Mississippi Valley State-UCLA: postgame II

Postgame quotes after UCLA's 70-29 win over Mississippi Valley State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament:

>>Coach Ben Howland:

"I'm just pleased with the 19% that they shot from the field. It just shows that we played really hard.

"I thought that our players who came off the bench did a good job and gave us good minutes. I will say this: Luc [Richard Mbah A Moute] will start on Saturday, for sure. I initially had planned on doing that and then as I thought about it, I felt comfortable that we would be able to get this one without him, after giving it more thought. I think we had a meeting here yesterday and I honestly ha planned to start him today, until late last night when I had given it a lot of thought.

"In reference to James [Keefe], his play has earned him more minutes and more potential to play as we move forward into Saturday's game. We're going to need him. These guys from Texas A&M — that was the most physical game we played in last year, here in the Wooden [Classic].

"[Joseph] Jones is just a big, strong kid inside, [Bryan] Davis is huge; they have a kid ... who comes off the bench now [Chinemelu Elonu] who's ... just so strong and athletic — obviously DeAndre Jordan that Kevin [Love] alluded to. They have as big a front line, as athletic a front line as there is in the country. Their wings are 6-5 and 6-6, and they can really shoot it, especially [Josh] Carter. So we have our hands full and we're going to need all the bigs on our team to perform on Saturday."

>> Freshman center Kevin Love:

"It was a lot of fun. My coaches and teammates made it fun for me as well. We had mentioned a bunch of times throughout the week that a 16-seed had never beaten a one-seed and we didn't want to be the first one, so we just had to come out, jump on them as much as possible and I felt like we did that. Coach Howland also mentioned that, in the postgame talk, no team since 1949 has scored that [few] points — 29 points — so we really did a great job on the defensive end.

[Smiling] "We didn't feel too badly for them out there. No mercy.

"Coach Howland mentioned that [Texas A&M] is a very physical team. They have a good friend of mine, DeAndre Jordan, who's on their team. He's 7 foot, he's got a real long wingspan and their whole team is long. I think he mentioned that nobody in their team is below 6-3, so we're going to have to come out [and] offensive rebound. Those are things we gave up a lot today in the first half and through the first four to five minutes we had already given up five or six offensive rebounds. We're going to have to get on the boards against them because it's going to be a big, physical battle."

>> Sophomore guard Russell Westbrook:

"We came out ready on the defensive end. We held them to a season low or whatever — 29 points. I think we did a good job helping and doubling the post and rotating on the defensive end."

>> Junior guard Darren Collison in an interview with Gary Miller of CBS-TV (Channel 2):

"That's always the way you want to play. You don't want to play down to the level of the competition; you want to play better than the competition. Coach did a good job of stressing that. We didn't want to overlook them; fortunately, we got away with a win.

"They had a good perimeter game. We didn't want them to get hot in the first half because it could carry on to the second half. We wanted to make a statement and put our foot down in the first half that this game wasn't going to be close.

"We can't play to the level of the competition; we've got to play like we're getting ready for the next game, and Texas A&M, that's a very physical team. So, we started acting a little more physical in the second half and getting ready for them.

The Texas A&M game last season "was a high-intensity game, very physical. It was up-tempo and the tempo was slowed down a lot, so it was a little bit of both. We've just got to be able to match their intensity, if not better. We've got to be able to be physical with them because that's a real physical team. They have a little bit of a new look because they have a new coaching staff, but we're up for the challenge."

Comments

[pk-in-the-mesa]

way to play bruins keep it up

and i'm a USC fan

[Biff]

Nice win. Although I am pretty sure Compton Dominguez would have beat them, too. I'm still not seeing it with regard to Keefe but I guess Howland has no other choice but to say nice things about him to try to build up his confidence. Oh yeah, when you are winning by thirty against a junior college level team, you might want to pull your starters even earlier.

[pk-in-the-mesa]

Well I gave props to UCLA in my first post and I stand by that , but K-love and his comments about brackets well i think this needs a leason in humanity and just might have stired up T AM .

[Ruggedly]

Look, UCLA is on Cruise Control with no real competition until the Sweet 16, IF THAT! Let's discuss Bruce Davis' chances of being the Steal of the NFL Draft!

http://properbloggery.com/2008/03/20/handicapping-the-sod-race-already/

[hydrorock1]

A great quote: "I am not playing pro basketball next year. I have decided there is plenty of time left to earn a living, but now is my time to be a young man. I don't want to worry about the other things. All the attention and the publicity and financial bonanzas are not for me or my life."

Bill Walton after beating Memphis for the 7th UCLA Basketball Championship.

Kevin, we hope you feel the same.