Jan. 26, 2013
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | AP Photo Gallery
QUOTING COACH SENDEK
"Just listening in on Jordan's comments that I heard as I came in, I really do think it was a day where everybody did his best, everybody performed his role well, starting with Coach Muscleman who had the scout and the assistants' coaches, who I thought did a great job putting together a really good game plan. I thought our guys defensively were really locked in mentally, good attention to detail, and played with a lot of effort, energy, and tremendous heart. Especially considering a late night overtime game on Thursday, followed up by an afternoon game today with a team that, you all know, doesn't have a lot of subs. But we can go down the list of guys, but in the most general sense, it was just one of those days that I thought everybody did his job, and everybody contributed in a really positive way. The defensive end of the floor more than anything was the difference for us."
WAS THAT THE BEST GAME BY A CENTER SINCE YOU'VE BEEN HERE?
"Well, Jeff and Eric have had tremendous games, but I thought the key for Jordan was that he was really aggressive. He played with a level of aggressiveness, not just in terms of his rebounding and shot blocks, but even if you think back to the first half, the one move where he started on the left block and came middle, he just went with authority. Then when we had a chance to finish around the basket, he went strong and he went to dunk the ball. He just had a good aggressive coat of armor on all day. I think that allowed him to play at a particularly good level for us."
YOUR FRONTLINE OUTREBOUNDED UCLA, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT EFFORT
"Obviously this is an outlier, but it does speak to the fact that our guys came and were very determined and rebounded the ball. You'd have to compute the percentage of rebounds, because we held them to a low field goal percentage, so we had more defensive rebounds to get, and that's reflected in the fact that we had 40 defensive rebounds. Also, they didn't turn the ball over very much, so there were plenty of opportunities for us, but not taking anything away from our guys; they did a great job rebounding the basketball."
TALK ABOUT CARRICK'S PERFORMANCE AND DEFENSIVELY ESPECIALLY
"It's another chapter, Chris, in what has to be, to me, one of the all-time great senior years. He's doing it night in night out, consistently, both ends of the floor; you see he was 8 for 12 from the field, and he's everywhere on defense. The heart that he's playing with is fun to watch. You can't help but feel good for him, because none of this has come easy; none of this has come instantaneous. I think that's the kind of story we all love; it's the best of the best."
EVERY STARTER BUT JORDAN PLAYED AT LEAST 38 MINUTES TODAY, TALK ABOUT THE ROLE, THE ENREGY, AND CONDITIONING THE CROWD PLAYED TODAY
"I thought our crowd was tremendous, a lot of energy in the building; I think our students continue to do a great job for us. I think our student attendance has to be among the all-time highs, I don't know what the stats are, but you can feel their energy along with the crowd. Obviously that's an advantage in playing at home, especially when you do have such a short turnaround to your point and such few numbers to your point."
TALK ABOUT HOW THIS TEAM BOUNCED BACK FROM THAT LOSS TO UA, MAYBE TAKING IT PERSONALLY AND COMING BACK AND DEFENDING THE HOME COURT
"It was an important week for us. We took it on the chin last weekend against UA, I thought our guys did a really good job zeroing in on Monday of last week, as we presented some good feedback for things to learn from and then we set about our preparation. I thought our guys, they knew they had to be really good this weekend because of our competition. If you look at our league right now, there are no easy games. I don't plug in all the numbers and pundits, but I'm here to say, the Pac-12 is really, really good. It's a balanced, competitive, tough league, and when you go down the schedule, there are no games unless you play your best you win; for us, I'll speak for us."
YOU HAD A VERY QUICK TURNAROUND FROM THURSDAY AND YOUR OFFENSE LOOKED VERY COMFORTABLE AND HAD A LOT OF HIGH PERCENTAGE SHOTS AROUND THE GOAL. WHAT ALLOWED THAT?
"I think our guys more than anything played together. I think they are getting a better understanding of what we're trying to accomplish, and I think we owe a lot to Jahii. Even though he didn't shoot the ball particularly well today, the ball is in his hands so much, he has a great ability of making his teammates better. He just controls things for us, so I think we're playing together and Jahii is giving us a level of steadiness at point guard."
TALK ABOUT JON GILLING HAD DOUBLE DIGITS IN BOTH GAMES IN REBOUNDING AND 14 ASSISTS TOTAL
"The thing about Jon is that the way his game is progressing, he doesn't have to make shots to have a really positive impact on winning. A year ago, his game probably said `if I make shots, I'll impact winning', but now, like today, he didn't make a lot of shots, but he clearly impacted winning. He's growing as a player."
TALK ABOUT YOUR TRANSITION DEFENSE
"Obviously that's a key when you're playing UCLA, they're a juggernaut. They are one of those teams where they are so talented, if you have a bad shot, long miss, or turnover, they are one of those teams that can lay it in off the glass on the other end before you can blink. So I think that was a big key going into the game. I was hopeful that we would keep our turnovers below the 14 that we had, but all in all I think we did a pretty good job with that. I think there was one possession where I turned around and Adams hit the 3 right in front of our bench, I don't know if he realized the ball was in play."
WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST REASON WHY YOU WERE +20 IN THE PAINT
"I think our coaching staff and Coach Muss, who engineered the scout, and our players, were just focused. They were engaged in what we had to do. I give those guys a lot of credit; I thought our players were plugged in, and Coach Muss and our entire coaching staff did a great job with a very tight window to prepare."
