POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 79, Arizona State 61
March 2, 2023
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Obviously, Jaime (Jaquez Jr.) was awesome in the first half. That was our high turnovers for the season but Arizona State – give Coach (Bobby) Hurley credit – what he’s done this year to be able to put this team together with four transfers that start … for them to have 20 wins, he’s just done a great job this year. Obviously, Tyger (Campbell) and Jaime had it rolling on offense.”
on his team’s second-half performance
“The most irrelevant thing on this sheet is the halftime score. Teams that lose, you know how they start off the sentence? ‘We had them at halftime. We were up at halftime.’ The team that wins doesn’t talk about the halftime. The halftime score’s irrelevant. It’s a 40-minute game. Your effort and your commitment to doing winning things – defending, rebounding, taking care of the ball, getting good shots – you’ve got to be more committed than the other team for 40 minutes. Teams aren’t just going to come out and not play well for zero minutes. Arizona State’s a really good team.”
on UCLA’s 20 offensive rebounds
“I thought Amari (Bailey) was tremendous at his offensive rebounding. Obviously, he had nine rebounds. I told him, ‘Look, you’ve got to go.’ It’s just an area where we lead the league and it’s the reason we won the league. We lead the league in offensive-rebound percentage. Jaylen Clark had one rebound at halftime and 10 in the second half. We had a little talk at halftime.”
on if his team deserves a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament
“I’m not getting into it. I’d like to be in the West and I’d like for my team to be treated the way they deserve to be treated. That’s all I’ll say on that.”
on if Jaime Jaquez Jr. should be Pac-12 Player of the Year
“I would hope so. Best player on the best team in the league. Again, my dad worked for the (Atlanta) Braves for 30 years. Even Terry Pendleton won MVP one year. Baseball guys got that. Dodger fans probably disagreed with whoever they had that year. But (Azuolas) Tubelis is a great player, he’s had a great year. He’s had some big, monster games for [Arizona].”
on emotions heading into final game of regular season
“When you’ve got good kids with good players and they play with a sense of urgency, you’ve got a real chance. But it’s something you’ve got to keep your eye on at this time of year. Can’t over-practice, got to be sure you’re mentally focused. We have big goals. If you don’t dream big, you’ll never make it big. That’s how we look at it. We talk about we can be 20% better if we’re better off the floor – rest better, get more treatment, we stretch better, we work with our strength-and-conditioning people, our training staff. We’re more committed to watching college basketball on the couch and studying the game instead of studying the UCLA campus and coeds. Everything we can do to be better. And part of that, like Jaylen Clark talked about in our locker room, we don’t need to be worried about ticket requests and everybody trying to get in Saturday or the rest of the year. Need to let families handle all that stuff and we all need to keep our eye on the ball, because the more you win, the more that stuff comes around you. Everybody wants a piece of you and it’s distracting. Kids need to worry about basketball and going to school. They do go to the No. 1 school in the country. Not easy.”
UCLA senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.
on his ferocious dunk that was challenged by Desmond Cambridge Jr.
“I think I’ve just been trusting in the work that I’ve put in. After last season, I’ve had a little PTSD about jumping, whether it be for rebounds or dunking. I didn’t really trust myself; that’s why I would lay it up a lot of times on the fast break because I was scared I was going to come down and tweak something again. Finally, I was just like … I’m just going to try to dunk it and trust my body and trust the work that I’ve put in, and I think that’s what happened tonight. It felt good. Just getting over my fear of jumping and just trying to win.”
on if playing from behind contributed to his scoring 19 points in the first half
“Yeah, I think so. We got down, and I was just upset at myself and the way that we were playing, and I knew that I’ve only got so many games left. I’m going to go down swinging. My teammates were able to find me in open spots; in the fast break, they hit me a bunch of times. Tyger hit me, Amari (Bailey) hit me, Dylan (Andrews) hit me. All fast break points. I credit them for those. I was trying to do everything I could to put our team back into the game.”
on if being Pac-12 Player of the Year is on his checklist of awards this year
“I have three awards on my check-list. I already got one, now I’m looking for two more.”
