Dec. 28, 2009

Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes

BERKELEY -

California Head Coach Mike Montgomery

On the lack of games recently
We only played one game in two and a half weeks. So it's not like we played very much. We had finals and then Christmas break. I thought we were sluggish to start a little bit, like we had to get in a flow, but we picked it up and I thought it was good for us. Bodies started moving around and guys started getting more aggressive. It's good to play lots of people. That really helps your team because everybody is out there working every day in practice and to get a guy a chance to play feels pretty good. We don't play back-to-back very often, so I thought it was a good chance to get guys some rest, and that probably helped too.

On the defense
We're trying to find some ways to get more aggressive. It's not something that's going to work against everybody, but if you can get up on the ball every now and then and play more aggressively, that's good. I thought we got some steals and I thought it did help us early on.

On the Pac-10
The conference is better than people want to give it credit for. There are actually some good teams. Unfortunately, the perception now is going to hurt everybody. In conference, there are no wins that you can make back up. Arizona Sate, Arizona, Washington and Washington State have all gotten big wins. USC is much improved; they're a good basketball team right now. There are a lot of people in contention and it's going to be important to compete in the league and try to separate ourselves a little bit. We've got three home games. I wish the students were here, but we've got to be ready, and they'll be three tough ones.

On preparation for tomorrow
I think it's going to be a really good game. They have a little scheme trap-wise that we're going to have to understand what we want to do against it. We have to understand their matchup zone. They play it for the whole game. It's not something that's going to go away. They are very aggressive and athletic, so we're going to have to make sure we understand how to attack it.