California Head Coach Wyking Jones

 
Opening Statement:
 "I was really happy with our guys' fight in the second half. It felt like the energy is what we wanted all year and they showed a lot of toughness, fight and aggressiveness, and that's what I've been looking for. Unfortunately, we did it when we were down 21. We have to be able to put together 40 minutes of that aggressiveness, 40 minutes of that fight. UCLA is a talented team. They shoot the ball at all five positions. We pressed them, and they took the shot we wanted them to take — issue is, they made them. Your five man, your four man shooting three's against the press — we want that, the odds are in our favor in situations like that. Unfortunately, they made those shots and I think that was the difference in the game."
 
On first-half struggles:
"Our guys have to come out of the gate ready to throw the first punch. It's hard to pinpoint. You could say it's youth, but at the same time, I have older guys in there. Tonight I went with King, Marcus, Don, so it's really hard to pinpoint why we wait for the other team to throw the first punch before we react. We try to put the best lineup out there to give us the best fight, give us the best chance from the start of the game. You see me juggling the lineups a bit, so we can put guys out there that will bring it from the start. It's just a situation that for some reason, we don't have good starts. We weren't aggressive in the first half, we didn't look to attack the zone like we did in the second half. A lot of aggressiveness allowed us to get good looks in the second half -- penetrating the kickouts, penetrating the dump balls to the big guys. We didn't capitalize  on all the offensive rebounds in the first half. We had 17 offensive rebounds— when you get 17 of those, you have to get 10 of those to go down. That's 20 points, and that's the difference right there. We have to do a better job of capitalizing when we get steals. We have very little room for error."
 
On confidence in zone defense:
"I feel good about it, as long as our guys are being aggressive. You see us out there, our guys getting a couple chippy fouls, and I'm okay with that because it's a sign of aggressiveness. I feel good about it. Are there many teams in this league that will knock down those shots with their four and five man? I don't think so. I feel good about our progress."
 

California Senior Forward Marcus Lee

 
On causes of the team's first-half deficits:
"We're starting off slow, and that starts with me every time. We look to get paint cuts and get ourselves going through me. That's just something I have to figure out, and get tougher about.
 
On how the team can have better starts in the first half:
"We just need to come out fired up. We come out in the second half fired up with energy after the game settles in, but we have to do that in the first half. We need to throw the first punch instead of sitting back and waiting for it."
 
On UCLA's three-point shooting:
"They're a great team. They can shoot from all five positions, and that's really hard when you have to play defense because you have to spread out wider on that and still play help defense. They played that really well, and played to their strengths."
 

California Freshman Forward Justice Sueing

 
On taking more shots lately:
"I'm just trying to read the defense really. I'm trying to see my opportunities to score. I'm going to make the right play at the end of the day, and get my teammates involved. I felt like I could have donea little better today to get my teammates involved, but we dug ourselves in a pretty big hole. We will figure it out soon."
 
On dealing with large deficits in games:
"Of course it's frustrating for all of us on the team, but we're working to fix that, and we need to fix it sooner than later because it's becoming kind of repetitive. But you know, we're going to go into film tomorrow, and will just try to figure that out."
 
On the team's use of the press today:
"We were just trying to be the aggressor. In the first half they had us on their heels, and we had to switch that around so we started getting after them in the second half and the results showed. We cut the game to 11, but a hole is a hole and it's hard to dig yourself out of that, especially in Pac-12 play."