Postgame Quotes – USC 62, UCLA 56
POSTGAME QUOTES
USC 62, UCLA 56
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
February 24, 2024
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“It’s a simple game. The team that plays harder usually wins. They played much harder than us. They were more physical, they had humility, they came in here looking for redemption. We had no humility. Show me somebody that’s not humble and I’ll show you somebody getting ready to get humbled. We had our worst week of practice of the season. I failed miserably to get my team ready for the fight that was coming today and I’m thoroughly embarrassed. And I apologize to the people wearing the four letters. Yes, we really struggled making the open shots, but that has nothing to do with all the stuff I talked about. The team that wins the fight usually wins the game. And they won the fight in every way. We were awful.”
on what he saw during the second half scoring drought
“We were awful. You would have to tell me – we didn’t score at least for the first five to seven minutes of the second half, something like that – I’m coaching. Again, we were awful. Hard to play that bad. Give them credit, though. I say it again, the team that comes to fight usually wins.”
on what went into team not practicing well during week
“Tough to say, if I had that answer, I’d have two championships and already be in Del Mar. It’s tough to say. I will give you, the answer in my opinion, the hungry dog gets the bone. We had no humility, none. It’s not like I’m afraid to coach, either. The stuff that happened yesterday in practice – put guys on the treadmill, yell and scream and run my team the day before you’re playing your rival in front of your biggest crowd of the season – is ridiculous. I should have to calm them down. I’ve been doing this a long time. I can tell when I’m bothering them. We’re not good enough. I mean, most teams aren’t good enough to have that attitude and win. We’re surely nowhere near good enough for that. Not this team.”
on what he saw from backcourt
“Five-for-31. Do you want statistics? Five-for-31. Five-for-31. They had 11 turnovers and five made baskets, our four guards. And we only lost by six. But when you don’t practice the right way, you don’t practice scoring, you don’t practice taking care of the ball, you’re not sharp. This is exactly what happens. They know. I told them yesterday this was going to happen. You can ask them when they come in here.”
on if he can teach fight
“I’d rather recruit fight. I’d rather recruit heart and toughness. It’s why I recruited Jaylen Clark. I knew Tyger [Campbell] had it once I got to coach him. I knew Dave [Singleton] had it once I got to coach him. Tried to get Jaime [Jaquez Jr.] at Cincinnati, he had committed like the day after I saw him. I knew I wasn’t going to get him, it was worth the phone call. It’s tough. It’s consistent, though. We’ve won eight of our last 11. We’re just not good enough to show up and mail it in. And to the earlier question, we played hard for a five-minute stretch at the end of the first half where I thought we played hard. That was about it. That was the only time we played hard. We let them run whatever they wanted to run, we took nothing away from them. As a guy that’s been coaching a long time now, like 28 years in college, it’s tough to answer your question.”
on if at a school like UCLA, you can have a season without making the tournament
“Well, I will tell you after next year, that would depend on where we are at next March. It’s an interesting time. Forget the rules, I’m not talking about NIL or the portal and all that. Tracy and I have talked about this. When you lose what we lost all at once, and the recruiting five-star guys and pros like Jaylen Clark, like Amari [Bailey], Peyton [Watson], and you lose guys early, your seniors are all gone, it’s a start over. But the only way we would have been able to overcome it is to a hit home run city in the recruiting class. We have a lot of guys who are going to be good players – they are, they’re just young. The way I look at it, I haven’t missed the tournament in 13 years. I take a lot of pride in it. I think what you are trying to get at is, you have to get some substance and bodies in your program and train them and coach them. You have to get bodies, and you have to build the next [David] Singleton, you have to get those guys and you have to build with them. It’s a necessary evil, and only would have been avoided if somehow a couple of our guys would have been so good that they obviously would have been lottery picks or first-round picks. That’s the only way you can overcome what we lost.”
on if tonight’s game was humbling for his players:
“Here’s why I disagree with you. You would assume they [the players] are extremely humble. I feel bad, my family, I’m not going to talk to anyone tonight. I’m going to hate myself, the job I did. The only person I’m talking to tonight is my dog, and that’s it. I have a recruit in town, so somehow I have to rally tomorrow. They [the players] are not me, like they’re not you. They’re just kids. I would hope that they were thoroughly embarrassed, and they should be. I just don’t know if it is like that. Certain guys, other guys go out. Not everybody is like that. Everybody is not Jaime Jaquez, not everybody is like that, I wish.”
on the guard play
“Terrible, we played terrible. I have to prepare them all week, I failed miserably. We were not ready, I knew it all week. We were five-for-31, and we let Boogie [Ellis] get 17 in the first 12 minutes. Just so you know on our board, when they come back in, do not let him get the ball, do not let him shoot, make somebody else beat us. That’s it. You want to ask me how our gard play was? When he’s [Ellis] got 17, 12 minutes into the game, and we are five-for-31 with 11 turnovers, our guards. But again, I blame myself. It’s my fault I’m the coach. We were not ready to play. I couldn’t humble them, I tried to all week, I could not get the job done.”
