TicketsUConn at No. 11 Cincinnati
Feb. 22, 2018
BB&T Arena
Postgame Quotes
Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin
Opening statement:
"Well, obviously, UConn was a little short-handed. But it's still five on five. I want to give them credit. I thought their guys played really hard. They missed some open shots when they had a chance to get back in the game early in the second half. They had some good looks on defensive breakdowns that were terrible, that they didn't knock in. We were very fortunate. I thought they boxed out extremely well. We had 11 offensive rebounds and that's off of 34 misses. That's around 29 percent and we average around 40 percent. The film will show it. I thought we tried to rebound but I thought they did a really good job of blocking out, give them credit for that. I thought they competed with a lot of pride, but a young team dealing with a lot of injuries.
"Obviously, we got a lot of production off the bench. Tonight, I thought Tre Scott played the best game of his career. I'm really, really happy for him. We need him. His development is huge. He's such a good person, an unbelievable kid. Just a great, intelligent guy. An unbelievable representative for our university, the type of person that (UC President) Dr. Pinto and our university can be proud of. So, really happy for Tre."
On what he took from the game tonight:
"I thought we improved in it (ball security). We were more responsible with the basketball."
On what he thought of his defense:
"Not happy. We've got to get lot better. We're not consistent. I'm talking about beating the teams we just played (Houston, Wichita State). I think the film will show too many open shots that we got away with (from tonight's game). They just didn't make them. (They're a) young team and a team dealing with injuries."
On how the game changed without UConn's Jalen Adams:
"I mean, it's still five on five. But at the end of the day, they played really hard. They boxed out well. We tried to press them and it didn't really bother them. I thought their guys showed great toughness tonight. Obviously, they struggled to score."
Cincinnati Player Quotes
#11 Gary Clark, F
On the production from UC's reserves tonight:
"I have been saying it all year when people ask us what is going to get us further in March and it is our bench, you know guys coming in , scoring, and getting rebounds. Tre (Scott) had a great night tonight and coach tells him we have got to have that, keep going when certain guys are in foul trouble. We need our guys like Keith and Trevor to come in and step in and just play their roll and keep things going."
On Eliel Nsoseme's defense:
"Since Eliel has come on campus he has been playing hard and rebounding and here (at Cincinnati) if you run hard, block shots, and rebound you're going to play."
#15 Cane Broome, G
On how practices have been since the two losses last week:
"They are just challenging us. Coach has been challenging us as far as a team and individually because, you know, we can get better in certain areas and we need to get better in certain areas to go far in the tournament. It's not about this game, for real, like the rest of the season he wants us to get better by the end of the year because he feels like we are losing sight."
On scoring double figures against UConn twice this season:
"Those were just two games that I felt good in. My shots went in."
On the defense tonight:
"It was okay. We felt like it wasn't that good. We gotta get a little better. Me personally, I gave up some shots that we worked on not giving up, so we just gotta try and get back in and pay more attention to detail and just the little things. Obviously, we can score and can play great defense, but we need to get better at the little things that coach wants us to get better at like paying attention."
UConn Head Coach Kevin Ollie
Opening statement:
"You can't shoot 29 percent. You have to understand the game plan. What we wanted to do in this game was shorten the game down, take good shots and play unselfishly. When you see six assists, it means we weren't sharing the basketball and we weren't making good plays out there. Also, we turned the ball over 13 times but they got almost 23 points off our turnovers so we have to be more tough and more solid with the basketball and not turn it over to allow a good team like that to get run outs. I want our guys to keep getting better. Keep improving on the fundamentals of the game and that's what we are going to do when we get back to practice."
On when he knew Jalen Adams was not playing:
"Gametime decision. He went to shoot around. Looked like he was feeling a little bit better and then after we had dinner back at the hotel, he went back to his room and that's when his body started aching a little bit more."
On it being a more difficult game without UConn's leading scorer:
"The thing I am disappointed in is we have to follow and execute the game plan. The game plan was being unselfish and shortening the game and I thought we took some bad shots that led to run outs for them. We have to do a better job. I don't care if it's anyone playing, if it's the walk-ons playing, you have to follow the game plan. That's what we wanted to do and we didn't accomplish that. So we go back to practice and we keep working on the fundamentals and we try to find five guys who will follow the game plan and get us the good shots. We knew we couldn't play fast or take bad shots because that was going to lead to run outs. I had to play our guys pretty much the whole game."
On the play of Antwoine Anderson:
"He played ok. We have to take better shots and make shots, but he did an admirable job. They turned up their pressure a little bit and that didn't rattle us too much I thought. Taking the ball out of bounds, we went over a couple plays to get it in, but I thought it wasn't tough enough. Other than that, I thought Antwoine did an admirable job coming in, playing his game and settling us down. We just have to do a better job of passing the basketball. We are not talented enough to play individual basketball. We have to play together with a cohesive group. That's what I am going to stress and I am going to be relentless with my message."
"They shot 45 percent. I imagine if we cut down those turnovers and didn't have any live turnovers, our defense would have been better. It's hard for me to say after a game when I haven't watched the tape, but all in all I thought we played a pretty solid defensive game but when you make live turnovers, there's no defensive schemes for that. We've got to eliminate that. I thought we kept them off the boards. They got on the offensive boards in the second half by we did a pretty decent job. I think they got us by four on the boards, but at the end of the day we want to keep working on fundamentals and just getting better."
