Jan. 28, 2006

Recap |  Box Score

California Head Coach Ben Braun

"Our guys let up a little in the second half. Some things happened in the second half, but we needed stops down to the wire and we got those stops."

"You have to give Washington State credit. They are good at packing the inside. You don't get many open looks on them."

"We made it our goal to get to the line. Leon (Powe) got to the line 14 times, but he didn't get many good looks inside. He could have been rushing since they were packing the inside so much. But he did manage to get to the line."

"We need to give credit to (Richard) Midgley. He single handedly took Josh (Akognon) - a really good player - out of the game. I don't think Josh has gone the entire year with scoring only one or two points."

"I though Jordan Wilkes did a good defensive job for us today. He really challenged shots and that was key for us."

Washington State Head Coach Dick Bennett

"We battled, it has kind of been the story of our season, came up short. I thought our second half was probably the way we have to play, as well as the way we have played, to give ourselves a chance. We got the ball where we had to; we made them earn them. We didn't necessarily want that kid to be shooting the free throws at the end (Ayinde Ubaka) and they did a great job of getting him the ball. We should have done a better job of keeping it out of his hands, but he made the important free throws and kept us away from them at the end, so we live with that."

On what you said to the team at the last timeout:
"We try to keep it out of the middle, make them go up the side, get a trap and a foul. He came up the gut twice, and sometimes that is a hard pass because you got a guy right in front of you out of bounds and the wings are pinching and they did a good job of getting it. The first time we almost got it, the second time we didn't. We should have fouled them and we didn't."

On what Cal did on Josh Akognon:
"I thought they did a great job on Josh. They just chased him, they tagged him all over. (They) got in his numbers every cut and when he came around the screen, they were right there. On the other hand, he handled it well and didn't force anything, and that is probably why we went inside as much as we did."