Postgame Quotes – UCLA at San Diego State
POSTGAME QUOTES
San Diego State 73, UCLA 58
San Diego, Calif. (Viejas Arena) – November 25, 2020
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
on whether the players may have felt overconfident
“I don’t know about that. Coaches worry about everything. What was a factor in today’s game was we got outplayed physically. I’ve been doing this a long time. I have been coaching, long time, coaching in the Big East against veteran teams. You go on the road and get physically beat up, the way we got beat up, and our defense was just atrocious. We did not follow the scouting report at all. We got beat off the dribble. We walked away from shooters. We did some mind-boggling stuff, to be honest with you. Like, total regression. Total regression. I don’t know if that is born out of overconfidence. I don’t know what that is born out of. But I obviously have to fix that immediately.”
on UCLA’s defense generating just two blocks and one steal and how many deflections they had
“I think it was 14 [deflections]. Our defensive effort, our physical effort was bad and our mental effort was maybe worse, if that is possible. Our effort to just sit down and buy into competing the way we were going to have to compete. I told these guys since I’d scheduled this game, I did on purpose – you guys aren’t going to be able to jump shoot your way to victory. It took me months to teach you that last year. And you are not going to go to San Diego State and jump shoot your way to victory. That is why the game started out as fool’s gold for us. I knew it. So, I agree with you. Low deflections, I want to say that it was 14. It was low, unbelievably low. I would add to that, points in the paint and the rebounding. You know, they were plus five in the offensive category, plus six overall. And 15 turnovers, 10 in the first half.”
on the team’s offense and Chris Smith getting into foul trouble
“You can’t run without the ball. Certain teams in the country, they thrive off their defensive toughness. Villanova, they’ll turn up the heat. They can get stops and get out on the break. We could not get a stop. We couldn’t get a rebound so that was the end of the fast break. I want to say that you were right in the first half. I’m going to say that we were stuck on 21 points for a long time, for a long time. We couldn’t get a shot to go down, so that was a big problem for us. Cody obviously, we had two starters not out there tonight and that didn’t help. But you know, Cody has given us everything he has got. And when he is out of the game, I think that it’s more [of a difference with] him out than Chris out. But you’re right – that is when we stalled. With Cody, we knew that we’d have to play him. Thirty [minutes] is about his max, as physical and the combat that he is dealing with against a team like this on every play. Obviously, it would have been nice to have Johnny to be able to shoot it in and to make plays on offense. It would have been nice to have Jalen. But that is no excuse for the lack – our defensive effort, mentally and physically, was just embarrassing.”
on defense played against UCLA with Jake Kyman on the court
“No, I mean, when Jake comes in the game, it doesn’t matter who we play, they know he can shoot. To honest with you, I think you’re wrong. I think that we missed him. A couple times, we ran some misdirection and he was open. We were looking to do things for ourselves instead of get our teammate a shot. That’s how I saw it a couple times. We ran a couple screens for him and, you know, teams know. So they’re going to do whatever they can to be physical and get up in his ribs and try not to let him get off some screens. We missed him a couple times where he was wide open.”
on the injury status with Jalen Hill and Johnny Juzang
“Jalen is day-to-day with tendonitis. Johnny had a flare-up in his foot. We just want to be really careful with it and make sure that we put him in a boot for a couple weeks and hopefully he’ll be out of the boot in the next day or two. And then we will go from there with him.”
on the unusual preseason and what he told his team about preparing for Friday’s game
“I’m always honest with you guys. There are facets of the game, and to me, your job as a coach is not say that, ‘Hey, you know, the guys didn’t listen.’ At the end of the day, there are areas where we have to be solid, or anybody has to be solid. But like I’ve said, we are not a collection of lottery picks. We have to be physical. We have to be tough. We got taught a lesson tonight. My message to them, is that obviously I didn’t get the job done. Guys aren’t doing what they’re told on the defensive end. It’s not like they surprised us. Coach Palmer was on their staff [in 2018-19] – he knew every play they were going to run and everything that they were going to do. And what happens for us, is that when things don’t go our way on offense, we pout on defense. That’s the number one trait of a losing team. So, we did not hang in there and defend when we struggled to score tonight. When your mind is not on what you’re supposed to be doing and what your coach is telling you to do, that tells you that your mind is somewhere else. I told them that I will get their minds on the right things.”
on if he was aware there would be piped-in crowd noise and if that was bothersome to the players
“No, that would be – for some of the guys in the locker room, with the way that we played, I’m sure that they’d like to use that as an excuse. The problem wasn’t the crowd noise. The problem was San Diego State, their toughness, their execution.”
on the offense getting stagnant
“Well, first of all, you’ve always got to give the other team credit. They played great team defense. They don’t play any young guys. They’re in position. We have to do a better job of sharing the basketball. In 5-on-5, somebody has to be willing to get somebody else open with a screen or a pass. That is the key. So, we struggled in that area when shots didn’t go down for us. We really struggled from two. But, I’ll be really honest. I think our biggest problem is our turnovers. You’ve got 15 turnovers and only 43 shots. You cannot win when the other team gets 58 shots and you get 43. You don’t need to get admitted to UCLA to know that that’s 15 more shots than we got. That came because we were minus five on turnovers, minus six on the glass. It’s just a numbers game. Why are we minus six on the glass? Well, we lose our man. We don’t have block out assignments or we don’t block out. And we don’t take care of the ball. Turnovers really destroyed us. That area is where Jaime, Chris, and Cody and Tyger, that’s four guys with 12 turnovers between them. Those are some of our best players. If some of our best players are turning the ball over, we are not going to beat a team like San Diego State. That’s just not going to happen.”
