Postgame Quotes – UCLA 82, USC 76
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 82, USC 76
Los Angeles, Calif. (Galen Center, at USC)
January 27, 2025
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“The Big Ten Conference, when you’ve got Minnesota playing the way they’re playing, Penn State up five with a minute to play at Michigan, any win is a great win. Period, end of story. We just won two in a row on the road without our leading scorer. Not many teams in the country are going to win on the road in a rivalry game against a great coach, a heck of a team of older guys, without their leading scorer. Happy is an understatement. Different guys [stepped up] at different times.”
on UCLA junior Skyy Clark
“Skyy’s tough. He’s a great athlete, and he’s just a winner. He’s a smart player, and he’s brought something to our program that we didn’t have last year. Something we lost with David Singleton – he’s a loyal Bruin.”
on players who stepped up tonight
“Kobe’s brought it and Skyy’s brought it. Eric Dailey hit a big three – that’s who we are. Tyler being out obviously changes us offensively, but then we had to play the last eight minutes when our point guard cramped up and couldn’t come back in. Now we’re playing without Dylan and without Tyler on the road in a rivalry game. Eventually, we just started playing well. It was a great win for us. Sebastian hit a big shot, but he’s got to stop giving up more than he’s scoring.”
on the team’s final five minutes
“They were trapping, they were desperately trying, running around and trying to trap us without our main point guard out there. But we staved it off and we won. In spite of missing two front ends of the bonus and we left six of seven points on the table in a stretch of free throws. They kind of gave it back to us, Trent had a freshman mistake and fouled the rebound. It turned out to be a good play because the guy missed them both. But that stretch; we had made every free throw up to that point, we were 16-for-16, and then we went on a tear of misses. That’s what really got them back in the game.”
on Dylan Andrews’ performance
“Other than getting trapped at half court when I told him it was coming, I thought he did great. He’s been playing much better, and that’s why we’re winning. It’s not coaching, I can promise you that.”
on UCLA seeing a 12-point digit reduced to one point, late at USC
“The lead got down because Dylan was cramping, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, Eric played too many minutes with Tyler out. We didn’t have enough time to practice because of our travel back from Washington. Saturday was a wash, Sunday was a glorified walk through. I was scared to play too small against them, so I wanted to play Will and Aday together. But we didn’t have time to practice what we were going to do offensively with that lineup. I played Eric too long, and that hurt our defense. When you get too tired, your brain turns to mush.”
on Tyler Bilodeau and his ankle injury
“I didn’t like what I saw at shootaround. He wanted to try to warm up, but he would have to come in and jumped through the roof, because in my mind, he wasn’t playing after what I saw. Bill Rafferty was here, and he asked what I was thinking, and I said, ‘He looks like me and you, that’s not a good thing’. I’m 53 and Raff’s 83.”
on Aday Mara’s performance
“The big thing with a young kid like him is that I had to tell the players to tell him to keep shooting. He missed a few early and he didn’t want to shoot after that. I’m making the team tell him in the time outs to keep shooting. They know he’s a scorer because they see him every day in practice. But he’s a young kid and he hasn’t been in that role, taking a lot of shots, so I needed his teammates to tell him.”
on USC’s 3-point shooting against UCLA
“If you don’t keep Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates out of the paint, they make guarded shots in the paint. My analogy to our team was that people used to think they could guard Jaime one-on-one, and he destroyed them. You think you’re in good position, but they’re so big and strong that they just score on you. You have to get other defenders in there, so you have to give up some shots.”
on the rivalry between UCLA and USC
“I thought it was a great game. I’m sure that Coach Musselman and I would both like to have the crowd like it was tonight. He’s done a great job. He got the job and everyone was gone except for Harry Hornery, who’s smart enough to get a USC degree, or maybe two. Imagine having to get an entire new team, it’s crazy. They’re having a hell of a year for that situation.”
on winning four straight games
“I let everybody else panic, that’s for all of the geniuses on the keyboards, that’s for everybody else.”
on the locker room during this win streak
“I can want to win all I want, but the hungry dog gets the bone. These kids are fighting their hearts out to win games, and that’s what wins games, performance and toughness. I give them all the credit. I’ve just got to keep digging in, keep pounding nails. But, don’t spread your wings, because peacock today, feather duster tomorrow.”
on Aday Mara’s growth
“It’s just a matter of him, he’s such a young kid, he’s 19, which in the state of California, you’re usually a senior in high school. He’s a young kid in an old player’s era. He’s getting better and I’m using the team to build his confidence.”