QUOTING CARRICK
"We played with energy and effort. I thought Jordan Bachynski on the offensive rebounding took charge with his size and was able to get the ball and go back up. It was big for us on the rebounding and assist rates. We played strong the whole game. But we still have some stuff we need to clean up. We just have to continue to get better each and every day. But staying constantly is the key for us."
ON PLAYING GOOD DEFENSE
"I was trying to play straight up. Just contain them, because Shabazz is a great player and scorer. I wanted to go out there, play some hard defense for my team. We all play team defense. Jahii Carson was helping me out a lot. For instance when Shabazz Muhammad went to the basket and curled. Just having Jahii Carson there helping was good for us. We definitely won this game by defense."
QUOTING JAHII
"Those guys were looking for opportunities to come off the screen, curls and open three pointers, but we had a strategy. I was helping out Carrick Felix and Evan Gordon on the run with curls. We did a good job on the defensive end for stopping them from coming back."
ON COMING BACK AFTER LOSING TO UA
"We never gave up, our heads never dropped. We knew when we lost to Arizona we had to come out here and get a must win sweep against the LA teams. We also knew that we have a road trip coming up next week, and a sweep would give the teams in our conference an alert that we are not going away so fast. We are going to Washington with high confidence. We are ready to go out and win some more games."
QUOTING JORDAN
"At the beginning of the game coach told us that we had two keys in order to win the game. One of those were rebounding, and the other was to win 50/50 balls. So I took that to heart. I kind of struggled on the boards this year, and I know that's where I need to step up. I took it personally, so I went after every board i could."
ON BECOMING COMFORTABLE ON THE OFFENSIVE END
"Everyone knows I had a slump the past couple of games. I know I can make those baskets and it's just applying that to this game. In practice I never miss, and we are always shooting jump hooks. It just took time I guess, had to get my confidence back.
ON WANTING THE BALL MORE TODAY
"Well I knew that I had an advantage in the post against them because I'm taller and bigger than them. If I got the ball I knew they were going to come and double team me. So if I wanted to score i had to do a quick move, which I did the first half. The second half, they were coming even faster so I had to seal them higher. I knew what I had to do, which makes a big difference. It comes down to me understanding, and building the patience I need in order to develop my basketball game.
ON WHAT THIS TEAM IS CAPABLE OF IS HE PLAYS LIKE THIS
"The sky is the limit for us. We have great athletes, and hard working guys. Carrick Felix, Jahii Carson, Evan Gordan, Jonathan Gilling, Bo Barnes, myself, and Ruslan Pateev, everybody stepped up. Ruslan Pateev last game, played a lot of minutes and he hasn't played in awhile. I'm really proud of him because he has such mental fortitude to be able to go a lot of the season were he doesn't play a lot, but when we need him he steps up. It's great that I can rely on my teammates, and have support from them. It's tough when you only have one or two guy showing up. There have been games where I didn't show up, but if everybody shows up, plays hard, the sky is the limit for us."
QUOTING UCLA HEAD COACH BEN HOWLAND
OPENING STATEMENT
"We were really outplayed today. Give Arizona State all the credit, I thought they did all the tough things. They were very good at both ends of the floor. The second half got away from us in terms of our offense. We were trying to go one-on-one too much and we ended up shooting 28 percent. Bachynski was so tough today. He blocked six shots, 15 rebounds, 22 points--he really was super effective in the paint today against us. Obviously Felix is a very good player and we talked about him coming in. Those two guys were 18-24 from the field, so give them credit. They did a great job, and they only played six guys. You can say "Yeah, you're short a guy," and Travis (Wear) is obviously one of our best players, but give them credit. They did everything they had to do, and that includes beating us on the boards by 20. A lot of that was we took a number of bad shots that led to blocked shots, or easy rebounds for them. We have to be better offensively on the road in a tough environment. As good as we were Thursday, we weren't that good today."
ON THE IMPACT OF JORDAN
"We just didn't execute. I didn't think it was as much him. You have to learn, okay, he blocked two or three shots, and we kept trying to test him, and he kept blocking them. He's second in the country in blocked shots. He's a really good player. I told our guys last night and in our scouting report, he's going to make a lot of money playing basketball."
ON THE IMPACT TRAVIS WEAR COULD HAVE HAD IF HE HAD PLAYED
"Yeah, he would have just made open jump shots."
ON GOING FROM SUCH A HIGH FEELING BACK TO SUCH A LOW
"It's a learning experience. We're very young. The first thing you worry about after a big win against Arizona is a letdown. You need they'd be ready to play today; I knew they'd be ready. I think Herb (Sendek) has done a terrific job this season with his team. Their defense is very, very good. They're a team to be reckoned with the rest of the way. They're very good, and they played Oregon really tough on the road and lost by three. This is a good basketball team we lost to today, and we have to give them a lot of credit too."
ON HIS TEAM BEING FATIGUED TODAY
"Yeah, it's a quick turnaround. We were playing our second game on the road. This is the fourth weekend in a row now that we're playing a night game then an early game in the afternoon. I just thought that we didn't have the same fire that we needed and like we had Thursday night, to fight through. We gave up some transitions baskets. One time (Carrick) Felix in the first half got a dunk, and it's like we're not sprinting back as hard as we need to. Maybe some of that comes from fatigue, because we had guys playing a few more minutes than they normally play."