Postgame Quotes – Arizona 88, UCLA 65
POSTGAME QUOTES
Arizona 88, UCLA 65
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
March 7, 2024
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“We can’t guard Arizona. They’re just better than us. They’re better than us on the backboard. They’re better than us on offense. They’re better than us on defense. They’re much better than they were last year at all five starting positions and the bench. If Adem [Bona] doesn’t have a really good game, then we have no chance. That’s a lot to put on one guy. It’s unfair, but that’s just our reality. We went on a stretch of bad shots and turnovers that ended the game for us [in] the last 10 minutes of the first half. But we just can’t guard them. They didn’t run anything. It was just like USC. They just beat us. They just beat us right off the dribble. A couple pick-and-rolls. But they just beat us.”
on how the team retools for next season
“No, I’m not going to talk about next season. … I feel like you. You don’t even know what to ask. They’re just better than us. I just went through it. They’re just better than us in all three phases. For us, Lazar [Stefanovic] had none at halftime. The truth of it is, for us, we’ve got no chance in matching their firepower. When KJ Lewis shoots the ball like that, nobody is going to beat them. Look, I love him. He’s a tough kid, competitor. I have great respect for him, but he’s not a shooter. I’ve seen him for three years. I know he’s a freshman, but I’ve seen him for three years. When he shoots the ball like that, you got no chance.”
on why he made a change in the starting lineup
“Practice.”
on what he was most disappointed in defensively
“Getting backdoored as much as we got backdoored and our inability to guard the ball. Marking a guy, keeping a guy in front of you and having some pride in it. We got some guys – I thought Dylan Andrews played as hard as he could play. Extremely proud of him. Thought he played with a lot of heart for the third straight game. I thought Lazar in the second half played with some heart. Sebastian [Mack], Jan [Vide], Berke [Buyuktuncel], Brandon [Williams} and Will [McClendon] – they get beat every time somebody dribbles the ball. You got no chance if you can’t – most teams have to run stuff to hurt you. All you got to do is drive by us.”
on what positives he can take away
“None.”
on not taking advantage of Adem Bona only having one foul and if it was due to the talent disparity between two teams
“Yeah. Obviously, it didn’t help us.”
on what he can do to get the team to get to the free throw line more
“What I would tell you from experience, and I have a lot of it now, good teams get fouled [and] bad teams foul. That’s just the facts. I don’t know what Coach Wooden used to say about that, but I grew up in the Midwest and Bob Knight’s goal was, and my dad was always talking about things Coach Knight talked about, he would talk about you got to shoot more free throws than your opponent attempts. You got to make more than they attempt. And they accomplished that. Twenty-three makes and we only had 18 attempts. That’s two straight games where that’s happened. What we got to do – all I can do is keep coaching and showing film. Coach and teach and show them film. Young teams foul. Old teams defend. They [Arizona] started four seniors. And like I alluded to they have a freshman that’s just a super winner.”
on if the team is where he thought it would be at this point in the season
“No, no. Obviously wish that some of our younger players had developed more and had been more productive. … You have to take your hat off. You’re responsible for development. But when you’ve done this long enough, you recruit two guys in the same class [and] four years later, one guy is a pro or he scores 2,000 points, four years later, the same guy is making the same mistakes. That’s just life, right? So, you just have to evaluate who you build with and who gets better. A lot of our freshmen have not played and developed the way I would have hoped. I think that Dylan Andrews definitely has. That wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I think Lazar in the second half did. And Adem is a work in progress, but his heart and athleticism are great. But the answer would be no. There’s also who you’re comparing them against, too, right? They played one of the best teams in the country tonight. That’s the best team they’ve been since I coached against them for five years because they defend. It’s the same passing, they got the player of the year in the league. [Keshad] Johnson is just a better defender than [Azuolas] Tubelis. Their guards are better. Kerr Kriisa wasn’t a great defender, so they’re just better. But no, [I’m] definitely not happy with some of the development of some of the young guys. It’s just obvious. When you get outclassed, it’s obvious.”