UCLA forward Eric Dailey Jr.
on different guys stepping up
“We’ve got to keep the momentum going into this next stretch of games at home. It should be good, we’ll have a home crowd advantage, and we’ll keep playing tough.”
on winning without junior Tyler Bilodeau
“It just shows that everybody’s ready when their name gets called. On this team, anybody could be a starter somewhere else. I think that’s the best part about our team. If everybody stays tough, and we stay together and stay connected, we’re going to win, and that’s what we did tonight.”
on Sebastian Mack’s late 3-pointer
“I thought it was good. I know my job is to rebound, so I just went in there to try to crash the boards. Once I saw that it went in, I was like, ‘There it goes. Showtime’.”
on the message in the locker room when Bilodeau’s out
“We’ve got players out. I’ve been out before and he’s been out. We have guys that just need to step up, it’s part of the season. People get injured, things happen. We just need to be focused on the next man up. He’s our leading scorer, so it was a big change, but we had people step up and make up for him.”
on the team’s mentality after a losing streak
“We just got sick of losing, honestly. We got sick of people talking about us, talking about the way we play. Once we got sick of that, we just came together as a team and said, ‘Forget about it, we’ll just hoop,’ and that’s what we’ve been doing in these past few games.”
on his role and maturity as a leader this season
“As a team, we just have to stay connected. Everybody’s talking; it doesn’t have to be one specific leader. On the best teams, everyone can step up and have a voice. There are many ways to lead; we have vocal guys, and we have guys who show what they’re doing. Some guys are just naturally vocal, I think I’m pretty vocal, Kobe’s pretty vocal, a lot of the guys talk. We listen to everybody, even Trent, our freshman. From the whole staff, everyone’s on the same page.”
on Aday Mara’s performance
“His confidence is going up. He’s already got the talent and the size. When you get confident and no one can stop you, it’s scary. We see it every day in practice; the stuff I see on the court is stuff I’ve been seeing. I’m not surprised when Aday shoots his hooks, or D.A. or Sebastian hits a step-back three, that’s just what they do.”
on Dylan Andrews’ confidence and his abilities
“He’s a scary player. Once he gets in the paint, it’s green from there. He can shoot and he can pass, so it makes defenders stay on their toes. He finds everybody on the court. He’s the best point guard I’ve played with so far. We’ve just got to keep him going and keep him hooping.”
on coming out of halftime, leading USC 42-37
“We just wanted to come out there like it was 0-0 again, and just play as tough as we can, get as many stops as we can, and have them turn the ball over, keep them out of the paint.”
on the rivalry between UCLA and USC
“I played in a rivalry game last year, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State. This is a big rivalry for sure. It was definitely fun, the crowd was into it. Wearing these four letters and getting the win at somebody else’s house is what I like to do. We just have to keep it going as a team.”
on the UCLA fans at the game
“I heard them all the way in the top row; they were talking and getting us going. We were hyping up our little section, and that’s all we need. Our little section, that’s it.”
on the team’s confidence
“I think confidence in anything you do makes you unstoppable. If you feel like you’re the best player in the world, you should be able to go out there and make plays and do what you do. Everybody on this team plays with confidence, and it’s hard to stop. If we stay confident as a team, which we will, we’re going to be tough.”
on learning from previous losses in the season
“Life is about lessons. You’re going to lose, you’re going to win, you’ve just got to learn from everything. The losses early in the season made us into the team we are now.”