San Diego State 73, UCLA 58
San Diego, Calif. (Viejas Arena) – November 25, 2020
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
on whether the players may have felt overconfident
“I don’t know about that. Coaches worry about everything. What was a factor in today’s game was we got outplayed physically. I’ve been doing this a long time. I have been coaching, long time, coaching in the Big East against veteran teams. You go on the road and get physically beat up, the way we got beat up, and our defense was just atrocious. We did not follow the scouting report at all. We got beat off the dribble. We walked away from shooters. We did some mind-boggling stuff, to be honest with you. Like, total regression. Total regression. I don’t know if that is born out of overconfidence. I don’t know what that is born out of. But I obviously have to fix that immediately.”
on UCLA’s defense generating just two blocks and one steal and how many deflections they had
“I think it was 14 [deflections]. Our defensive effort, our physical effort was bad and our mental effort was maybe worse, if that is possible. Our effort to just sit down and buy into competing the way we were going to have to compete. I told these guys since I’d scheduled this game, I did on purpose – you guys aren’t going to be able to jump shoot your way to victory. It took me months to teach you that last year. And you are not going to go to San Diego State and jump shoot your way to victory. That is why the game started out as fool’s gold for us. I knew it. So, I agree with you. Low deflections, I want to say that it was 14. It was low, unbelievably low. I would add to that, points in the paint and the rebounding. You know, they were plus five in the offensive category, plus six overall. And 15 turnovers, 10 in the first half.”
on the team’s offense and Chris Smith getting into foul trouble
“You can’t run without the ball. Certain teams in the country, they thrive off their defensive toughness. Villanova, they’ll turn up the heat. They can get stops and get out on the break. We could not get a stop. We couldn’t get a rebound so that was the end of the fast break. I want to say that you were right in the first half. I’m going to say that we were stuck on 21 points for a long time, for a long time. We couldn’t get a shot to go down, so that was a big problem for us. Cody obviously, we had two starters not out there tonight and that didn’t help. But you know, Cody has given us everything he has got. And when he is out of the game, I think that it’s more [of a difference with] him out than Chris out. But you’re right – that is when we stalled. With Cody, we knew that we’d have to play him. Thirty [minutes] is about his max, as physical and the combat that he is dealing with against a team like this on every play. Obviously, it would have been nice to have Johnny to be able to shoot it in and to make plays on offense. It would have been nice to have Jalen. But that is no excuse for the lack – our defensive effort, mentally and physically, was just embarrassing.”
on defense played against UCLA with Jake Kyman on the court
“No, I mean, when Jake comes in the game, it doesn’t matter who we play, they know he can shoot. To honest with you, I think you’re wrong. I think that we missed him. A couple times, we ran some misdirection and he was open. We were looking to do things for ourselves instead of get our teammate a shot. That’s how I saw it a couple times. We ran a couple screens for him and, you know, teams know. So they’re going to do whatever they can to be physical and get up in his ribs and try not to let him get off some screens. We missed him a couple times where he was wide open.”
on the injury status with Jalen Hill and Johnny Juzang
“Jalen is day-to-day with tendonitis. Johnny had a flare-up in his foot. We just want to be really careful with it and make sure that we put him in a boot for a couple weeks and hopefully he’ll be out of the boot in the next day or two. And then we will go from there with him.”
on the unusual preseason and what he told his team about preparing for Friday’s game
“I’m always honest with you guys. There are facets of the game, and to me, your job as a coach is not say that, ‘Hey, you know, the guys didn’t listen.’ At the end of the day, there are areas where we have to be solid, or anybody has to be solid. But like I’ve said, we are not a collection of lottery picks. We have to be physical. We have to be tough. We got taught a lesson tonight. My message to them, is that obviously I didn’t get the job done. Guys aren’t doing what they’re told on the defensive end. It’s not like they surprised us. Coach Palmer was on their staff [in 2018-19] – he knew every play they were going to run and everything that they were going to do. And what happens for us, is that when things don’t go our way on offense, we pout on defense. That’s the number one trait of a losing team. So, we did not hang in there and defend when we struggled to score tonight. When your mind is not on what you’re supposed to be doing and what your coach is telling you to do, that tells you that your mind is somewhere else. I told them that I will get their minds on the right things.”
on if he was aware there would be piped-in crowd noise and if that was bothersome to the players
“No, that would be – for some of the guys in the locker room, with the way that we played, I’m sure that they’d like to use that as an excuse. The problem wasn’t the crowd noise. The problem was San Diego State, their toughness, their execution.”
on the offense getting stagnant
“Well, first of all, you’ve always got to give the other team credit. They played great team defense. They don’t play any young guys. They’re in position. We have to do a better job of sharing the basketball. In 5-on-5, somebody has to be willing to get somebody else open with a screen or a pass. That is the key. So, we struggled in that area when shots didn’t go down for us. We really struggled from two. But, I’ll be really honest. I think our biggest problem is our turnovers. You’ve got 15 turnovers and only 43 shots. You cannot win when the other team gets 58 shots and you get 43. You don’t need to get admitted to UCLA to know that that’s 15 more shots than we got. That came because we were minus five on turnovers, minus six on the glass. It’s just a numbers game. Why are we minus six on the glass? Well, we lose our man. We don’t have block out assignments or we don’t block out. And we don’t take care of the ball. Turnovers really destroyed us. That area is where Jaime, Chris, and Cody and Tyger, that’s four guys with 12 turnovers between them. Those are some of our best players. If some of our best players are turning the ball over, we are not going to beat a team like San Diego State. That’s just not going to happen.”