on the emotions of the last home game
“I know high school senior night is one thing; I think this is going to be a whole other thing. We’re just going to try to have as much fun as we can. I feel like every time I’m on the floor I just keep smiling and am just so happy to be playing with these guys. We’ve built something so special here. Me and Tyger were freshmen when we first started off. Our journey has been so many ups and downs. It’s been a roller-coaster. We started off with no one coming to our games, no one even wanting to, everyone overlooking us. Now we’re selling out games against Cal Berkeley, and now we’ve got Arizona selling out games. We’ve come so far, and I just credit that to all the hard work we’ve put in. The guys sitting right next to me, the coaches, even the managers, our strength staff Tyler and Nate, Daniela our nutritionist. There’s so much that goes into making this program what it is right now, and I’m just so thankful to be a part of it.”
on how good is this team right now
“I think there’s still room beyond this. I think we’re hitting our stride, though. I think we’re very confident. I thought we played a lot better game this game in the second half than we did at Colorado. We learned a lot, and I think we’re going to keep getting better, and I think that’s what you guys are seeing.”
UCLA junior guard Jaylen Clark
on focusing on what’s in front of him
“The whole thing is big. I was talking with Coach earlier. I remember my senior year, where I had no offers because some stuff happened, and I was coming to their games, and they were selling $10 tickets, and now we’re talking about probably the biggest matchup on the West Coast on Saturday night. It’s just crazy how much the atmosphere around here has changed. I think this is just the top of the mountaintop thing. It’s going to be his (Jaime Jaquez Jr.) last time in Pauley, maybe Tyger’s (Campbell’s) last time in Pauley. There’s going to be a lot of emotions, there’s going to be more family than any other game, I assume, since it’s Senior Night. It’s for a number one seed on the West, it’s for an undefeated home record. A lot of the marbles are sitting on the table. I was telling them in the locker room get your tickets done tomorrow; whoever you can get you can get. We don’t need you to think about anything else. It’s going to be a zoo here in 48 hours.”
on Jaime Jaquez Jr. being the Pac-12 Player of the Year
“I know he’s not going to say it, but he deserves the damn award. If you watch the stuff he’s doing … he rebounds, he defends. People will say he can’t, but he stays in front of the ball, he challenges shots in front of the rim, he scores in three ways. I’ve guarded all the best, and he’s the hardest person I’ve had to guard by far, not even close. If that’s what it’s based on, give him the damn award. You give it to him right now.”
on if Saturday’s game will be his last home game
“No, not at all. I’m looking at what’s in front of me. If you play with that mindset it’s not going to go well. This is a family; I love being here. If I come back next year, it’s not going to be a shock, if you get what I mean. It’s UCLA. I grew up 50 miles from here watching them on TV. So yeah, it’s love.”
UCLA redshirt senior guard Tyger Campbell
on finding his spots early in the second half
“Adem (Bona) was setting some really good ball screens, and in transition J-Rock found me for the three. I think it was just finding my spots and just being confident when I shoot my shots.”
on if his game is where it needs to be to get to the Final Four
“To be honest, no. I’ve got to keep getting better – get better at talking on defense, get better at leading these guys, and just going into March, I’ve got to make sure these guys are ready. It’s not all about me; it’s about all these guys I’m playing with. There’s a lot of things I need to get better at if I want to lead these guys to another Final Four appearance. But I think I can do it. I think I’m starting to hit my stride more. But it’s one game at a time, and kind of like Jaime said, we haven’t done anything yet. We’ve still got more goals we want to accomplish this year.”
Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley
opening statement
“We executed well to start the game. We got good shots and were able to connect them. We got off to a good start and they're a very good defensive team so any points that you could get like that early are helpful. We had things go against us at the end of the half … they went to the line several times with a technical foul and flagrant foul and then we didn't handle the last possession (well). You can't leave a guy like Tyger Campbell open for a shot at the end of the half. So that hurt us. It was a one-point game at the four minute mark. And we just ran out of gas a little bit in the second half. I think they offense rebounded very well early in the game, and then we kind of fixed it for a while and then they resurfaced again. And then through the whole course of the game. We didn't take care of the ball. To UCLA’s credit, they are really good at creating turnovers and they have great defenders and that's why they're really good, but on the road, you’ve got to take care of the ball which we didn't do.”