Feb. 22, 2018
BB&T Arena
Postgame Quotes
Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin
Opening statement:
"Well, obviously, UConn was a little short-handed. But it's still five on five. I want to give them credit. I thought their guys played really hard. They missed some open shots when they had a chance to get back in the game early in the second half. They had some good looks on defensive breakdowns that were terrible, that they didn't knock in. We were very fortunate. I thought they boxed out extremely well. We had 11 offensive rebounds and that's off of 34 misses. That's around 29 percent and we average around 40 percent. The film will show it. I thought we tried to rebound but I thought they did a really good job of blocking out, give them credit for that. I thought they competed with a lot of pride, but a young team dealing with a lot of injuries.
"Obviously, we got a lot of production off the bench. Tonight, I thought Tre Scott played the best game of his career. I'm really, really happy for him. We need him. His development is huge. He's such a good person, an unbelievable kid. Just a great, intelligent guy. An unbelievable representative for our university, the type of person that (UC President) Dr. Pinto and our university can be proud of. So, really happy for Tre."
On what he took from the game tonight:
"I thought we improved in it (ball security). We were more responsible with the basketball."
On what he thought of his defense:
"Not happy. We've got to get lot better. We're not consistent. I'm talking about beating the teams we just played (Houston, Wichita State). I think the film will show too many open shots that we got away with (from tonight's game). They just didn't make them. (They're a) young team and a team dealing with injuries."
On how the game changed without UConn's Jalen Adams:
"I mean, it's still five on five. But at the end of the day, they played really hard. They boxed out well. We tried to press them and it didn't really bother them. I thought their guys showed great toughness tonight. Obviously, they struggled to score."
Cincinnati Player Quotes
#11 Gary Clark, F
On the production from UC's reserves tonight:
"I have been saying it all year when people ask us what is going to get us further in March and it is our bench, you know guys coming in , scoring, and getting rebounds. Tre (Scott) had a great night tonight and coach tells him we have got to have that, keep going when certain guys are in foul trouble. We need our guys like Keith and Trevor to come in and step in and just play their roll and keep things going."
On Eliel Nsoseme's defense:
"Since Eliel has come on campus he has been playing hard and rebounding and here (at Cincinnati) if you run hard, block shots, and rebound you're going to play."
#15 Cane Broome, G
On how practices have been since the two losses last week:
"They are just challenging us. Coach has been challenging us as far as a team and individually because, you know, we can get better in certain areas and we need to get better in certain areas to go far in the tournament. It's not about this game, for real, like the rest of the season he wants us to get better by the end of the year because he feels like we are losing sight."
On scoring double figures against UConn twice this season:
"Those were just two games that I felt good in. My shots went in."
On the defense tonight:
"It was okay. We felt like it wasn't that good. We gotta get a little better. Me personally, I gave up some shots that we worked on not giving up, so we just gotta try and get back in and pay more attention to detail and just the little things. Obviously, we can score and can play great defense, but we need to get better at the little things that coach wants us to get better at like paying attention."
UConn Head Coach Kevin Ollie
Opening statement:
"You can't shoot 29 percent. You have to understand the game plan. What we wanted to do in this game was shorten the game down, take good shots and play unselfishly. When you see six assists, it means we weren't sharing the basketball and we weren't making good plays out there. Also, we turned the ball over 13 times but they got almost 23 points off our turnovers so we have to be more tough and more solid with the basketball and not turn it over to allow a good team like that to get run outs. I want our guys to keep getting better. Keep improving on the fundamentals of the game and that's what we are going to do when we get back to practice."
On when he knew Jalen Adams was not playing:
"Gametime decision. He went to shoot around. Looked like he was feeling a little bit better and then after we had dinner back at the hotel, he went back to his room and that's when his body started aching a little bit more."
On it being a more difficult game without UConn's leading scorer:
"The thing I am disappointed in is we have to follow and execute the game plan. The game plan was being unselfish and shortening the game and I thought we took some bad shots that led to run outs for them. We have to do a better job. I don't care if it's anyone playing, if it's the walk-ons playing, you have to follow the game plan. That's what we wanted to do and we didn't accomplish that. So we go back to practice and we keep working on the fundamentals and we try to find five guys who will follow the game plan and get us the good shots. We knew we couldn't play fast or take bad shots because that was going to lead to run outs. I had to play our guys pretty much the whole game."
On the play of Antwoine Anderson:
"He played ok. We have to take better shots and make shots, but he did an admirable job. They turned up their pressure a little bit and that didn't rattle us too much I thought. Taking the ball out of bounds, we went over a couple plays to get it in, but I thought it wasn't tough enough. Other than that, I thought Antwoine did an admirable job coming in, playing his game and settling us down. We just have to do a better job of passing the basketball. We are not talented enough to play individual basketball. We have to play together with a cohesive group. That's what I am going to stress and I am going to be relentless with my message."
"They shot 45 percent. I imagine if we cut down those turnovers and didn't have any live turnovers, our defense would have been better. It's hard for me to say after a game when I haven't watched the tape, but all in all I thought we played a pretty solid defensive game but when you make live turnovers, there's no defensive schemes for that. We've got to eliminate that. I thought we kept them off the boards. They got on the offensive boards in the second half by we did a pretty decent job. I think they got us by four on the boards, but at the end of the day we want to keep working on fundamentals and just getting better."