Junior guard Lazar Stefanovic
on a tough loss
“We didn’t play well. We didn’t communicate, execute the stuff we said in the locker room, the stuff we talked about. They are a team that is going to take advantage of that, and you can’t allow mistakes like that against them. We didn’t play well enough, bottom line.”
on the lack of defensive support for Adem Bona
“It’s hard for him to play when we get beat on the back door, and we expect him to lock everything. It puts a lot of pressure on him.”
on rallying from this loss and showing effort in the last home game vs. Arizona State
“You said it: we’ve got one more game at home and it’s senior night. We’ve got to forget about what happened, and learn from it, and focus on that game. It’s the last game we’ll play before the Pac-12 tournament, so hopefully we get some momentum going into the tournament.”
on having inconsistent halves scoring-wise
“The ball’s not always going to go in, and I had foul trouble in the first half, so I sat for a while because of it. You know, you’ve got to be smart about that, and I put my team in a bad spot. I earned that. Again, I try to play my game and help my team. I had the same mindset in the first and second half, but that’s how it went today.”
on hearing “U of A” chants in Pauley Pavilion
“We were focused on the game, I tried to do everything I could to play the game, and I’m sure everyone else did. I didn’t pay any attention.”
on early struggles, success in the middle, and struggles in the end of the season
“If we knew this was going to happen, if we knew why, then we would stop it, not let it happen. I guess something that we were running, that we had in common, is that we were outrebounding our opponents, we were shooting good percentages, and we had a lot of assists. Those are some common factors that mean a lot, so I guess that would be the answer.”
Sophomore forward/center Adem Bona
on matching up with Ballo and the early foul
“I really wasn’t trying to intentionally get him to foul. I was just going at him. I knew he was strong and big. I knew I was going to have to use my speed to try to get around him, try to make him use his foot. There wasn’t any intention of trying to get him to foul. I was just playing the game.”
on not fouling in the first half and then picking up four in the second half
“I don’t think anything changed for me. I knew I had zero fouls, and I wanted to be more aggressive to help my teammates more, to block more shots, to be able to contest more shots. Nothing changed, I just wanted to help more, and I got caught in the fouls again. Just being more aggressive on the defensive end.”
on rallying from this loss and showing effort in the last home game vs. Arizona State
“We’ve got one more game. We have one more chance to show our character, our identity before the Pac-12 tournament, and that’s a big opportunity for us. Me and Lazar and all the guys, the upperclassmen on the team, we need to get the team together, get everyone to get their heads up. Our coaches, they’ve done things like this before, in the past, been in tough situations like this, and we trust them. We’ve just got to stay together, keep our heads up, and keep fighting.”
on using the offensive struggles of this season moving forward
“I think this year was, obviously, it’s almost over by now, and we should’ve learned by now. The only thing we can take away from this year is the lessons, to get ourselves in a better place, to share with our teammates. Obviously, we’ve had our offensive struggles, we struggled with assists today, and we weren’t sharing the ball enough. I had some bad shots myself, and I knew I could find my teammates because they double-teamed. I think this year, we need to learn from our mistakes, and learn how to play together. We are a young team, with a lot of new guys, so I think that this year was a learning process for us. We still have hope, we still have love to give for the end of the year.”
Arizona Head Coach Tommy Lloyd
on their impromptu celebration of a share of the Pac-12 title
“It was kind of a players/coaches thing. I was not expecting that. I didn’t even know what had happened with Washington State. I think one of our coaches told the players, but I’m glad our guys got to celebrate. They earned it. I expect them to compete on Saturday (against USC). We have a mature group. I was here to win today and not worry about Washington State.”
on the team’s execution
“We played great team basketball and we had separation when we were up six to eight points. We have talked about that a lot this season and how we wanted to create separation leading into the half. We just needed to start of our halves stronger and that is important and we did that tonight. I thought we played normal defense. We didn’t do anything tricky. It’s towards the end of the season and we’ve got four vets and we’ve got some young guys. We’ve got a good mix and we are trying to build them (the young guys) up.”
on KJ Lewis’ play tonight
“He’s super valuable and a great player. He’s just scratching the surface. He has given us tremendous effort ever since he stepped on campus.”
on Caleb Love
“Caleb showed real patience tonight. This is a team adventure and not an individual thing. It’s a team game and he understands that. He has played in high-level situations, so he understands what we need to do. His experience is invaluable to us.”