on the mentality of the team after tonight’s loss
“We have got to circle the wagons, we looked at the three game stretch, let's see what we can get done. They're all high-level games starting at Arizona, then coming here, and then USC on Saturday. There's no team in the country that would probably have a harder finish that we've had in the last three games. So we just got to get back to the drawing board and get ready to go all in on Saturday.”
on the poise the team opened the game with
“I don't think this result had anything to do with nerves. I think it has a lot to do with (Jaime) Jaquez and (Tyger) Campbell and the players that UCLA has, and even (Jaylen) Clark, who didn't have a point at halftime and 15 in the second half and really played well for them, bringing another guy to the party for them. You got Campbell out there and then Jaquez and then someone like Clark really stepped up and made things more difficult on our defense. They can hurt you in a lot of ways. They do a great job of getting the mismatches with Jaquez … Getting the matchup they're trying to get taken advantage of by a really good team.”
on how to build from this
“You don't panic. We talked about the mistakes that were made and you know why we were in trouble in this game. You know, again, there's a lot of it has to do with the team and play and how good they are. But certainly, we've been able to take care of the ball better, and we didn't do a good job. They had us in that category. They had us in the second chance points category. And you know, Hawkins got going super early. We did a really good job on him the first time around and, and not so much tonight.”
Arizona State senior forward Warren Washington
on the breakdowns defensively and on the glass
“It was a bunch of breakdowns defensively. I felt like they killed us on the glass. And that was a big difference. But other than the glass, we played them pretty good. And I feel like we could have won if we cleaned up the glass. But that's about it.”
on how the turnovers affected the outcome of the game
“I forgot to talk about the turnovers. The turnovers and the glass were the two biggest reasons why we lost today. We have to clean that up for the next game, because USC is really good on the glass, and they'll turn you over so we have to figure this out in the next 24 hours.”
on feeling additional pressure against USC on Saturday
“I feel like every game has pressure. I feel like every game you should put the same type of pressure on yourself because every game is a must win game in my opinion. But yeah, if you look at the stats and all that stuff, you could say that, but honestly, I think of that every game.”
UCLA 79, Arizona State 61
March 2, 2023
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Obviously, Jaime (Jaquez Jr.) was awesome in the first half. That was our high turnovers for the season but Arizona State – give Coach (Bobby) Hurley credit – what he’s done this year to be able to put this team together with four transfers that start … for them to have 20 wins, he’s just done a great job this year. Obviously, Tyger (Campbell) and Jaime had it rolling on offense.”
on his team’s second-half performance
“The most irrelevant thing on this sheet is the halftime score. Teams that lose, you know how they start off the sentence? ‘We had them at halftime. We were up at halftime.’ The team that wins doesn’t talk about the halftime. The halftime score’s irrelevant. It’s a 40-minute game. Your effort and your commitment to doing winning things – defending, rebounding, taking care of the ball, getting good shots – you’ve got to be more committed than the other team for 40 minutes. Teams aren’t just going to come out and not play well for zero minutes. Arizona State’s a really good team.”
on UCLA’s 20 offensive rebounds
“I thought Amari (Bailey) was tremendous at his offensive rebounding. Obviously, he had nine rebounds. I told him, ‘Look, you’ve got to go.’ It’s just an area where we lead the league and it’s the reason we won the league. We lead the league in offensive-rebound percentage. Jaylen Clark had one rebound at halftime and 10 in the second half. We had a little talk at halftime.”
on if his team deserves a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament
“I’m not getting into it. I’d like to be in the West and I’d like for my team to be treated the way they deserve to be treated. That’s all I’ll say on that.”
on if Jaime Jaquez Jr. should be Pac-12 Player of the Year
“I would hope so. Best player on the best team in the league. Again, my dad worked for the (Atlanta) Braves for 30 years. Even Terry Pendleton won MVP one year. Baseball guys got that. Dodger fans probably disagreed with whoever they had that year. But (Azuolas) Tubelis is a great player, he’s had a great year. He’s had some big, monster games for [Arizona].”
