March 8, 2007

Recap |  Box Score |  Notes

2007 Pacific Life Pac-10 Basketball Tournament Staples Center - Los Angeles Game 4 - March 8 No. 1 UCLA vs. No. 8 California

Post-Game Quotes

California Bears Head Coach Ben Braun

Opening remarks:

"We got off to a good start today, and defensively we did a very good job on their guys. Keeping Arron Afflalo and Darren Collison to zero points at the half was a large reason why we were up. We have been preaching defense to our guys and that was the big difference for us today. Josh Shipp was a guy who had a huge game, but I thought we did a much better job on him in the second half. Obviously, [Darren] Collison comes back and does what he does, he is a winner and they went on a huge run. Nobody in the country makes runs like UCLA and we withstood the barrage, which was pretty big in the second half."

On Ayinde Ubaka:
"Ayinde is a winner. In every game this year that has gone to overtime or has been decided down the stretch, he has put his fingerprints on it. He is willing to take charge, and he is willing to take big shots. You need to have a player like that, Ryan [Anderson] and the other guys around him respond to that type of leadership, guts and courage."

California Players

Freshman Jerome Randle

Key to victory tonight:

"It was our defense. Coach preached to us about our defense. We were ranked the last place defense in the Pac-10, so we knew we had to play defense if we wanted to beat UCLA."

Regarding tonight's game:
"Perhaps we caught them on a bad night. But this could have been our last game tonight. They (UCLA) are automatically going to the tournament, so we had to put it all out and play hard. I didn't even score a basket, but Ayinde (Ubaka) told me to put my head down and run the show, distribute the ball to open guys, and just play decent defense."

On seeing their double-digit lead diminish in the second half:
"It was Ayinde (Ubaka). It was his leadership; he was telling people to keep their heads up and kept preaching to us that the game is not over. There was a lot of time on the clock, and we just had to keep on playing."

Junior Eric Vierneisel

On UCLA's 13-0 run in the second half:

"We knew they were going to go on a run. We didn't necessarily want that to happen, but we knew it was pretty much inevitable. We were able to stay close. It wasn't like they got up 10 or 12 or 15 on us, it was just one or two the entire time. We would have liked to have kept the lead we had in the first half, but that's the way it goes."

On getting to the free throw line in overtime:
"I think (Lorenzo) Mata switched out on me on one play, and I thought I could drive on him and get to the line. I tried to get to the line and knock down free throws. I do that everyday in practice, and I just tried to not let it affect me in a game."

On beating UCLA in the Pac-10 Tournament after UCLA defeated Cal in last year's championship game:
"It's not necessarily redemption. It feels good, but for us it's just another game to get to the championship. We're trying to win. Just trying to get the NCAA (Tournament), that's our only chance of getting in. That's our whole focus."

2007 Pacific Life Pac-10 Basketball Tournament Staples Center - Los Angeles Game 4 - March 8 No. 1 UCLA vs. No. 8 CAL

Post-Game Quotes

UCLA head coach Ben Howland

Opening remarks:

"We got out to a poor start, allowing them to come out and dictate the tempo, offensively being very patient. They had a 16-point lead and we were fortunate to get it to 12 at halftime. I think we expended so much energy playing poorly to start out that it was hard to play at the end of the game. You have to give Cal a lot of credit. They showed a lot of heart, and they made a lot of big shots down the stretch. I am very proud of the comeback we made, but I'm disappointed in the fact that our last couple of opponents have been able to go up by 15 points or more. Again, give credit to Cal. They played us great and they beat us fair and square. We're going to take tomorrow off, and we will have our best practice of the year on Saturday morning."

On the affect of the loss on a possible No. 1 seeding:
"I don't even care. It doesn't matter who we play. If we don't play better than we're playing right now, anyone in the field of 64 can beat us. The next game we play, we better play like it's our last game unless we win. I didn't feel like we did that today or last Saturday and we better start doing that Saturday morning at practice."

On UCLA junior guard Arron Afflalo's performance:
"He had a bad game today. I think this is the first time he hasn't scored double-figures in 29 games. I expect that he'll come back. He'll bounce back and have a great practice on Saturday and be ready to go. Arron will take accountability for his poor performance today. He's always the first one to do that."

On finding a silver lining to today's loss:
"Not at all. I'm going to go back right now and watch the tape of this game with my staff and I'm sure we're not going to see any silver linings. That's just how were playing right now. We had a great game on the road against Washington State and got a great win, but we've played sub-par against two teams that have come out and played us hard."

UCLA Players

Guard Darren Collison

On momentum shift in the second half:

"I thought we had the momentum coming into overtime, but Cal came out focused. Coming off of so many slow starts this season, half the games we finish and half the games, we don't. Today, we just couldn't finish."

Forward Josh Shipp

On exiting the Pac-10 tournament:

"It's definitely a disappointing way to end the season. Hopefully, we can regroup in practice. It definitely hurts a lot. We just need to refocus and come out with energy and try to win the next game."