Postgame Quotes - UCLA 85, South Dakota 82
UCLA 85, South Dakota 82
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
December 19, 2017
UCLA head coach Steve Alford
opening statement
“I think one of the hardest things to do in sports is when you’ve lost, and we’ve lost a couple, is to win again. I’m a huge boxing fan, when you get knocked out the hardest thing to do is to figure out a way to win. When you lose, and we’ve lost for two weeks even though it’s only been for two games but we haven’t won a game in two weeks, the hardest thing to do is to learn how to win again. I was really pleased with the first 36 minutes. The first 20 we didn’t shoot particularly well. The only thing we talked about at half was that we were being outrebounded by a team that shouldn’t be out rebounding us. But we had more assists than turnovers, we had six turnovers at half, playing well and getting good shoots. We had great shots we just weren’t making them. If we get good shots and share the ball then we have to live with that. Second half they were going in. Start of the second half and all the way to the final four minutes of the half it was beautiful basketball. It was probably the best basketball we’ve played for quite some time. Now there’s four minute to go in the game and our defensive efficiency is under 85 and that’s great. Our offensive efficiency is over 110 and that’s great. We had 22 assists and nine turnovers at that time. So the game was played very well. Then the lesson that our guys learned was that they decided it was time to get ours now. We talked about ball movement, playing off one another and unselfishness and I thought that for 36 minutes. I thought the last four minutes were selfish. It wasn’t very smart basketball. We got beat 24-7 in those last four minutes with no assists and four turnovers. It’s a great teaching point for me, it’s not the way I want to teach because it was a game we had in hand, but it also proves the point about what we look like when we are unselfish playing together versus what we look like when we are selfish and not playing as a team. I think that was a valuable lesson for our guys tonight.”
on final play of the game
“Tom [Welsh] did deflect it. He deflected it so the clock should start then. It started a little earlier than that, but he deflected it. If you use a stopwatch to figure out the time, which is what the officials did, there was only 1.5 second on the clock. If it’s tipped at the baseline and then they tip it right around the time line and it goes backwards, that’s beyond 1.5 seconds. I did finally see the tip so I do feel like it was the right call.”
on final minutes of the game
“We had a lot of them. It seemed like Brandon Armstrong came in and started hitting 3-pointers from everywhere. We took Tom [Welsh] out with about four minutes to go. I thought he had a great game and maybe we took him out a little too early. Getting him back in was crucial. I thought we did some good things defensively, I think they just made some great plays and some big shots. But it was more our offense that generated chances for them. We missed free throws and turned the ball over. In crunch time you can’t just no assists and four turnovers. It’s not the way you have to play. I guess we got two more minutes than what we normally have because Michigan was 34 minutes, Cincinnati was 34 minutes and tonight was 36 minutes so we are gaining.”
on Thomas Welsh
“He was terrific tonight. He had four assists to three turnovers. He had three blocks, got to the free throw line made three three-pointers. He got 14 shot attempts which is what we have to have. So tonight I thought he was terrific. This isn’t an easy game for our bigs because they play five guards. There’s no low-post game, it’s five spread. And that’s hard to guard when you want to play big the way we do. I thought in the second half, our strength and our size started to be more aggressive and that showed in a 20-point lead and Tom had a lot to do with that. If you look at the stat sheet, everyone had an assist and I think that’s the first time that’s happened all year. Everyone had an assist and everyone had a rebound so it was a good team effort until the last four minutes then they all started thinking about ourselves.”
UCLA senior center Thomas Welsh
on if he felt that he tipped the ball of North Dakota’s last possessions
“Yeah, I felt it right away. Got a piece of it.”
on the delay at the end of the game
“That’s a weird situation, especially because of the amount of timeouts at that point. They were making a run on us. It gave them a chance to set up their offense and set up their defense and put some things together with the stoppage of play. I’m just glad we got the win and finished what we needed to.”
UCLA junior guard Aaron Holiday
on if he’s ever been through anything like the end of the game
“Never. With college, it’s just never-ending sometimes. Anything can happen. Obviously you saw that eight-minute stretch that we just had with nothing going on and just checking the monitor. I don’t know what they were looking for there. They saw what happened. So, no I haven’t been in any situation like that before.”
on what the team talked about during delay
“Just getting a stop. That’s it. You don’t know what they’re going to do in that huddle that they were in. We’ve just got to come out and get a stop.”
on defensive adjustments made at halftime
“Just to come out and guard. Obviously, we gave up 17 (to South Dakota guard Matt Mooney) in the first half. That’s not us—and most of them were on me obviously, so I’ll take ownership for that. At the end of the day we’ve got to come out and guard. And that’s what we did.”
on team’s struggle with the press at the end of the game
“I think we just got sped up at the end. Obviously, you said, we’re young, and that’s going to happen. It’s a growing pain, but at the same time we can’t have those mistakes. I feel like we just got sped up… that’s what happened.”
UCLA senior forward G.G. Goloman
on team’s youth and if that factored into team’s play
“I for sure think so, yeah. We played good basketball for 35, 36 minutes and we just became selfish. I think that’s something that, as you get more mature, you’re going to learn that you can’t do that because [a team] can come back.”
South Dakota head coach Craig Smith
opening statement
“I really thought we came out really strong at the start and we were righting the ship and to only be up by three (points) was disappointing. I thought we really had control of the game and felt like we should have been up more. Going into the locker room at halftime, I told our team that the first five minutes was going to be the key. We played too much one-on-one and that just fed into their transition and that led to their separation. To be down by 22 at the 6:15 mark, to think we had a chance was really unbelievable. I believe we scored on our last 14 of 18 possessions. To tie the score really just showed our toughness. That’s what our program is about, we’re built on toughness.”
on how this game will prepare them for conference play
“We are very fortunate and we have an 11-4 non-conference record. We’ve played at TCU. We’ve played at Duke and at UCLA—to be able to play against these blue bloods is an experience you just can’t duplicate.”
South Dakota sophomore guard, Brandon Armstrong
opening statement
“I really felt like I played within myself and I played within the offense. I felt like I really did that well tonight.”
on where they go from here
“I really want to take the next step. I want to provide that spark off the bench. We start conference play on the 30th against Denver that runs a high-low offense, so on this road trip we have seen that. On Sunday, we played San Jose State and they run a high-low offense.”
on playing in Pauley Pavilion
“It’s always a great experience. The experience was great, it was really up there.”