on emotions heading into final game of regular season
“When you’ve got good kids with good players and they play with a sense of urgency, you’ve got a real chance. But it’s something you’ve got to keep your eye on at this time of year. Can’t over-practice, got to be sure you’re mentally focused. We have big goals. If you don’t dream big, you’ll never make it big. That’s how we look at it. We talk about we can be 20% better if we’re better off the floor – rest better, get more treatment, we stretch better, we work with our strength-and-conditioning people, our training staff. We’re more committed to watching college basketball on the couch and studying the game instead of studying the UCLA campus and coeds. Everything we can do to be better. And part of that, like Jaylen Clark talked about in our locker room, we don’t need to be worried about ticket requests and everybody trying to get in Saturday or the rest of the year. Need to let families handle all that stuff and we all need to keep our eye on the ball, because the more you win, the more that stuff comes around you. Everybody wants a piece of you and it’s distracting. Kids need to worry about basketball and going to school. They do go to the No. 1 school in the country. Not easy.”
UCLA senior guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.
on his ferocious dunk that was challenged by Desmond Cambridge Jr.
“I think I’ve just been trusting in the work that I’ve put in. After last season, I’ve had a little PTSD about jumping, whether it be for rebounds or dunking. I didn’t really trust myself; that’s why I would lay it up a lot of times on the fast break because I was scared I was going to come down and tweak something again. Finally, I was just like … I’m just going to try to dunk it and trust my body and trust the work that I’ve put in, and I think that’s what happened tonight. It felt good. Just getting over my fear of jumping and just trying to win.”
on if playing from behind contributed to his scoring 19 points in the first half
“Yeah, I think so. We got down, and I was just upset at myself and the way that we were playing, and I knew that I’ve only got so many games left. I’m going to go down swinging. My teammates were able to find me in open spots; in the fast break, they hit me a bunch of times. Tyger hit me, Amari (Bailey) hit me, Dylan (Andrews) hit me. All fast break points. I credit them for those. I was trying to do everything I could to put our team back into the game.”
on if being Pac-12 Player of the Year is on his checklist of awards this year
“I have three awards on my check-list. I already got one, now I’m looking for two more.”
on the emotions of the last home game
“I know high school senior night is one thing; I think this is going to be a whole other thing. We’re just going to try to have as much fun as we can. I feel like every time I’m on the floor I just keep smiling and am just so happy to be playing with these guys. We’ve built something so special here. Me and Tyger were freshmen when we first started off. Our journey has been so many ups and downs. It’s been a roller-coaster. We started off with no one coming to our games, no one even wanting to, everyone overlooking us. Now we’re selling out games against Cal Berkeley, and now we’ve got Arizona selling out games. We’ve come so far, and I just credit that to all the hard work we’ve put in. The guys sitting right next to me, the coaches, even the managers, our strength staff Tyler and Nate, Daniela our nutritionist. There’s so much that goes into making this program what it is right now, and I’m just so thankful to be a part of it.”
on how good is this team right now
“I think there’s still room beyond this. I think we’re hitting our stride, though. I think we’re very confident. I thought we played a lot better game this game in the second half than we did at Colorado. We learned a lot, and I think we’re going to keep getting better, and I think that’s what you guys are seeing.”
UCLA junior guard Jaylen Clark
on focusing on what’s in front of him
“The whole thing is big. I was talking with Coach earlier. I remember my senior year, where I had no offers because some stuff happened, and I was coming to their games, and they were selling $10 tickets, and now we’re talking about probably the biggest matchup on the West Coast on Saturday night. It’s just crazy how much the atmosphere around here has changed. I think this is just the top of the mountaintop thing. It’s going to be his (Jaime Jaquez Jr.) last time in Pauley, maybe Tyger’s (Campbell’s) last time in Pauley. There’s going to be a lot of emotions, there’s going to be more family than any other game, I assume, since it’s Senior Night. It’s for a number one seed on the West, it’s for an undefeated home record. A lot of the marbles are sitting on the table. I was telling them in the locker room get your tickets done tomorrow; whoever you can get you can get. We don’t need you to think about anything else. It’s going to be a zoo here in 48 hours.”
on Jaime Jaquez Jr. being the Pac-12 Player of the Year
“I know he’s not going to say it, but he deserves the damn award. If you watch the stuff he’s doing … he rebounds, he defends. People will say he can’t, but he stays in front of the ball, he challenges shots in front of the rim, he scores in three ways. I’ve guarded all the best, and he’s the hardest person I’ve had to guard by far, not even close. If that’s what it’s based on, give him the damn award. You give it to him right now.”
on if Saturday’s game will be his last home game
“No, not at all. I’m looking at what’s in front of me. If you play with that mindset it’s not going to go well. This is a family; I love being here. If I come back next year, it’s not going to be a shock, if you get what I mean. It’s UCLA. I grew up 50 miles from here watching them on TV. So yeah, it’s love.”