on how they build upon this victory
“We just continue to build. We are building. We have to continue to build with execution. We are on a “build mode”. Teams that play better in the latter part of the season get better each week. We want to be one of those teams”
Arizona 88, UCLA 65
Los Angeles, Calif. (Pauley Pavilion)
March 7, 2024
Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“We can’t guard Arizona. They’re just better than us. They’re better than us on the backboard. They’re better than us on offense. They’re better than us on defense. They’re much better than they were last year at all five starting positions and the bench. If Adem [Bona] doesn’t have a really good game, then we have no chance. That’s a lot to put on one guy. It’s unfair, but that’s just our reality. We went on a stretch of bad shots and turnovers that ended the game for us [in] the last 10 minutes of the first half. But we just can’t guard them. They didn’t run anything. It was just like USC. They just beat us. They just beat us right off the dribble. A couple pick-and-rolls. But they just beat us.”
on how the team retools for next season
“No, I’m not going to talk about next season. … I feel like you. You don’t even know what to ask. They’re just better than us. I just went through it. They’re just better than us in all three phases. For us, Lazar [Stefanovic] had none at halftime. The truth of it is, for us, we’ve got no chance in matching their firepower. When KJ Lewis shoots the ball like that, nobody is going to beat them. Look, I love him. He’s a tough kid, competitor. I have great respect for him, but he’s not a shooter. I’ve seen him for three years. I know he’s a freshman, but I’ve seen him for three years. When he shoots the ball like that, you got no chance.”
on why he made a change in the starting lineup
“Practice.”
on what he was most disappointed in defensively
“Getting backdoored as much as we got backdoored and our inability to guard the ball. Marking a guy, keeping a guy in front of you and having some pride in it. We got some guys – I thought Dylan Andrews played as hard as he could play. Extremely proud of him. Thought he played with a lot of heart for the third straight game. I thought Lazar in the second half played with some heart. Sebastian [Mack], Jan [Vide], Berke [Buyuktuncel], Brandon [Williams} and Will [McClendon] – they get beat every time somebody dribbles the ball. You got no chance if you can’t – most teams have to run stuff to hurt you. All you got to do is drive by us.”
on what positives he can take away
“None.”
on not taking advantage of Adem Bona only having one foul and if it was due to the talent disparity between two teams
“Yeah. Obviously, it didn’t help us.”
on what he can do to get the team to get to the free throw line more
“What I would tell you from experience, and I have a lot of it now, good teams get fouled [and] bad teams foul. That’s just the facts. I don’t know what Coach Wooden used to say about that, but I grew up in the Midwest and Bob Knight’s goal was, and my dad was always talking about things Coach Knight talked about, he would talk about you got to shoot more free throws than your opponent attempts. You got to make more than they attempt. And they accomplished that. Twenty-three makes and we only had 18 attempts. That’s two straight games where that’s happened. What we got to do – all I can do is keep coaching and showing film. Coach and teach and show them film. Young teams foul. Old teams defend. They [Arizona] started four seniors. And like I alluded to they have a freshman that’s just a super winner.”
on if the team is where he thought it would be at this point in the season
“No, no. Obviously wish that some of our younger players had developed more and had been more productive. … You have to take your hat off. You’re responsible for development. But when you’ve done this long enough, you recruit two guys in the same class [and] four years later, one guy is a pro or he scores 2,000 points, four years later, the same guy is making the same mistakes. That’s just life, right? So, you just have to evaluate who you build with and who gets better. A lot of our freshmen have not played and developed the way I would have hoped. I think that Dylan Andrews definitely has. That wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I think Lazar in the second half did. And Adem is a work in progress, but his heart and athleticism are great. But the answer would be no. There’s also who you’re comparing them against, too, right? They played one of the best teams in the country tonight. That’s the best team they’ve been since I coached against them for five years because they defend. It’s the same passing, they got the player of the year in the league. [Keshad] Johnson is just a better defender than [Azuolas] Tubelis. Their guards are better. Kerr Kriisa wasn’t a great defender, so they’re just better. But no, [I’m] definitely not happy with some of the development of some of the young guys. It’s just obvious. When you get outclassed, it’s obvious.”
