Colorado-Stanford quotes
Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle
Opening Statement“(Tonight was) another hard fought win that went down the wire. It was closer than it probably needed to be. Stanford's a good team. They've got good players. Everybody saw how good Harrison Ingram is tonight. I thought Tristan da Silva’s defensive effort against him -- he's a tough matchup -- but it's nice when you’ve got a 6’10” player who can guard him. Jabari (Walker) did a good job on him when he was on him when he was on him. Jabari had 13 rebounds, which was fantastic. But as you guys know, you get tired of me talking about defense and rebounding, our defense and rebounding was not good enough to win tonight. But our offense was a game. We shared the ball, and we moved the ball. I was really pleased with our offensive effort tonight. We needed every three (pointer), we needed every free throw down the stretch because our defense was not very good and (Stanford’s) a good rebounding team.”
On What Was Lacking on the Defensive End
“In the first half, (Stanford G Noah) Taitz comes into the game. He's a shooter. They run an out-of-bounds play. They ran a little flare screen for him that we went over in shootaround. We’re supposed to switch it. He makes the three. (On the) last play of the half, they call a play. We've got the play call. We tell our players what play is coming. They run a three-point play for Taitz (where) we're supposed to switch out. He makes a three. There’s six points. Spencer Jones, in the second half, comes off a staggered double. He's a shooter. We don't shadow it. He hits a three. There's nine points right there without even watching the film that I know we gave up because we're not dialed in to what we're supposed to be doing with our defensive habits and (with) the scouting reports. We got back-cut for a layup the first or second bucket of the game because we're not seeing man-in-ball when they're playing bully ball with Ingram, because (they) play through him in the post. He bounces down and he's a good passer (and) good finisher. But, he was 3-for-13 from the field tonight. We'll take that against a good shooter all the time. We held him to eight points and 13 shots. That's pretty good. Tristan deserves a lot of credit for that. Our team does too. We did a good job on him.”
On Having Close Contests Early in the Season
“It gives us confidence. We talked about it at the four-minute media timeout. The score was tied. It's like ‘guys, we've been here before in five or six games, we've been in this situation.’ (Stanford) hasn't been in a lot of close games. With each close game you win, you become a little bit more confident down the stretch. We've got to learn how to extend leads when we have them or not fall down 21-10 like we did. We're up five at half, and they come out and score the first seven points of the second half. We have to call a timeout. We just have to become more consistent, and we're just not there yet. At some point, it's going to cost us a game so we better figure that out.”
On Evan Battey Reaching 1,000 Career Points
“Anybody that knows Evan Battey or follows this team and has followed us knows how special of a young man he is. The thing I love about Evan, being a senior, is that he's in a different role this year. He's been a starter and been a big part of what we do, but he's not been our leading scorer. This year, we need him to score. He knows that. He's put work in on his game. Before practice and after practice, you see him (putting extra work in). When you see a kid put work in on his game, and you see that pay off in games like this, it's heartwarming as a coach because hard work pays off. That's a great life lesson. He's learned from previous players in this program. Our young guys have got to learn from Evan. You don't get better by talking about it or tweeting about it or hoping and praying about it. You do (get better) by getting in the gym. Evan’s got in the gym and spent a lot of time, and it pays off.”
On K.J. Simpson’s Maturity
I'm really pleased with his progress. I think he's coming along. Defensively, it's going to be a challenge for him to really lock down. Offensively, he played with better pace tonight (and) made a really nice move in the first half. (He) drove the lane, played off two feet, jump stop, turn around jump shot. He can score the ball when he gets it to the rim. He’s a good finisher. He has grown up before our eyes.”
On if He Likes Early-Season Pac-12 Games
“Not on November the 29th. That's a little early for us with a team that’s got a bunch of young guys on it. It's just part of it. The schedule’s the schedule, you control what you can control. But I think the 20-game league schedule is good if everybody in the league is doing what they're supposed to do in nonconference. Unfortunately, our league is not doing that this year. The 20-game league schedule may or may not end up helping us. But the idea behind it, I get it. I'm not going to change it. We're going to live with it. Now we get a chance to go to UCLA. All you can ask for life is an opportunity. We’ve got a great opportunity ahead of us and we'll go let it all hang out.”
Colorado Players
Tristan Da Silva, So., F
On guarding Harrison Ingram“Coaches told us he's a great player and you can see it out there. He's one of the scores, rebounders, and assist guys. I think he's a big key to their success and it's even more important that we lock in on defense and try to make it as tough for him as possible and I've tried to do that.”
On limiting turnovers
“That was big for us taking teams out of transition and not giving them easy buckets is really important for us. Executing on offense if we turn the ball over there's no chance, we can get a shot up. If we take care of the ball and execute ourselves, we have more chances to score and more chances to succeed.”
On becoming starter this year
“As Jabari said earlier, just trying to impact the game. Trying to do things whether it's scoring, whether it's rebounding, whether it's looking for my teammates, or playing defense tonight. We're drawing up plays for each other and we're looking out for each other and I'm just trying to find the open man to make it easy for my teammates to take shots.
Jabari Walker, So., F
On team’s defensive performance“We had to box out and rebound. That was the number one key that we had out there today. They got a lot of second-chance points, even when we did contest the shots high. I think just playing solid defense and finishing possession was key at the end”
On helping the team in multiple ways
“It'll come eventually. I'm not worried about it right now but I’m just trying to do other things and I've been doing that in the mid-range pull-up because they're going to take away three in addition to when they overplay me. The game is still slowing down for me so I'm just trying to pick up new things and learn on the fly.”
Evan Battey, Sr., F
On reaching 1000 points
“It was special. It's better to do it at home rather than on the road, but I can't really find the words and I'm just wanting to get wins. I'm not worried about the individual steps; I just want to win games. It's good and all and I'm very happy with it but I’m focused on the next game.”
On being the fourth from the class of 2017 to reach 1000 point milestone
“I'm still in touch with those guys so I'll probably hear from them. It means the world. It’s gratifying to really show that we came in here and accomplished our mission, which is to improve Colorado basketball to the next level and just have an abundance of school pride. As I mentioned coming in, just put Colorado basketball on the next step.”
On difficult stretch of games
“I said when we came back from the Virgin Island we've learned some good things, winning a lot of close games gives you some good experience. We know how to win close games, we're 6-1 and it shows for itself. Of course, I'd like to win every game by 20 or 30 but that's not reality and that's not the truth so it's going to be a dogfight this whole year. We’re just going to have to prepare. Positivity and the next play are going to be the mantra all year.”
On significance of the game - “I've had so many memorable games here and I look back over all the years and I'm very blessed to have teammates who pass me the ball and teammates who were willing to throw it to me in the post, kick it out to me. It’s all because of my teammates. I score because of my teammates and I'm grateful.”
Stanford Head Coach Jerod Haase
On Overall Team Performance
“At the end of the day, I’m proud of our guys' effort. We had a stretch in the first half. We had a lot of turnovers. I thought our guys took the message at halftime. Most importantly, we had a chance at the end and we did not do that. We’re going to take away some things from this, some positives.”
On Spencer Jones Performance
“Yeah, you know Spencer’s (Jones) foul trouble was a challenge throughout the game. His leadership and shooting and obviously points are valuable and we need to continue to get him going and I think this will be a nice first step to get him on track on the offensive end.”