UCLA center Adem Bona
on falling flat in practice this week and the lead-up to the game
“We were kind of slow, a little bit, in practice. Obviously, we didn’t give our best in practice, and that’s why coach said that.”
on moving slowly in the second half
“Early on, I got my third foul, which sent me to the bench. I should have known better, that I need to stay in the game, to the end of the game. Also, we kind of came out flat. We weren’t making any shots in the second half, we missed our first five shots. We just came out flat and with no energy.”
on the takeaways from this game as a team leader
“I would say to not race, it’s the whole year. We’ve still got a couple of games to go, we still have the tournament. We just have to stay focused and see the season through, because we definitely do have a chance, and I don’t think we’re going to stop until our last breath. We’ve got to keep fighting.”
on preparing for the final four games before the Pac-12 tournament
“The next four games are big. We play two highly-ranked teams. Regardless, like we said, we still have to give everything we’ve got to those games. The other two teams are also big teams, so we can’t just look it off and get ready for the tournament. We’ve got to play hard and get as much as we can get from every single game moving on.”
UCLA guard Lazar Stefanovic
on his takeaway from the loss and the disappointing second half
“I only said one thing to the guys in the locker room, right after. It is that if we’re winning, we’re winning for one reason, and that is because we are playing harder than our opponent. Whenever it would come down to needing a rebound, we would get a rebound, offense, and defense. We shut a team down when we needed to, and we got a stop. We were not able to do that. We started the game slow, we kind of came back, with the energy going to our side. Again, second half, we came out, and we started slow, without a fight, without energy. I don’t know the reason for it. Obviously me, as one of the veteran guys, have to do a better job of getting everyone ready, and myself included, to bring more energy in from the start. We knew they were going to fight because in the first game, when we beat them, we out-rebounded them, and we out-toughed them the whole night. We knew that they were going to be motivated with a response.”
on the problems with trying to stop Boogie Ellis
“Lack of concentration, I guess. Being aware of where he is, and I think it goes down to the same thing with the shooting percentages. We knew that we shouldn’t let him shoot, and he is one guy that really needs to score for them to win games, and we weren’t able to stop him.”
on UCLA guards having an off-night
“I wish I knew the answer because I don’t know what happened. I tried to give my best, and I’m sure the guys did too, but it wasn’t enough for today.”
on the outlook towards the rest of the season
“It’s not over, we still have games to play. If we show that we play hard, and we play smart, we can play anybody and beat anybody. It’s not over, we have to find a way to come together again, and figure it out.”
on preparing for the final four games before the Pac-12 tournament
“It doesn’t change much, I guess. Every game we come into, we try to win, every day, we try to get better. It doesn’t change too much. We’ve got to stay focused, to win every game for the rest of the year.”
USC head coach Andy Enfield
opening statement
“We finally had our team healthy. It’s great to have them in practice. We’ve never really had everybody back, so it’s great to have them practice hard. It was also great that we held Adem [Bona] to three rebounds. We used three bigs to neutralize his energy. He’s so athletic, so that was a plus. We have really improved defensively since the beginning of the year. Right now, we just have to compete. We have been hoping all year to get everybody back. We had three days of practice that have been sporadic, but last week, we had our best three practices of the year.”
on guard Boogie Ellis
“Last Saturday and tonight was the Boogie of old. Boogie is a tough kid; I give him a lot of credit. The hamstring injury was really tough for him.”
on finishing the season strong
“We’re trying to get a lot of momentum at the end of the season. We’ve been playing really well. We had a tough overtime loss at Cal. We have really been right there.”
on where the team goes from here
“We’ve got the Washington schools next. We look forward to taking Sunday off. I’m happy that we beat them here. It has kind of been a flip-flop. Usually it’s the opposite, we win at our place and they win here. We are excited about getting this win. It’s rare to beat the Bruins here in Pauley Pavilion. UCLA is a great team and they are well-coached.”