UCLA guard Sebastian Mack
on his three-point shot with under 75 seconds left in regulation
“I feel like we had to get something up, and I went to my sweet spot. When it left my fingertips, it felt good. It was something I worked on. There was big emotion, I got some love from the guys. We competed. Aday had that double-double, E Day’s contribution. I feel like we did good as a team. We could’ve played a better, more complete 40-minute game, but other than that, we did pretty good. It was a game of runs, and when they had theirs, we buckled down and snuck out of here with a win.”
on how the team is able to win in multiple ways
“I would just say it’s our toughness. Coach is really big on us being tough, and he always says, ‘You can’t hang your head. It’s a game of runs’. I feel like our confidence and our toughness helped us escape with a win.”
on finishing the game without Tyler, Kobe, and Dylan on the court
“I was confident with the five guys we had. We have a great group of guys, you can see it in the box scores, it’s spread out so much. We were fine. We buckled down, we talked as a team, and we said we were going to get out of here with a win, and that’s what we did.”
on the rivalry between UCLA and USC
“It’s a big win, this is a tough crowd, but you’ve got to love it though. It comes with the game; it comes with the rivalry.”
on Dylan Andrews’ performance
“The thing about D.A. is that he’ll always find ways to contribute, even if he’s going out with cramps, he’ll find a way. I know that he’ll have my back regardless, and the whole team feels like that. He’s a junior guard, he’s been here, been through Mick Cronin’s stuff, played with Jaime and seen those guys. He’s a vet to us, so we always pick his brain and talk to him.”
on his role at the end of close games
“I’ve been playing basketball since I was three. You have to just buckle down and win games. That’s where I come from. Winning the game is all that matters. It’s not about the points or anything, you’ve just got to find a way to win, and that’s what we did.”
on becoming a leader
“I think that Cronin has helped me with that as well, telling me to talk to the guys, pick their brains a little bit. I feel like I’ve been talking on defense more, I know last year I wasn’t talking as much, but it being my second year here, knowing the system and the ropes a little bit. That was a big thing he wanted me to work on, my leadership.”
on inspiring his teammates
“I feel like my toughness rubs off on everybody. Everybody, even Aday – a double-double with five blocks? He’s been playing excellent. I knew that fall away was going in.”
UCLA 82, USC 76
Los Angeles, Calif. (Galen Center, at USC)
January 27, 2025
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“The Big Ten Conference, when you’ve got Minnesota playing the way they’re playing, Penn State up five with a minute to play at Michigan, any win is a great win. Period, end of story. We just won two in a row on the road without our leading scorer. Not many teams in the country are going to win on the road in a rivalry game against a great coach, a heck of a team of older guys, without their leading scorer. Happy is an understatement. Different guys [stepped up] at different times.”
on UCLA junior Skyy Clark
“Skyy’s tough. He’s a great athlete, and he’s just a winner. He’s a smart player, and he’s brought something to our program that we didn’t have last year. Something we lost with David Singleton – he’s a loyal Bruin.”
on players who stepped up tonight
“Kobe’s brought it and Skyy’s brought it. Eric Dailey hit a big three – that’s who we are. Tyler being out obviously changes us offensively, but then we had to play the last eight minutes when our point guard cramped up and couldn’t come back in. Now we’re playing without Dylan and without Tyler on the road in a rivalry game. Eventually, we just started playing well. It was a great win for us. Sebastian hit a big shot, but he’s got to stop giving up more than he’s scoring.”
on the team’s final five minutes
“They were trapping, they were desperately trying, running around and trying to trap us without our main point guard out there. But we staved it off and we won. In spite of missing two front ends of the bonus and we left six of seven points on the table in a stretch of free throws. They kind of gave it back to us, Trent had a freshman mistake and fouled the rebound. It turned out to be a good play because the guy missed them both. But that stretch; we had made every free throw up to that point, we were 16-for-16, and then we went on a tear of misses. That’s what really got them back in the game.”
on Dylan Andrews’ performance
“Other than getting trapped at half court when I told him it was coming, I thought he did great. He’s been playing much better, and that’s why we’re winning. It’s not coaching, I can promise you that.”
