Recap |  Final Stats

California at Washington
Bank of America Arena; Seattle, Wash.
February 26, 2006

CALIFORNIA COACH Ben Braun:

GENERAL REMARKS: "We tried to get him some touches. And it seemed like every time we got some touches to him, Leon was trying to be aggressive to the basket. He got about two or three calls against him, and those were tough calls and tough plays for us. Those were real momentum changes for them. And as hard as Leon was working, I thought he had opportunities to go after the rim a few times, and we came away with no basket, and a foul. I thought in my opinion that there were some questionable judgements in those situations. We did get a lot of looks, and the ones that we did get; Leon was fighting awfully hard for them.

On his team's offense: "It was tough, I thought we had good penetration, we got some good looks-Richard bounced back and got some good looks around the perimeter. Theo obviously got some good looks. So I thought we created some shots around the perimeter, and had some other looks at the basket."

On the huge threes hit by the Huskies: "They came out and hit some big threes. Brandon Roy hit some big threes. Justin Dentmon hit some big threes. Bobby Jones hit some big threes, and Ryan Appleby hit some big threes. They hit some huge shots around the perimeter. I thought we took away a lot of their inside attack-we didn't give them much at the basket, so they went to the perimeter and got us off the dribble at the perimeter, and I thought they hit some huge shots at the perimeter. Every time we would close the gap, or was ready to make a move, they just knocked down big three after big three. Huge shots for their team. They shot the ball extremely well."

On defending Brandon Roy: "Brandon Roy hit three big threes that is for sure. And they were over DeVon's hands two of them-the other one was over Omar or Theo. But he knocked down some really big shots. I thought we defending him around the basket fairly well. A couple of times we defended him as post ups. We defended the paint fairly well, but we didn't defend those perimeter shots very well."

On Brandon Roy coming through for his team: "I thought he had a huge year. I thought he took his team over the hump tonight. I thought Brandon Roy took his team, and put them on his back tonight. And he was phenomenal. And I told our guys after the game. We have to give him credit to Brandon Roy-we were defending him pretty hard, and he hit some tough shots against us over the top, against the clock. Those were huge shots-just huge shots. Those are tough shots to stomach, but we have to give him credit for that. He earned it. He knocked some tough shots down."

On doubling Brandon Roy: "We were digging, we were helping on him. We took away some easy basket, and he got one or two drives. He didn't score a lot. He stepped back, and got fouls from people. He does a good job of finding people on his team."