USC 62, UCLA 56
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
February 24, 2024
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“It’s a simple game. The team that plays harder usually wins. They played much harder than us. They were more physical, they had humility, they came in here looking for redemption. We had no humility. Show me somebody that’s not humble and I’ll show you somebody getting ready to get humbled. We had our worst week of practice of the season. I failed miserably to get my team ready for the fight that was coming today and I’m thoroughly embarrassed. And I apologize to the people wearing the four letters. Yes, we really struggled making the open shots, but that has nothing to do with all the stuff I talked about. The team that wins the fight usually wins the game. And they won the fight in every way. We were awful.”
on what he saw during the second half scoring drought
“We were awful. You would have to tell me – we didn’t score at least for the first five to seven minutes of the second half, something like that – I’m coaching. Again, we were awful. Hard to play that bad. Give them credit, though. I say it again, the team that comes to fight usually wins.”
on what went into team not practicing well during week
“Tough to say, if I had that answer, I’d have two championships and already be in Del Mar. It’s tough to say. I will give you, the answer in my opinion, the hungry dog gets the bone. We had no humility, none. It’s not like I’m afraid to coach, either. The stuff that happened yesterday in practice – put guys on the treadmill, yell and scream and run my team the day before you’re playing your rival in front of your biggest crowd of the season – is ridiculous. I should have to calm them down. I’ve been doing this a long time. I can tell when I’m bothering them. We’re not good enough. I mean, most teams aren’t good enough to have that attitude and win. We’re surely nowhere near good enough for that. Not this team.”
on what he saw from backcourt
“Five-for-31. Do you want statistics? Five-for-31. Five-for-31. They had 11 turnovers and five made baskets, our four guards. And we only lost by six. But when you don’t practice the right way, you don’t practice scoring, you don’t practice taking care of the ball, you’re not sharp. This is exactly what happens. They know. I told them yesterday this was going to happen. You can ask them when they come in here.”
on if he can teach fight
“I’d rather recruit fight. I’d rather recruit heart and toughness. It’s why I recruited Jaylen Clark. I knew Tyger [Campbell] had it once I got to coach him. I knew Dave [Singleton] had it once I got to coach him. Tried to get Jaime [Jaquez Jr.] at Cincinnati, he had committed like the day after I saw him. I knew I wasn’t going to get him, it was worth the phone call. It’s tough. It’s consistent, though. We’ve won eight of our last 11. We’re just not good enough to show up and mail it in. And to the earlier question, we played hard for a five-minute stretch at the end of the first half where I thought we played hard. That was about it. That was the only time we played hard. We let them run whatever they wanted to run, we took nothing away from them. As a guy that’s been coaching a long time now, like 28 years in college, it’s tough to answer your question.”
on if at a school like UCLA, you can have a season without making the tournament
“Well, I will tell you after next year, that would depend on where we are at next March. It’s an interesting time. Forget the rules, I’m not talking about NIL or the portal and all that. Tracy and I have talked about this. When you lose what we lost all at once, and the recruiting five-star guys and pros like Jaylen Clark, like Amari [Bailey], Peyton [Watson], and you lose guys early, your seniors are all gone, it’s a start over. But the only way we would have been able to overcome it is to a hit home run city in the recruiting class. We have a lot of guys who are going to be good players – they are, they’re just young. The way I look at it, I haven’t missed the tournament in 13 years. I take a lot of pride in it. I think what you are trying to get at is, you have to get some substance and bodies in your program and train them and coach them. You have to get bodies, and you have to build the next [David] Singleton, you have to get those guys and you have to build with them. It’s a necessary evil, and only would have been avoided if somehow a couple of our guys would have been so good that they obviously would have been lottery picks or first-round picks. That’s the only way you can overcome what we lost.”
on if tonight’s game was humbling for his players:
“Here’s why I disagree with you. You would assume they [the players] are extremely humble. I feel bad, my family, I’m not going to talk to anyone tonight. I’m going to hate myself, the job I did. The only person I’m talking to tonight is my dog, and that’s it. I have a recruit in town, so somehow I have to rally tomorrow. They [the players] are not me, like they’re not you. They’re just kids. I would hope that they were thoroughly embarrassed, and they should be. I just don’t know if it is like that. Certain guys, other guys go out. Not everybody is like that. Everybody is not Jaime Jaquez, not everybody is like that, I wish.”
on the guard play
“Terrible, we played terrible. I have to prepare them all week, I failed miserably. We were not ready, I knew it all week. We were five-for-31, and we let Boogie [Ellis] get 17 in the first 12 minutes. Just so you know on our board, when they come back in, do not let him get the ball, do not let him shoot, make somebody else beat us. That’s it. You want to ask me how our gard play was? When he’s [Ellis] got 17, 12 minutes into the game, and we are five-for-31 with 11 turnovers, our guards. But again, I blame myself. It’s my fault I’m the coach. We were not ready to play. I couldn’t humble them, I tried to all week, I could not get the job done.”
