good basketball. It bears out every year in the tournament, too.”
UCLA senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.
on the team’s focus to start the game today versus the slow start against Stanford on Thursday
“I think we had a lot more energy today just from the start. We always talk about a full 40 minutes and we didn’t have that in the Stanford game and we kind of picked it up in the second half. But this game I felt like were very aggressive through and through and it was a very good 40 minutes that we put out there.”
on keeping focus when the team moves out to a big lead
“When you’re up against a team sometimes it’s very easy to lose your focus and not care and just try to go for stats and shoot the ball every time you get it. But I didn’t think we did that tonight. I thought we shared the ball really well. Everyone played hard and we got a great win.”
on the Bruins’ sellout crowd in Pauley Pavilion
“That’s amazing. I really appreciate all the fans. I mean, this is my last year. What do we have, two more home games left? I really want all the fans to come out and support as much as they can. We got a lot of seniors on this team and we want it packed for them. It’s a great environment when Pauley is packed.”
on playing a game on his birthday with Amari Bailey whose birthday was the day before
“I think our birthdays played a big factor in this game. We were both very excited to get out there and play. I had a game on my birthday not last year but the year before. It’s always fun. I know Amari was ready to play. His birthday was yesterday. We were just excited to get out there and celebrate with a win.”
California head coach Mark Fox
overall statement
“We were very concerned whether we could score against their defense coming in to the game. That concern proved to be valid. They’re great defensively. We have to give them credit. We missed a couple lay-ups in the first half that didn’t go down. That’s not a credit to their defense, but it’s our ability to finish. I thought the environment was a little too much for some of our guys out of the gate. Their defense is elite.”
on what he tells the young guys on the team about the environment
“You just have to keep playing. The hard thing is that Monty (Bowser) went from being a back-up guy to a guy that plays a lot more, scores a lot more, but also has to handle the ball a lot more. He was skipping a couple steps.”
on UCLA’s ability to close on the defensive end
“Their recovery is elite and their ability to rim-protect is elite. Defensively, they have been terrific, especially the last couple years and now they are experienced. You have to give them credit when someone is that good with it. They are outstanding down there.”