Feb. 5, 2005
ASU Head Coach Rob Evans:
On tonight's game: "Every time we come in and we are talking about a loss, it boils down to one thing, defense. In the second half, they shoot almost 70 percent on us, and they get second chance shots. We told them during time out to box out. It boils down to taking care of details and we didn't take care of details in critical situations and we didn't defend in the second half tonight like we did on Thursday night."
On rebounding:
"Just not rebounding the ball, not taking care of details, boxing out, pursuing the ball, but mostly not boxing out, putting a body on somebody. It's just not putting a body on somebody and basically that comes down to concentration."
On defensive struggles:
"Defense zone, man. We just didn't contain drivers, they put their heads down and just drove on us tonight. Generally we do a pretty good job of containing the drivers, we just didn't do that tonight. That is why we are sitting here with a loss."
On Tyrone Jackson and Kevin Kruger:
"I just felt comfortable with what they were doing. They were playing pretty well and they had pretty good flow. It was nothing that the other guys weren't doing. They were pretty focused. Ike again played extremely well. I thought some of the other guys played well. Serge played well. We just didn't defend like we needed to defend."
Quoting California Head Coach Ben Braun:
On the game:
"Arizona State came out and hit some big shots and they were fired up. You know how fired up they are, but our guys withstood the runs. Our players stayed in it. We were down early but I never saw a panic with our team. We were determined to stay with our game plan and we didnâ?TMt do a great job of that in the first half. I thought Arizona State took us out of what we wanted to do. In the second half we really turned the tide. I felt we increased our pressure. Rod Benson, defensively, was all over the place. He was out in the floor guarding, he was helping inside, he was rebounding. I thought we handled their pressure better in the second half. We got the ball when we needed too. We shot 68 percent from the floor. We cut our turnovers down, which was big. I thought when we really needed to make a surge we did. It was good to see us toughen up."
On Ike Diogu:
"I know this might sound strange, but I thought we did a good job on him and he had 35 (points). Who else can you say that about? He gets to the foul line, he gets offensive rebounds, he knocks down jumpers, he splits double-teams. We manned him and we zoned him. With Ike, you almost have to concede that when you play defensively against him, man or zone, front or behind him, he finds ways to help his team and to contribute to the cause. He's an awfully good player. Rob (Evans) knows he's got a special kid. I know Rob will tell you, and everybody sees this, is not just about his ability as a basketball player but his great demeanor. All players in college basketball can look at Ike Diogu's demeanor on the court and he just gets it done. He just works and works and works. He's amazing."
On the second half:
"We were able to stay solid. Our will in the second half was to do what we intended to do. We just did a better job of executing in the second half. We had a strong will and more discipline. We were tougher with the ball. I thought we passed the ball a lot better."