Postgame Quotes - UCLA 73, Oregon 71
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 73, Oregon 71
Matthew Knight Arena, Eugene, Oregon
December 8, 2024
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“For 38, 39 minutes I thought we played great. First road game together as a group, I thought we played really well together for a long period of time. We’ve got work to do with our late game defense. Guys out there have played college basketball, but they haven’t played for you. We’ll watch it; no block out at the foul line, gave up an and-1, gave up an out of bounds play, didn’t step out on the last play. Defensively, we were not ourselves at the end of the game. We tried to give it away, we just got fortunate that we got a shot to go in at the end. We’ll take it and try to get better.
on the team’s return from the final timeout
“They switched. We struggled throwing the ball to Tyler Bilodeau. I’ve got to do a better job with Dylan’s passing. There’s just no other way around it. We’re really struggling to get [Bilodeau] the ball when he’s wide open. We thought if they switched, we could get by the guy, get Bilodeau the ball on the roll. We lifted Lazar, and we thought that with him, Tyler would be right there in the paint. But we got a shot to go in.”
on the team’s improvements throughout this season
“All of these teams, this is just the way it is now. You don't just get six transfers and two freshman and start looking like a well-oiled machine. Guys have played, but they haven’t played for us, and it takes a while to create habits, create continuity. But my biggest thing was our fight. First road game, we had to make sure we packed our toughness, make sure we took care of the ball. We didn’t turn it over one time against their press. I told them, if we do that, we’re going to have a chance to win.”
on Eric Dailey Jr.’s performance
“His scoring was good, but when he didn’t block out on the foul line, that’s about as bad as it gets. Once he got us the lead with his offense, I was trying to get a better defensive lineup in there. He’s still a young guy, he hasn’t been coached a lot on the defensive end. He’s still got to get better with that, plus he’s going to have a six am wakeup call on Tuesday morning. The only guy who can get technical fouls on this team is me.”
on his outlook on the season as a whole
“My analysis early in the Big Ten is that it's so deep, and it probably always was that way, but now its deeper. You’ve got to get better. I also coach at UCLA, where we have the most titles and the second most final fours. I didn’t come to UCLA to win regular season games either. For us, it’s about progression and getting better. Today we were able to win, but I thought we got a lot better today. We came together, we got more cohesive, the guys played with confidence. Defensively, we were bad down the stretch. Anybody that knows me knows that that just crushes me. I’m not used to that. I’m used to teams not being able to get the ball in the basket, but not giving up easy baskets or fouls, or not block out on the foul line with the game on the line.”
on Sebastian Mack’s performance
“He’s been good all year. It’s nice to bring him into the game because he injects offense. When he comes in, we’re actually getting better. Even though he’s only a sophomore, we get better when he’s coming in. That’s why I’m not starting him. But I look at him as probably our best offensive player, definitely on the perimeter.
on Tyler Bilodeau’s performance
“We’ve got to get Tyler Bilodeau more involved offensively. He had 11 shots today, and he’s got to get at least that, I think. And if we’re up four, he’s got to either get fouled or score. He put the game on ice with forty seconds left, couldn’t get a shot blocked on a point guard. It almost cost us the game.”
on playing small today
“Aday’s really the only big guy we’ve got. I’ve got to get him more minutes, and our press has to be more of a factor, because I want Trent and Dom to play. We’re still trying to progress towards who we want playing. But when we had Eric out, we were too small. It looked like a giant and a fourth-grade game.”
UCLA forward Eric Dailey Jr.
on today’s win
“It feels great. This is what college basketball is about, exciting games. DA hit a big shot for us. We got after it today and played a really good team, and we came out with a win on their home court. That was big for us.”
on celebrating Dylan Andrews’ game winner
“We went to Sea World in the locker room, splashed [Dylan Andrews] with water to get him excited. He hit a big, difficult shot, so we’re definitely going to celebrate our teammate.”
on his offensive performance
“I was just trying to take whatever the defense gave me. Every day is a different game, a different type of play style. With me, I just try to rebound as much as I can, I know that’s what I can do consistently. Points wise, I just take whatever the defense gives me. My teammates trusted me today, and we got the win.”
on the final inbound play of the game
"We just didn't want him [Bittle] to get a shot up in the last 0.4 seconds. We tried to look for the ball, find it, slide away, and get the game clock over with so that we could walk away with the win.”
on his defensive performance
“I’ve got to be better; I’m still learning. I need to be more consistent at things to play at this level, play here, we’re a defensive school. I just need to stay consistent on defense. I’ve got things to work on, I’m going to watch film and work on those things for the next game.”
on the team’s development since their loss to New Mexico
“Our togetherness, everybody’s starting to be on one page. We know what everybody wants to do, we know how to find people, and defensively, we’re better each time we play. We’re being a tough team; our motto is toughness. We need to continue to bring that toughness to every game.”
on his thought process during Dylan Andrews’ game-winner
“I was going to go rebound it regardless, but if you give that guy a shot, he can make it.”
UCLA guard Dylan Andrews
on his game-winning shot
“It’s funny, the last shot wasn’t even for me, I just wanted to get the ball in and get the play ready for Lazar and Bilodeau. We thought we were going to be able to get a pick-and-pop, or another screen. They ended up switching everything, so I had the five man on me. We didn’t have much time, so the main thing was to get the shot off. It most definitely felt good going off, but my main goal was to try to get it to the basket, draw a foul or something, but he was playing so far back that it was an easy shot to get off. During those times, you see the ball in slow motion. It felt good when it left my hand, I just wanted it to go in. When it went in, it was a little relief, because it was my fault that they scored that last bucket. It was a relief to get the shot over the person who deflected my pass.”
on beating the No. 12 team
“Especially for the guys that are returning, we lost to them in the Pac-12 playoffs, and we lost to them here. We had fire in our eyes coming into the game, and we wanted to get the win.”
on Tyler Bilodeau’s performance
“When he gets the ball in his post in his sweet spots, we might as well get back on defense. Us guards have to work on getting him the ball, making sure he gets the ball where he wants it. We’ll work on that in practice and watch film.”
on the team’s defensive performance
“I feel like defensively, we did a pretty good job. We got up 10, and we started fouling too much, and we got away from our press. It was just fatigue, but we’ve just got to stay with that. Also, deflections, I had zero deflections today, and that’s not like me.”
on Eric Dailey Jr.’s performance
“What a game from Eric Dailey. He played really hard.”