Junior guard Lazar Stefanovic
on a tough loss
“We didn’t play well. We didn’t communicate, execute the stuff we said in the locker room, the stuff we talked about. They are a team that is going to take advantage of that, and you can’t allow mistakes like that against them. We didn’t play well enough, bottom line.”
on the lack of defensive support for Adem Bona
“It’s hard for him to play when we get beat on the back door, and we expect him to lock everything. It puts a lot of pressure on him.”
on rallying from this loss and showing effort in the last home game vs. Arizona State
“You said it: we’ve got one more game at home and it’s senior night. We’ve got to forget about what happened, and learn from it, and focus on that game. It’s the last game we’ll play before the Pac-12 tournament, so hopefully we get some momentum going into the tournament.”
on having inconsistent halves scoring-wise
“The ball’s not always going to go in, and I had foul trouble in the first half, so I sat for a while because of it. You know, you’ve got to be smart about that, and I put my team in a bad spot. I earned that. Again, I try to play my game and help my team. I had the same mindset in the first and second half, but that’s how it went today.”
on hearing “U of A” chants in Pauley Pavilion
“We were focused on the game, I tried to do everything I could to play the game, and I’m sure everyone else did. I didn’t pay any attention.”
on early struggles, success in the middle, and struggles in the end of the season
“If we knew this was going to happen, if we knew why, then we would stop it, not let it happen. I guess something that we were running, that we had in common, is that we were outrebounding our opponents, we were shooting good percentages, and we had a lot of assists. Those are some common factors that mean a lot, so I guess that would be the answer.”
Sophomore forward/center Adem Bona
on matching up with Ballo and the early foul
“I really wasn’t trying to intentionally get him to foul. I was just going at him. I knew he was strong and big. I knew I was going to have to use my speed to try to get around him, try to make him use his foot. There wasn’t any intention of trying to get him to foul. I was just playing the game.”
on not fouling in the first half and then picking up four in the second half
“I don’t think anything changed for me. I knew I had zero fouls, and I wanted to be more aggressive to help my teammates more, to block more shots, to be able to contest more shots. Nothing changed, I just wanted to help more, and I got caught in the fouls again. Just being more aggressive on the defensive end.”
on rallying from this loss and showing effort in the last home game vs. Arizona State
“We’ve got one more game. We have one more chance to show our character, our identity before the Pac-12 tournament, and that’s a big opportunity for us. Me and Lazar and all the guys, the upperclassmen on the team, we need to get the team together, get everyone to get their heads up. Our coaches, they’ve done things like this before, in the past, been in tough situations like this, and we trust them. We’ve just got to stay together, keep our heads up, and keep fighting.”
on using the offensive struggles of this season moving forward
“I think this year was, obviously, it’s almost over by now, and we should’ve learned by now. The only thing we can take away from this year is the lessons, to get ourselves in a better place, to share with our teammates. Obviously, we’ve had our offensive struggles, we struggled with assists today, and we weren’t sharing the ball enough. I had some bad shots myself, and I knew I could find my teammates because they double-teamed. I think this year, we need to learn from our mistakes, and learn how to play together. We are a young team, with a lot of new guys, so I think that this year was a learning process for us. We still have hope, we still have love to give for the end of the year.”
Arizona Head Coach Tommy Lloyd
on their impromptu celebration of a share of the Pac-12 title
“It was kind of a players/coaches thing. I was not expecting that. I didn’t even know what had happened with Washington State. I think one of our coaches told the players, but I’m glad our guys got to celebrate. They earned it. I expect them to compete on Saturday (against USC). We have a mature group. I was here to win today and not worry about Washington State.”
on the team’s execution
“We played great team basketball and we had separation when we were up six to eight points. We have talked about that a lot this season and how we wanted to create separation leading into the half. We just needed to start of our halves stronger and that is important and we did that tonight. I thought we played normal defense. We didn’t do anything tricky. It’s towards the end of the season and we’ve got four vets and we’ve got some young guys. We’ve got a good mix and we are trying to build them (the young guys) up.”
on KJ Lewis’ play tonight
“He’s super valuable and a great player. He’s just scratching the surface. He has given us tremendous effort ever since he stepped on campus.”
on Caleb Love
“Caleb showed real patience tonight. This is a team adventure and not an individual thing. It’s a team game and he understands that. He has played in high-level situations, so he understands what we need to do. His experience is invaluable to us.”
on how they build upon this victory
“We just continue to build. We are building. We have to continue to build with execution. We are on a “build mode”. Teams that play better in the latter part of the season get better each week. We want to be one of those teams”