Feb. 21, 2009

Recap |  Final Stats

CORVALLIS, Ore. -

Cal head coach Mike Montgomery

On the game:
"They out preformed us. I thought we were ready to play. I thought the kids prepared themselves, they knew how important this game was. We were up 12, 14 points in the first half and they bounced back. I thought we were pretty much in control in the first half. In the second half, I thought they out-preformed us. We didn't shoot the ball very well and that's what we do. If we don't shoot the ball then we have problems. We went small to try and attack the zone; but, in fact, they went big and it hurt us. The zone hurt us. We weren't able to get good shots. When the ball doesn't go down we tend to get a little concerned. They started making shots. They shot 70 percent in the second half; we shot 27. That's the tale of the game. Calvin Haynes has hurt us both games. He just jumps up and shoots it. He can create his own shot and that really hurt us. It came down to they had to miss one and we had to make one and it just didn't happen."

On Calvin Haynes:
"He's a guy that if they need him they go to him. We had some matchup issues. They tried to post Jerome [Randle] a little bit. That was a bit of a match-up problem when they went big. When the clock got to 5, 6, 7, 8 seconds they would back cut us. We went to a zone and were in pretty good shape and they went to Calvin in the corner and he just jumped up and hit a three [pointer]. So it goes to 55 [points] and we miss and it's pretty much game, set and match.

On UCLA losing and a potential opportunity lost:
"We were in first place coming out of this if we won regardless, we knew that. It's just the way it was going to be, we were going to be in first place if we won. We were ready to play. It's a tough league, probably tougher than people want to give it credit for. Is it a lack of a great team at the top? I don't know. All I know is that games are tough to win. These games are going to come back to hurt us. Oregon State beat us twice. I think Oregon State's pretty good. [Robinson's] done a really good job with his team in making them confident and making sure they do what they can do. At the end of the day, they're going to be tough losses."