on UCLA seeing a 12-point digit reduced to one point, late at USC
“The lead got down because Dylan was cramping, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, Eric played too many minutes with Tyler out. We didn’t have enough time to practice because of our travel back from Washington. Saturday was a wash, Sunday was a glorified walk through. I was scared to play too small against them, so I wanted to play Will and Aday together. But we didn’t have time to practice what we were going to do offensively with that lineup. I played Eric too long, and that hurt our defense. When you get too tired, your brain turns to mush.”
on Tyler Bilodeau and his ankle injury
“I didn’t like what I saw at shootaround. He wanted to try to warm up, but he would have to come in and jumped through the roof, because in my mind, he wasn’t playing after what I saw. Bill Rafferty was here, and he asked what I was thinking, and I said, ‘He looks like me and you, that’s not a good thing’. I’m 53 and Raff’s 83.”
on Aday Mara’s performance
“The big thing with a young kid like him is that I had to tell the players to tell him to keep shooting. He missed a few early and he didn’t want to shoot after that. I’m making the team tell him in the time outs to keep shooting. They know he’s a scorer because they see him every day in practice. But he’s a young kid and he hasn’t been in that role, taking a lot of shots, so I needed his teammates to tell him.”
on USC’s 3-point shooting against UCLA
“If you don’t keep Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates out of the paint, they make guarded shots in the paint. My analogy to our team was that people used to think they could guard Jaime one-on-one, and he destroyed them. You think you’re in good position, but they’re so big and strong that they just score on you. You have to get other defenders in there, so you have to give up some shots.”
on the rivalry between UCLA and USC
“I thought it was a great game. I’m sure that Coach Musselman and I would both like to have the crowd like it was tonight. He’s done a great job. He got the job and everyone was gone except for Harry Hornery, who’s smart enough to get a USC degree, or maybe two. Imagine having to get an entire new team, it’s crazy. They’re having a hell of a year for that situation.”
on winning four straight games
“I let everybody else panic, that’s for all of the geniuses on the keyboards, that’s for everybody else.”
on the locker room during this win streak
“I can want to win all I want, but the hungry dog gets the bone. These kids are fighting their hearts out to win games, and that’s what wins games, performance and toughness. I give them all the credit. I’ve just got to keep digging in, keep pounding nails. But, don’t spread your wings, because peacock today, feather duster tomorrow.”
on Aday Mara’s growth
“It’s just a matter of him, he’s such a young kid, he’s 19, which in the state of California, you’re usually a senior in high school. He’s a young kid in an old player’s era. He’s getting better and I’m using the team to build his confidence.”
UCLA forward Eric Dailey Jr.
on different guys stepping up
“We’ve got to keep the momentum going into this next stretch of games at home. It should be good, we’ll have a home crowd advantage, and we’ll keep playing tough.”
on winning without junior Tyler Bilodeau
“It just shows that everybody’s ready when their name gets called. On this team, anybody could be a starter somewhere else. I think that’s the best part about our team. If everybody stays tough, and we stay together and stay connected, we’re going to win, and that’s what we did tonight.”
on Sebastian Mack’s late 3-pointer
“I thought it was good. I know my job is to rebound, so I just went in there to try to crash the boards. Once I saw that it went in, I was like, ‘There it goes. Showtime’.”
on the message in the locker room when Bilodeau’s out
“We’ve got players out. I’ve been out before and he’s been out. We have guys that just need to step up, it’s part of the season. People get injured, things happen. We just need to be focused on the next man up. He’s our leading scorer, so it was a big change, but we had people step up and make up for him.”
on the team’s mentality after a losing streak
“We just got sick of losing, honestly. We got sick of people talking about us, talking about the way we play. Once we got sick of that, we just came together as a team and said, ‘Forget about it, we’ll just hoop,’ and that’s what we’ve been doing in these past few games.”
on his role and maturity as a leader this season
“As a team, we just have to stay connected. Everybody’s talking; it doesn’t have to be one specific leader. On the best teams, everyone can step up and have a voice. There are many ways to lead; we have vocal guys, and we have guys who show what they’re doing. Some guys are just naturally vocal, I think I’m pretty vocal, Kobe’s pretty vocal, a lot of the guys talk. We listen to everybody, even Trent, our freshman. From the whole staff, everyone’s on the same page.”
