Nov. 15, 2008

Recap |  Box Score

California Head Coach Mike Montgomery

On his return to coaching tonight:
It felt pretty natural. I was pleased with some things. The kids we expected to step up, did. We've got a lot of work to do, a lot of guys we need to get in a position to make contributions. And we'll continue to work on our depth, but for an opener at home against a well-coached team, I'm pleased.

On his assessment of specific players' performances:
Harper [Kamp] went in and did an awful good job for us considering he hadn't practiced sine he played nine minutes in the exhibition game [Nov. 6]. Jamal [Boykin] had a tough time defensively - five fouls, 10 minutes - so that being a concern, Harper could just continue to improve and give us minutes, because he's such a smart player. I thought Omondi [Amoke] did a good job and I thought Max [Zhang] did a pretty good job. Jordan [Wilkes] ran some good stuff and we could run stuff through him.

On the keys to tonight's win:
I thought the key was, first half, Patrick [Christopher] and Theo [Robertson] banged in some shots early, and of course Jerome [Randle] was consistent all the way through. Whenever you need a bucket, Jerome's not going to miss many open shots and he's just terrific from the foul line.

On how Cal handled its first challenge of the 2008-09 season:
I thought it was pretty good just because Pacific was a veteran team that would give us problems with knowing how to play, knowing what they were trying to run, feeling like we would break down occasionally - and we did. They threw a little pressure at us, a little zone, and we didn't handle that very well. But we made enough shots.

Pacific Head Coach Bob Thomason

On his team's first-half performance:
We have a lot of guys at new positions, as far as responsibilities, and I think we're going to be a pretty good-shooting team, but we haven't been so far. The first half, we had a lot of good shots, but some of our guys were anxious. We shot some air balls from 15 feet, and those guys are pretty good shooters.

On Pacific's effort to close the gap in the second half:
The second half we played a little more aggressive and made a good run. But we lost the battle of the free-throw line. Every time we got within six or seven, we'd foul and they'd make two free throws. Usually we're pretty good at making more free throws than our opponents make, but tonight Cal was pretty good at that.

On his view of Cal's performance and his team's reaction:
Cal did a good job with their guards and perimeter guys, and their post guys made a couple of big plays. Cal did a better job tonight and deserved to win. First road game is always a little nervous, but I don't think the crowd affected us. Defensively, we held them down enough to win the game. Our problems were on the offensive end.