Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times:
Mick Cronin
LOOKED LIKE PLAYED PRETTY WELL IN TOUGH ENVIRONMENT. A SHOT OR TWO FALLS AND YOU WIN THE GAME.
“I mean, you can look at it a lot of ways. I told the guys, you know, if we take care of the ball, keep our turnovers down, we’re going to win. We didn’t do that. We didn’t control the game. We got loose and sloppy with the ball. That cost us the game. The other thing I would tell you is (inaudible), staying on offense, we had some guys — Lazar, in particular — who doesn’t usually ever (inaudible). We had a decided advantage in the paint, but we can’t get the ball in the paint if you’re shooting the first ball, the first three every time. Adem’s six for seven, Berke’s five for seven and Brandon Williams is three for four. So, your quick math is 14 for 18. We had to play most of our mobile guys ‘cause they were playing so small. Frustrating, frustrating shot selection. We gotta get the ball inside.”
THE THREES ON BOTH SIDES, THE PERCENTAGES…
“Well, look, they had great guard play. They’re at home. But a lot of their threes, I’m going to say five of ‘em, we walked away from the guy. Just walked away from him. So we’re good enough to win, Ben, we’re just not smart enough. Not smart enough. We gotta be smarter.”
YOUR ACCURACY FROM THREE, WHAT CAN BE DONE TO IMPROVE?
“Well, I thought we took some bad ones. So when the game plan is let’s shoot wide-open threes or pound it inside. We were hunting. I’ll give you a great summary of the game: Right now, we’re still struggling to play smart. Couisnard got hurt, he was laying on the ground. We were on the break so the refs let us play. It’s a five against four. We shot a three that got blocked, it was an airball. You can’t get an open shot five on four. We threw two passes and shot a ridiculous shot. So we’re really struggling with that, with shot selection, at times. Our passing isn’t great. That makes it hard to get the ball inside, which we really needed to do. That being said, our competitive spirit is not enough. You gotta get some points, get the ball inside more and have better shot selection. You don’t get a great shot if you take an average-to-bad shot. You can’t get it inside and you can’t get a great shot. So that was disappointing. Defensively, we had breakdowns on switches. Sebastian went for a steal that started their run. (Inaudible about something in practice). On a veteran team he’d play about five minutes a game, but I gotta play him.”
STRONG GAME FROM ADEM, 5 BLOCKS…
“Yeah, look, Adem’s a good player but I’m going to tell you, Ben, he’s a sophomore. You know, I don’t care about draft boards and all that type of stuff. Go tell me how good Zach Edey is as a sophomore. Very few elite players are freshmen and sophomores; they might be elite talents. He’s a sophomore, but for us he’s our best guy. He’s our only returning starter. So, you know, I’m asking a lot of him. But his progression, you know, he’s got growing pains. I’m probably more frustrated with — I need him to act like a senior. So I’m probably asking him to do some things that I know he’s not ready to do yet, but I really got no choice. I was disappointed at Lazar today. He’s a wonderful kid. His shot selection was disappointing. I tried to play Ilane and he got in and gave up a layup, so it’s tough.”
MORE GOOD MINUTES FROM BERKE…
“Berke’s just going to keep getting better. Another guy, he’s a freshman, he just needs minutes played. But his defense improved today. So he played 21 minutes and only had one foul. So that keeps him on the floor and his offense will get more comfortable. He hit a three, he can score in the post. You know, the game will slow down for him and continue to improve. But playing smart is a big, big part of it, guys. Big, big part of it, so that was our problem today on both ends of the floor in a game that we could’ve easily won. So it was frustrating.”
Lazar Stefanovic
HOW TOUGH TO COME SO CLOSE AND NOT BE ABLE TO GET THE WIN?
“It’s hard. You fight, you play and you’ve got some lead going in the second half and things start going the other way and you come close again and you don’t win a game, it’s not the first game that we came close and haven’t won it.”
COACH DISAPPOINTED IN SHOT SELECTION, ESPECIALLY FROM LONG RANGE?
“Yeah, we haven’t shot it well and shot selection is a part of it. I took a few shots that I probably should have pump-faked or passed it out. It’s something that we have to get better at. Our shooting percentage has to get better.”
HOW DO YOU DO THAT?
“Um, first you’ve got to get in the gym more and shoot more and then the more you pass the ball, the better passing team you are, the more open looks you’re going to have, so that’s a part too.”
WHAT CAN YOU DO BETTER ON THREE-POINT DEFENSE?
“There was some miscommunication on switches that cost us a few threes. It shouldn’t happen.”
ucla.rivals.com
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