Following Colorado’s 60-59 loss Thursday against Arizona State – a game in which it led by 12 with 5:46 remaining – Buffs head coach Tad Boyle addressed the assembled media to discuss his team’s setback.
Below is a full transcript of his comments.
Opening statement:
“This one stings, obviously. We played well enough to win this game, but we didn't down the stretch, we didn’t in the second half. I felt like it should have been like a 20-point game, minimum, at halftime, but it wasn't. This team, we continually talk about a lot of the same things – not finishing, not turning the ball over, not handling pressure. It's been a common theme with this group, not being able to put two halves together, whether it's offensively or defensively. I thought we lost this game right out of the chute in the second half. Our guys that were starting that second half, they were not ready to play. They were like running in mud. We talked about winning the first four minutes. We talked about winning the second half. Neither one of those were close. A disappointing loss, probably one of the top five disappointing losses in my 13 years at Colorado. I don't have them ranked, but I can't think of four that sting more than this one, I can tell you that.”
On his team’s 20 turnovers:
“I asked our team in the locker room ‘Why did we lose this game?’ Turnovers. What was the reason for our turnovers? Not being able to handle pressure? What was that a result of? Toughness. You have to start with the problem then you got to figure out, OK, how do we fix the problem? How do we correct the problem? And at the root of it all is toughness. The question now becomes can we change that? Can I change it as the coach? Can Steve Englehart, our strength and conditioning coach, change it? Can our players change it? The rest of this season will be determined by that answer.”
On whether a loss like this could provide a lesson:
“Look, we've had four now. We’re 4-4. Win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. So the answer to that right now is absolutely not. Our guys can't learn from it. They cannot. We have to play better. We played well enough to win tonight. We got stops down the stretch when we needed to, but that last play, Horne is driving to the rim and we had four guys – four guys – collapsing on him and we leave a wide-open, good shooter on the scouting report…again, it gets back to the scouting report. Look, we beat Yale the other night because we got a stop when we needed to get a stop and we made free throws when we had to make free throws. Tonight, we didn't make free throws when we had to make free throws and we didn't get that last stop. I’ve been doing this a long time. It should not be so different in terms of the gut feeling that I have or that our players have based on winning and losing. Winning and losing is important. It is. If it wasn't, the difference between the feeling of how I felt after beating Yale – which maybe we deserve it, maybe we didn't, but we dodged a bullet – versus tonight, where we didn't dodge a bullet and Arizona State beat us. It's the same team. It's the same inconsistencies. It's the same problems. You'd like to learn from your wins. Our team can't do that. We've shown we can learn from our losses up to now, but guess what? Washington on Sunday? Whew, they're playing good. Arizona State was out there without their starting point guard tonight and with another guy who's probably the most talented guy in their program who's out with a suspension. So two of their top players are out. They come in this building in this environment and we let them do that, we wilt. We wilted tonight. We wilted to their pressure. As a coach, that's really, really hard to deal with. I’ve got to do a better job. I have to do a better job.”
On offensive struggles late in the game:
“We couldn't handle their pressure. We couldn't make an entry pass. We couldn't make a back-door cut. We couldn't drive the ball and make a play off the bounce. When you can't execute your study and you can't make an entry pass for your sets, it’s hard to run a set. We turned over probably three or four of those tonight alone. If you can't handle a guy up in your grill and get by him and make a play for either yourself or your teammate, it's tough to handle that pressure. You’ve got to be able to handle the pressure and we're not able to handle the pressure. That's the bottom line. Our offensive execution down the stretch, I’ve got coaches saying ‘Run this, run this, run this.’ OK, we’re running it. It doesn't matter what you run if you can't pass and catch the ball and you can't handle pressure. It doesn't matter what you run. You can't set a screen to get a guy open and an entry? It doesn’t matter what you run. The problem is not our X's and O's. It is not. It’s our belief, our toughness of saying, OK, I'm going to make a play. You have to make plays down the stretch. Desmond Cambridge made plays down the stretch. He did. His brother had a big 3 in the corner down the stretch. Sometimes, it comes down to guys that win make plays. Guys that don't win can't make plays. We had our chances. We’re up two, with the ball, they’re pressing, we get the ball in the press and they take our lunch money. We got a stop, but couldn't get a rebound. We can’t make free throws. It's a combination of things and this was a combination of things. It's not just one thing. But if you had to boil it down to one thing, it’s toughness.”
On what he tells his players late in close games:
“We have to be able to rely on our defense to get stops, which we did tonight. You’ve got to be strong with the ball. If the score is tied and they've got the ball, you gotta get a stop and you gotta get a score to win or a stop and get fouled. If you're down two, you’ve gotta get a stop and a score. If you're up two, you’ve gotta get a stop and be strong with the ball because you know they're coming to foul you. Every situation might be different. The Yale situations down the end of the game were different than tonight's situations. Again, it comes down to can you get that stop? Can you execute your offense and be strong with it knowing that they're going to come foul you? Can you step up and make free throws? Can you take care of the ball knowing that they're going to shoot passing lanes? It becomes a possession game. It's not rocket science in terms of what you tell your guys. You have to believe. We had guys tonight, they're rattled. They're shocked. Their confidence is shaken. I have to look at ‘Am I yelling too much at our guys?’ Am I yelling too much at them? Can they not handle a coach that gets in them and challenges them? Because right now, they can't.”
On what he can do to fix toughness and complacency issues:
“You have to have a sense of urgency in every possession. I'll look at the first half. They had 23 points at halftime. We fouled a 3-point shooter. He made three points. We box a guy out and try to go get a one-handed rebound. I don't know who can get one-handed rebounds. Dr. J had really big hands. He couldn’t get one-handed rebounds. It goes off our hand in the basket. That's five points. Transition defense, you know they're throwing it up to the rim for lobs. We stop and just watch it go over our head and don't even make a play at the ball. That’s seven points. That's where the consistency comes. Everybody was saying ‘Oh, you're good enough in the first half.’ Yeah, we were, but we weren't consistently good enough. If you get a team like Arizona State down, you better step on their throats. We talked about it at halftime. We're up 15. We're gonna win the first four minutes. We're gonna win the half. It starts with the first four minutes. Did we win the first four minutes? No. Did we win the second half? No. We got our tails kicked. It's a sense of urgency that every possession matters. That's what we have to do and that's what we don't do. We think ‘Oh, we're up. People are going to fold.’ Guess what? Good teams don’t fold.”
On rebounding disparity in the second half:
“Arizona State, they ramped it up. They were down some guys. They were tired in the first half. We didn't have the pace of the game going in the second half because it’s hard to get the pace going when you're not sprinting the floor and your guys are running in mud. We had a stop early in the second half and KJ is walking the ball up and Lawson, there's no sense of urgency. We want to get the pace going when you're at home at altitude. We did a good job of that in the first half, but not the second. It gets back to the consistency. You’ve got to start somewhere. We got to start with our toughness – mental toughness, physical toughness. It's all one in the same. It's all toughness. But it's as much mental as it is physical.”
On his message to a player like Julian Hammond who struggled in the second half:
“Our guard play tonight was not good enough. When your offense struggles, it starts with your guard play. It doesn't end with your guard play, but it starts with it. The combination of KJ and Julian, we had nine turnovers. That's our point guard position. It's gonna be hard to win when you have nine turnovers from your point guard position and if you're not making shots and if you're not making free throws and you're not tough on offense. It's gonna be tough to win. And with that said, we could have won this game. But we didn't.”
