California Head Coach Cuonzo Martin
On the game
“It was a big win. It was a good night. I thought our fans gave us a tremendous amount of energy. I thought the passion was in the building and the guys fed off of that. They played well. They played as a team. My biggest concern going into a game like this was how we could score the ball. The thing about not having Jabari [Bird] in a game like this with that level of talent and athleticism and length, it can be tough to score the ball. I thought we stayed aggressive. I thought Tyrone [Wallace], who was 2-13 in the first half, was aggressive and stayed in attack mode. I thought David [Kravish] was engaged offensively from start to finish. He posted up, played on the perimeter, made plays off the bounce and got to the free throw line. Those were all the things we worked on with him in practice. I think Jordan [Mathews] shot the ball and shot it with confidence. His energy was good in practice the last two or three days. It carried over well for him into the game. I though the two biggest keys for us tonight were Kingsley [Okorah] and Roger [Moute a Bidias]. I thought those guys gave us big minutes off the bench. They had great energy defensively. Roger passed up a three and drove it to the basket and made a great play. Kingsley made some timely plays around the rim and accepted the challenge. Upshaw is one of the best in the game at blocking shots and being physical. Kingsley did a great job battling him.”
On Roger Moute a Bidias’ defense
“He’s the one that guards Tyrone [in practice] quite a bit to be physical with Tyrone and make him work. I just talked to him about a week ago. He needs to be a defensive stopper. As his offense continues to grow and mature, he needs to be a guy we can count on to guard another guy’s best perimeter guys and take pride in doing it. I thought he did a great job. We had some breakdowns late in the game with 1:30 left, but for the most part he did a really good job using his length.”
On Jordan Mathews
“Jordan [Mathews] is one of those guys who is concerned with his shot. Meaning, he’s not a selfish player but his game is gauged on whether or not his shot is falling. The thing that I always talk to the guys about every day is defend, rebound and play hard. Offense comes and goes. One of the best guys to ever play in the game, Michael Jordan, missed a lot of shots. Kobe Bryant has missed a lot of shots. But they played the game. You can’t consume yourself with how many shots are falling and not falling. You can see Jordan’s body language when his shot isn’t falling. We just really work with him in practice to focus on the defense and playing hard and doing the little things. It carried over tonight so we have to be consistent with that. He’s going to get the shots. We’re looking for him. He’s one of the few guys that most of our plays are designed for him to get shots.”
On the difference between last game and tonight
“One of the differences was that shots were falling. I think we’ve been good defensively. We have multiple guys that base their defense on whether their offense is flowing. That’s the difference. A telltale is if you have four turnovers in a game, it means that the ball is moving. You had 18 turnovers against Bakersfield, the ball stayed still. I’m just as mad about losing to Texas and Wisconsin, but things came to a head against Bakersfield. It’s hard to get guys understanding the attention to detail when you’re winning.”
“When I talk to the players, I always say, ‘They came to see California play, not an individual. It’s a team game.’”
California Players
Senior Forward David Kravish
On the difference in the second half
“I think we’re still working through coming out slower in the first half. I think we did a way better job today than we have in the past few games of coming out fast. We came out harder. Shots weren’t falling that we would normally make but we were working through that. I think they started falling in the second half, so that got the crowd into it and the energy up.”
On change of intensity level in play
“I try to attack every game. It’s the beginning of conference play, so everyone is hyped up – it’slike a fresh start to the season almost. We ended the non-conference part of the season kind of slow and kind of beat down, so the way we looked at it was we got to start 0-0 again. We came out and fought really hard and I think that was good for us.”
On how Cal attacked Washington’s zone
“We just had to have ball movement. I think sometimes we tend to be stagnant, especially in this game when they brought out the zone on offense. They made a pretty significant push on us, and it took us awhile to start moving the ball and attacking the zone. It was really focusing on breaking it down, getting in the lane and making opportunities for our teammates.”
Junior Guard Jordan Mathews
On how performance in this game compared to early preseason performance
“We went back to our sideline series. That is one of our staples of our offense. Sideline is good for us because it gets people to move, gets guys in the flow. It’s not that the other stuff wasn’t working, but I think this stuff works better for the personnel we have. It paid off tonight. It’s the come-down, the pitch-ahead, the big swing-it ball screen.”
On Roger Moute a Bidias’ game
“Roger is a big time defender, and Coach [Martin] is trying to get him a killer instinct on defense. He’s a really good defender in practice, and today he got to showcase his length and his athleticism, and his ability to contest shots at the top of the release. That was just a glimpse of what Roger can do on the defensive end.”
On the flow of the game
“We got into a good rhythm early. I missed the first [shot], but then came back with a couple [shots]. I sat down with Coach [Martin] this week and he said you just have to stay with it the whole game. I think I was getting away from that, getting down on myself and letting things outside the game affect me. But inside those lines, those 40 minutes are what really matter. I think I did a good job of concentrating on the game plan and helping our team win tonight.”
On game plan vs. Washington
“We didn’t really think that much about them. We had to focus on ourselves. We didn’t focus too much on what they do. We knew they were going to run in transition, but that’s what we like to do too. We focused on ourselves, knowing that we had to get out and run and needed to put pressure on defense. In the past few games, defense wasn’t getting back and setting up. When we run, there aren’t a lot of teams that can put pressure on us.”
Washington Head Coach Lorenzo Romar
On the game
“Cal was persistent tonight in what they wanted to do. They hit the boards in the first half hard. They stayed with what they wanted to do. I thought we did a good job in the first half but in the second half we broke down quite a bit. Mathews got going. He had an outstanding game and that really helped them shoot 60 percent in the half. If you allow a team to shoot 60 percent in a half on the road, it’s going to be tough to get back from that. Tonight we didn’t do a very good job at that and they took advantage.”
On the differences between the two halves
“We didn’t get around some screens and we allowed them to turn the corner in some of their sets. They practice that every day and were able to be effective on more of those. Mathews hit some tough shots and they scored a third of their points off of offensive putbacks off of our turnovers. They had eight offensive boards for the game so that is good for us.”
