Postgame Quotes - UCLA vs. San Diego
POSTGAME QUOTES
UCLA 83, San Diego 56
December 9, 2020
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
on sophomore Johnny Juzang
“We wanted to get his feet wet. He wanted to get them wet on Sunday against Cal, medical staff told us it’s better to wait. We wanted to keep him under 20 minutes, keep him at no turnovers, and have good shot selection. I thought he was 90 percent on that – he took one ill-advised one. All in all, it was a great first time out for him off just two practices and being out for three weeks.”
on the team’s first half runs in recent games
“Well for us, I think our bench is a big part of it. We have multiple guys who can start, you’re gonna see different lineups whether it’s the beginning of the game or second half. Right now, we’re just trying to balance Cody [Riley] and Jalen [Hill], making sure we’re keeping them equal. They got 20 rebounds and 18 points from that position, problem is they had four turnovers, two each. I think that trying to wear teams down with fresh bodies is going to be a big factor for us going forward. The key to that though is whoever we put in there, we’ve got to be able to count on them to be solid on the defensive end and make good decisions on the offensive end.”
on Johnny Juzang’s role on the squad going forward
“Scoring, no doubt about it. He can score off the pull-up, he’s not just a three-point shooter. So he’s such a weapon with his ability to put it in the basket that it opens up the floor for a Chris Smith, or a Jaime Jaquez, or a Tyger [Campbell[ to drive the ball. You have to guard him at all times, he’s a tremendous offensive weapon.”
on the team’s offensive performance
“We were really disappointed in the first half. We thought we had a lot of wasted trips, we didn’t have enough touches on the ball. We’re still learning – we’re trying to play a different style offensively. Where last year we weren’t deep, we had to keep the ball on Tyger’s hands quite a bit, we were young at a lot of positions. This year we’re a lot deeper, I think we’ve got more weapons, guys are a little older. So we’re trying to embrace playing at a faster pace, but I think today’s player thinks that means just push it up, one guy drive it, and shoot it. Where we show our guys a lot of film of us or other college teams that pass the ball and hard-cut, and move the ball, and make teams chase them. We show the San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors in their heydays with the greatest players in the world who are willing to cut and pass and play with speed. I think we’re a work in progress still on the offensive end.”
on areas for improvement
“I always love when you’re plus-19 on the glass. It’s hard to lose that way. When you look down and see that you’ve got 51 points in the paint and the foul line combined, it’s impossible to lose. You’re imposing your will on the other team on the glass, around the rim. You’re not just relying on jump-shooting. There’s definitely areas – we’ve got to improve defensively with our team defense, building a wall better. We give up too much penetration to the middle that causes us to help. Give up some lay-ups or some threes. We had too many empty trips – we had four turnovers on lob passes. When we play one-on-one, we’re supposed to pass the ball when we draw a second defender, and we didn’t quite a few times tonight, so those are areas we can improve. That’s why you get these games played, you get to film and show the guys. We’re gonna have to improve obviously, the schedule only gets tougher for us.”
San Diego head coach Sam Scholl
overall remarks on the game at UCLA
“I thought that we accomplished some good things, you know, for our first game – 12 turnovers, we had some good movement offensively. We shot the ball from the three pretty well. The most frustrating thing about the game was, the first time that we uttered the four letters ‘UCLA,’ the second thing that we talked about was rebounding. You just can’t give up 16 offensive rebounds and expect to win. So we will learn and our heads are up. We’ll learn from it, own it, and come back better tomorrow.
UCLA 83, San Diego 56
December 9, 2020
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
on sophomore Johnny Juzang
“We wanted to get his feet wet. He wanted to get them wet on Sunday against Cal, medical staff told us it’s better to wait. We wanted to keep him under 20 minutes, keep him at no turnovers, and have good shot selection. I thought he was 90 percent on that – he took one ill-advised one. All in all, it was a great first time out for him off just two practices and being out for three weeks.”
on the team’s first half runs in recent games
“Well for us, I think our bench is a big part of it. We have multiple guys who can start, you’re gonna see different lineups whether it’s the beginning of the game or second half. Right now, we’re just trying to balance Cody [Riley] and Jalen [Hill], making sure we’re keeping them equal. They got 20 rebounds and 18 points from that position, problem is they had four turnovers, two each. I think that trying to wear teams down with fresh bodies is going to be a big factor for us going forward. The key to that though is whoever we put in there, we’ve got to be able to count on them to be solid on the defensive end and make good decisions on the offensive end.”
on Johnny Juzang’s role on the squad going forward
“Scoring, no doubt about it. He can score off the pull-up, he’s not just a three-point shooter. So he’s such a weapon with his ability to put it in the basket that it opens up the floor for a Chris Smith, or a Jaime Jaquez, or a Tyger [Campbell[ to drive the ball. You have to guard him at all times, he’s a tremendous offensive weapon.”
on the team’s offensive performance
“We were really disappointed in the first half. We thought we had a lot of wasted trips, we didn’t have enough touches on the ball. We’re still learning – we’re trying to play a different style offensively. Where last year we weren’t deep, we had to keep the ball on Tyger’s hands quite a bit, we were young at a lot of positions. This year we’re a lot deeper, I think we’ve got more weapons, guys are a little older. So we’re trying to embrace playing at a faster pace, but I think today’s player thinks that means just push it up, one guy drive it, and shoot it. Where we show our guys a lot of film of us or other college teams that pass the ball and hard-cut, and move the ball, and make teams chase them. We show the San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors in their heydays with the greatest players in the world who are willing to cut and pass and play with speed. I think we’re a work in progress still on the offensive end.”
on areas for improvement
“I always love when you’re plus-19 on the glass. It’s hard to lose that way. When you look down and see that you’ve got 51 points in the paint and the foul line combined, it’s impossible to lose. You’re imposing your will on the other team on the glass, around the rim. You’re not just relying on jump-shooting. There’s definitely areas – we’ve got to improve defensively with our team defense, building a wall better. We give up too much penetration to the middle that causes us to help. Give up some lay-ups or some threes. We had too many empty trips – we had four turnovers on lob passes. When we play one-on-one, we’re supposed to pass the ball when we draw a second defender, and we didn’t quite a few times tonight, so those are areas we can improve. That’s why you get these games played, you get to film and show the guys. We’re gonna have to improve obviously, the schedule only gets tougher for us.”
San Diego head coach Sam Scholl
overall remarks on the game at UCLA
“I thought that we accomplished some good things, you know, for our first game – 12 turnovers, we had some good movement offensively. We shot the ball from the three pretty well. The most frustrating thing about the game was, the first time that we uttered the four letters ‘UCLA,’ the second thing that we talked about was rebounding. You just can’t give up 16 offensive rebounds and expect to win. So we will learn and our heads are up. We’ll learn from it, own it, and come back better tomorrow.