California Head Coach Wyking Jones

 
Opening Statement:
 "That was a tough one. A really tough one, because I felt like we had a really good week of practice. I felt like our guys gave us everything all week long and we had some momentum going winning the last four out of five games. Once again dug ourselves in a hole and that was a veteran team who wasn't going to give it up. They weren't going to let us make a run and we were just kind of out of sync. Their press -- although it wasn't an aggressive press -- gave us problems, and kind of kept us on our heels. When you turn the ball over 15 times in the first half, that's tough. That's hard to bounce back from. Even though the press wasn't aggressive, once we got into the half court setting, in the 2-3 we were still on our heels running our offense way outside the three-point line. I give USC a lot of credit. They are a talented basketball team."
 
On USC's half-court zone:
"I felt like the press had our guys on their heels, and then it carried over in our sets. We practiced all week attacking gaps and lanes and Marcus and Kingsley flashing and really wanting the ball. I went with the big lineup because I felt like we could capitalize with two big guys in the paint with Metu out for the first half. Having two bigs in the paint to finish, we had really good looks at the rim but just weren't able to capitalize."
 
On consistent first half scoring holes:
"It's frustrating, but our guys aren't trying to do that. They are trying to do the right thing. They are young, it's a proces, and we have to just focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. These guys who are freshman are going to be sophomores next year, and then juniors and then seniors, and really good. You have to focus on what the light at the end of the tunnel is as opposed to what's going on right now."
 

California Freshman Forward Justice Sueing
 

On coach's postgame message:
"The main message was just stay together. We have another game on Saturday against UCLA so we have to move past this and regather tomorrow morning, and prepare for UCLA."
 
On USC's zone defense:
"They're a lengthy team and athletic, so we had to adjust to that. It took us most of the first half to adjust to that but we just have to look over film, and see how we can break that down so stuff like that doesn't happen anymore throughout the season."
 
What accounts for the team's scoring droughts:
"The ball wasn't going into the hoop for us for however minutes through the first half, and it is really just us needing to get better look, I think. In film tomorrow we will really be able to break down and analyze it to see what we can do to raise our field goal percentage."
 
On if it helps to have a quick turnaround after a loss:
"Definitely. We are going to stick together. We lose together, we win together and tonight we lost but we always gotta keep pushing forward. We have a big game on Saturday against UCLA, and we hope to pick it back up and get the win then."
 

California Freshman Guard Juhwan Harris-Dyson

 
On disappointment after tonight's loss:
"Against Stanford we had a big deficit. This game we had a big deficit. Like Justice said, sometimes you get out of it, sometimes you don't, but we need to look forward to UCLA because that is our next coming game."