on Aday Mara’s performance
“His confidence is going up. He’s already got the talent and the size. When you get confident and no one can stop you, it’s scary. We see it every day in practice; the stuff I see on the court is stuff I’ve been seeing. I’m not surprised when Aday shoots his hooks, or D.A. or Sebastian hits a step-back three, that’s just what they do.”
on Dylan Andrews’ confidence and his abilities
“He’s a scary player. Once he gets in the paint, it’s green from there. He can shoot and he can pass, so it makes defenders stay on their toes. He finds everybody on the court. He’s the best point guard I’ve played with so far. We’ve just got to keep him going and keep him hooping.”
on coming out of halftime, leading USC 42-37
“We just wanted to come out there like it was 0-0 again, and just play as tough as we can, get as many stops as we can, and have them turn the ball over, keep them out of the paint.”
on the rivalry between UCLA and USC
“I played in a rivalry game last year, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State. This is a big rivalry for sure. It was definitely fun, the crowd was into it. Wearing these four letters and getting the win at somebody else’s house is what I like to do. We just have to keep it going as a team.”
on the UCLA fans at the game
“I heard them all the way in the top row; they were talking and getting us going. We were hyping up our little section, and that’s all we need. Our little section, that’s it.”
on the team’s confidence
“I think confidence in anything you do makes you unstoppable. If you feel like you’re the best player in the world, you should be able to go out there and make plays and do what you do. Everybody on this team plays with confidence, and it’s hard to stop. If we stay confident as a team, which we will, we’re going to be tough.”
on learning from previous losses in the season
“Life is about lessons. You’re going to lose, you’re going to win, you’ve just got to learn from everything. The losses early in the season made us into the team we are now.”
UCLA guard Sebastian Mack
on his three-point shot with under 75 seconds left in regulation
“I feel like we had to get something up, and I went to my sweet spot. When it left my fingertips, it felt good. It was something I worked on. There was big emotion, I got some love from the guys. We competed. Aday had that double-double, E Day’s contribution. I feel like we did good as a team. We could’ve played a better, more complete 40-minute game, but other than that, we did pretty good. It was a game of runs, and when they had theirs, we buckled down and snuck out of here with a win.”
on how the team is able to win in multiple ways
“I would just say it’s our toughness. Coach is really big on us being tough, and he always says, ‘You can’t hang your head. It’s a game of runs’. I feel like our confidence and our toughness helped us escape with a win.”
on finishing the game without Tyler, Kobe, and Dylan on the court
“I was confident with the five guys we had. We have a great group of guys, you can see it in the box scores, it’s spread out so much. We were fine. We buckled down, we talked as a team, and we said we were going to get out of here with a win, and that’s what we did.”
on the rivalry between UCLA and USC
“It’s a big win, this is a tough crowd, but you’ve got to love it though. It comes with the game; it comes with the rivalry.”
on Dylan Andrews’ performance
“The thing about D.A. is that he’ll always find ways to contribute, even if he’s going out with cramps, he’ll find a way. I know that he’ll have my back regardless, and the whole team feels like that. He’s a junior guard, he’s been here, been through Mick Cronin’s stuff, played with Jaime and seen those guys. He’s a vet to us, so we always pick his brain and talk to him.”
on his role at the end of close games
“I’ve been playing basketball since I was three. You have to just buckle down and win games. That’s where I come from. Winning the game is all that matters. It’s not about the points or anything, you’ve just got to find a way to win, and that’s what we did.”
on becoming a leader
“I think that Cronin has helped me with that as well, telling me to talk to the guys, pick their brains a little bit. I feel like I’ve been talking on defense more, I know last year I wasn’t talking as much, but it being my second year here, knowing the system and the ropes a little bit. That was a big thing he wanted me to work on, my leadership.”
on inspiring his teammates
“I feel like my toughness rubs off on everybody. Everybody, even Aday – a double-double with five blocks? He’s been playing excellent. I knew that fall away was going in.”