UCLA center Adem Bona
on falling flat in practice this week and the lead-up to the game
“We were kind of slow, a little bit, in practice. Obviously, we didn’t give our best in practice, and that’s why coach said that.”
on moving slowly in the second half
“Early on, I got my third foul, which sent me to the bench. I should have known better, that I need to stay in the game, to the end of the game. Also, we kind of came out flat. We weren’t making any shots in the second half, we missed our first five shots. We just came out flat and with no energy.”
on the takeaways from this game as a team leader
“I would say to not race, it’s the whole year. We’ve still got a couple of games to go, we still have the tournament. We just have to stay focused and see the season through, because we definitely do have a chance, and I don’t think we’re going to stop until our last breath. We’ve got to keep fighting.”
on preparing for the final four games before the Pac-12 tournament
“The next four games are big. We play two highly-ranked teams. Regardless, like we said, we still have to give everything we’ve got to those games. The other two teams are also big teams, so we can’t just look it off and get ready for the tournament. We’ve got to play hard and get as much as we can get from every single game moving on.”
UCLA guard Lazar Stefanovic
on his takeaway from the loss and the disappointing second half
“I only said one thing to the guys in the locker room, right after. It is that if we’re winning, we’re winning for one reason, and that is because we are playing harder than our opponent. Whenever it would come down to needing a rebound, we would get a rebound, offense, and defense. We shut a team down when we needed to, and we got a stop. We were not able to do that. We started the game slow, we kind of came back, with the energy going to our side. Again, second half, we came out, and we started slow, without a fight, without energy. I don’t know the reason for it. Obviously me, as one of the veteran guys, have to do a better job of getting everyone ready, and myself included, to bring more energy in from the start. We knew they were going to fight because in the first game, when we beat them, we out-rebounded them, and we out-toughed them the whole night. We knew that they were going to be motivated with a response.”
on the problems with trying to stop Boogie Ellis
“Lack of concentration, I guess. Being aware of where he is, and I think it goes down to the same thing with the shooting percentages. We knew that we shouldn’t let him shoot, and he is one guy that really needs to score for them to win games, and we weren’t able to stop him.”
on UCLA guards having an off-night
“I wish I knew the answer because I don’t know what happened. I tried to give my best, and I’m sure the guys did too, but it wasn’t enough for today.”
on the outlook towards the rest of the season
“It’s not over, we still have games to play. If we show that we play hard, and we play smart, we can play anybody and beat anybody. It’s not over, we have to find a way to come together again, and figure it out.”
on preparing for the final four games before the Pac-12 tournament
“It doesn’t change much, I guess. Every game we come into, we try to win, every day, we try to get better. It doesn’t change too much. We’ve got to stay focused, to win every game for the rest of the year.”
USC head coach Andy Enfield
opening statement
“We finally had our team healthy. It’s great to have them in practice. We’ve never really had everybody back, so it’s great to have them practice hard. It was also great that we held Adem [Bona] to three rebounds. We used three bigs to neutralize his energy. He’s so athletic, so that was a plus. We have really improved defensively since the beginning of the year. Right now, we just have to compete. We have been hoping all year to get everybody back. We had three days of practice that have been sporadic, but last week, we had our best three practices of the year.”
on guard Boogie Ellis
“Last Saturday and tonight was the Boogie of old. Boogie is a tough kid; I give him a lot of credit. The hamstring injury was really tough for him.”
on finishing the season strong
“We’re trying to get a lot of momentum at the end of the season. We’ve been playing really well. We had a tough overtime loss at Cal. We have really been right there.”
on where the team goes from here
“We’ve got the Washington schools next. We look forward to taking Sunday off. I’m happy that we beat them here. It has kind of been a flip-flop. Usually it’s the opposite, we win at our place and they win here. We are excited about getting this win. It’s rare to beat the Bruins here in Pauley Pavilion. UCLA is a great team and they are well-coached.”