UCLA redshirt senior guard Tyger Campbell
on finding his spots early in the second half
“Adem (Bona) was setting some really good ball screens, and in transition J-Rock found me for the three. I think it was just finding my spots and just being confident when I shoot my shots.”
on if his game is where it needs to be to get to the Final Four
“To be honest, no. I’ve got to keep getting better – get better at talking on defense, get better at leading these guys, and just going into March, I’ve got to make sure these guys are ready. It’s not all about me; it’s about all these guys I’m playing with. There’s a lot of things I need to get better at if I want to lead these guys to another Final Four appearance. But I think I can do it. I think I’m starting to hit my stride more. But it’s one game at a time, and kind of like Jaime said, we haven’t done anything yet. We’ve still got more goals we want to accomplish this year.”
Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley
opening statement
“We executed well to start the game. We got good shots and were able to connect them. We got off to a good start and they're a very good defensive team so any points that you could get like that early are helpful. We had things go against us at the end of the half … they went to the line several times with a technical foul and flagrant foul and then we didn't handle the last possession (well). You can't leave a guy like Tyger Campbell open for a shot at the end of the half. So that hurt us. It was a one-point game at the four minute mark. And we just ran out of gas a little bit in the second half. I think they offense rebounded very well early in the game, and then we kind of fixed it for a while and then they resurfaced again. And then through the whole course of the game. We didn't take care of the ball. To UCLA’s credit, they are really good at creating turnovers and they have great defenders and that's why they're really good, but on the road, you’ve got to take care of the ball which we didn't do.”
on the mentality of the team after tonight’s loss
“We have got to circle the wagons, we looked at the three game stretch, let's see what we can get done. They're all high-level games starting at Arizona, then coming here, and then USC on Saturday. There's no team in the country that would probably have a harder finish that we've had in the last three games. So we just got to get back to the drawing board and get ready to go all in on Saturday.”
on the poise the team opened the game with
“I don't think this result had anything to do with nerves. I think it has a lot to do with (Jaime) Jaquez and (Tyger) Campbell and the players that UCLA has, and even (Jaylen) Clark, who didn't have a point at halftime and 15 in the second half and really played well for them, bringing another guy to the party for them. You got Campbell out there and then Jaquez and then someone like Clark really stepped up and made things more difficult on our defense. They can hurt you in a lot of ways. They do a great job of getting the mismatches with Jaquez … Getting the matchup they're trying to get taken advantage of by a really good team.”
on how to build from this
“You don't panic. We talked about the mistakes that were made and you know why we were in trouble in this game. You know, again, there's a lot of it has to do with the team and play and how good they are. But certainly, we've been able to take care of the ball better, and we didn't do a good job. They had us in that category. They had us in the second chance points category. And you know, Hawkins got going super early. We did a really good job on him the first time around and, and not so much tonight.”
Arizona State senior forward Warren Washington
on the breakdowns defensively and on the glass
“It was a bunch of breakdowns defensively. I felt like they killed us on the glass. And that was a big difference. But other than the glass, we played them pretty good. And I feel like we could have won if we cleaned up the glass. But that's about it.”
on how the turnovers affected the outcome of the game
“I forgot to talk about the turnovers. The turnovers and the glass were the two biggest reasons why we lost today. We have to clean that up for the next game, because USC is really good on the glass, and they'll turn you over so we have to figure this out in the next 24 hours.”
on feeling additional pressure against USC on Saturday
“I feel like every game has pressure. I feel like every game you should put the same type of pressure on yourself because every game is a must win game in my opinion. But yeah, if you look at the stats and all that stuff, you could say that, but honestly, I think of that every game.”