COLORADO basketball Postgame Quotes Colorado Buffaloes vs. Oregon State Beavers, Coors Events Center, Boulder, Colo. (January 2, 2014) Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle General “Good win. Welcome to Pac‐12 conference play. Nothing is going to be easy, and I think anyone that saw the game tonight – certainly in person – knows the talent and skill that Oregon State has. We beat a good team tonight. They are much better than their record, and with [Eric] Moreland back, they’re a different animal. They’re going to be good once he [Moreland] gets in the fold. This was his first game back. [Devon] Collier is a beast down low, Roberto Nelson is one heck of a player and Moreland is good. They just keep coming at you with athletes off the bench. It’s a good win against a quality opponent, and we did what we had to do. The best thing is we won when we didn’t shoot the ball well. We talk about defense and rebounding being the cornerstones of our program. Tonight’s a good example of why that is and our guys did what they had to do.” On Offensive Execution “It was okay. We just didn’t make a lot of shots, and they’re long and they’re athletic. It’s kind of like playing against Syracuse’s zone, not that I’ve played against that. It’s been a few years as a coach, but they’re so long and they’re so athletic, they cover the ground quickly. We didn’t shoot the ball well from three, but I thought in the first part of the second half, we got the ball inside at the end of the shot clock. Wesley Gordon had only two baskets, but they were big baskets at the end of the shot clocks, and we got the ball down to him and Josh [Scott] early. We just didn’t do it often enough in the first half. I’d give it a ‘C’ if I was grading it. I thought our zone offense was okay, but we only turned the ball over seven times and that was something we talked about. We had five at half time and we shouldn’t turn it over against a zone. Our execution offensively was just average.” On Defensive Improvement “We talked before this game about deflections, and we wanted to get a lot of deflections. We had 20 in the first half. I don’t know what we ended up with, but we did a great job at deflections coming off ball screens and getting our hands on balls. ‘Ski [Askia Booker] made a great steal early in the second half when they were trying to post up [Devon] Collier on Xavier Johnson. Just plays like that. I thought the two plays of the game were [when Xavier Johnson] and Collier got tied up and we came away with the ball. It was a 50‐50 ball and he got it. Xavier Talton’s offensive rebound there at the end, it kind of broke their back. Those were the hustle plays, the 50‐50 balls, the long rebounds, the loose balls that we had to come up with and we did tonight.” On Having a Short Bench “I just felt like, ‘here we are in league play,’ and I thought our bench gave us good minutes. Jaron [Hopkins] was great. I thought Dustin [Thomas] really battles when he comes in. Xavier Talton, he does his thing. [Tre’Shaun] Fletcher is hurt a little bit, and I hadn’t been playing George [King] or Eli [Stalzer] a lot, so it’s just the way it worked out.” On Being Outrebounded in the First Half “Seven offensive rebounds, and we were down eight. Our rebounding margin was minus‐eight at halftime, so we talked about that. We were plus‐five in the second half, so we did a better job there, but we’ve been plus‐10. We got outrebounded. We’re not happy about that, but we defended well enough and we forced them into seventeen turnovers, so we did some good things, we just didn’t rebound enough. But again, they’re long and they’re athletic. We talked about it before the game that we’re not going to win a jumping contest with Oregon State, so you better get a body on somebody and we didn’t do that enough.” ‐more‐ On Eric Moreland Playing and the Effect of the Game “We were thinking about zone. We talked about it in the second half, maybe going to zone because with him in the lineup, he’s not a three‐point threat. [Langs Morris‐Walker] made two big threes tonight and we weren’t playing him as a shooter. Moreland brings the defense, the shot blocking and the rebounding to their team that nobody else does. That’s what we were concerned with, not so much how we matched up with them defensively, but I thought they’d play more 1‐3‐1 than they did. They went to the 1‐3‐1 one time in the second half, and we had a great possession. Ski [Askia Booker] penetrated in the lane, got a good shot and got out of it, but I thought with him back, we would see more of the 1‐3‐1. They had success with that 2‐3, and they’ve had success this year with it. They held us to 38 percent, so it was kind of a defensive, a pitcher’s duel tonight. Two teams that weren’t very good offensively.” On “Something About this Team” “I think Ski [Askia Booker] showed it, I think Spencer [Dinwiddie] showed it, Josh [Scott] showed it, Xavier Johnson showed it. I thought they all did. I told you what I think the two plays of the game were and those were good examples of ‘something about this team.’ We do what we have to do to win. We don’t always do it, and I want to talk about this game, but holy cow, on Sunday, it’s going to be. We challenged our team defensively tonight because Oregon State came in here shooting over 50 percent as a team. So we said, ‘okay guys,’ and we held them to 37.5 percent. Now Oregon comes here on Sunday leading the country in scoring, so it’s going to be a different animal, and our defense is going to be tested as well.” On Ranking Going Into Pac‐12 Play “I think our veterans know, the guys who have been through the league know because we talked about Oregon State and how talented they are. They came in here last year on senior night and beat us. We talked about that. Our freshmen don’t know that yet. Hopefully, after tonight they understand that Oregon State is 8‐4, they are a quality basketball team. Now they’re 8‐5, but they’re going to win some games in this league now. We only have them once, this was our only time. We didn’t talk about that, but we’ll probably talk about that before we play Oregon. We’ll only get a shot at these guys once, but that’s how the schedule goes.” On Defensive Stepping Up “Tonight it was [good]. I’ve known that we’re capable of it. We just haven’t completely bought in, but tonight, we did and we’re going to need that kind of effort on Sunday again because Oregon is very explosive from a lot of different positions. I think they’re the deepest team in our league in terms of talent, productive talent. It’s going to be one hell of an atmosphere, I hope. We need our fans Sunday. We need to sell out, we need this place rocking and we need our fans to understand they can have an effect on this game. I thought that they were good tonight, at times. We need it from start to finish. We need a Kansas type crowd effort on Sunday to get this team over the hump.” ‐more‐ University of Colorado Student-Athletes Josh Scott So., F On Offensive Performance “If you look at our past games against them, and I can only speak from experience, last year we didn’t shoot the ball (well). We weren’t very efficient against their defense. But I think it speaks a lot about our team and our guys that we were able to win. We weren’t shooting the ball well. We rebounded and we got stops when we needed to. We held them to 37 percent (from the field) which I think our coach [Tad Boyle] was pretty pleased with. So, it was good for us.” On Eric Moreland Playing “I knew last night. I knew because of Twitter and social media. To be honest, I was kind of expecting him to play. I just kind of figured. I don’t know why I figured that, but it kind of seemed like if there were a game he was going to come back it’d be this game. So, I mean I wasn’t surprised. I’m sure none of us for the most part were that surprised that he was coming back. Defensively he’s long, athletic, shot‐blocks. One of the games last year he gave us problems. So, offensively there were some adjustments especially when they play 1‐3‐1 because you can’t really simulate how long and athletic he is.