California Head Coach Cuonzo Martin
Opening Statement…
“I thought it was a really good team performance. I thought the team did a really good job sharing the ball, making baskets and attacking off the dribble then making plays, finding the big guys when the opportunities showed themselves. I thought the spacing was solid, and Tyrone (Wallace) and Sam (Singer) did a good job attacking, creating opportunities for our perimeter guys to make shots. Thought our big guys did a great job of protecting the lane, being big when they have the opportunities. A solid team effort on both ends of the floor.”
On Freshman Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown…
“Offensively, I thought they both played well. I think their maturity in playing games, because every game presents something different for those guys, because it's hard to duplicate game situations. With a team like this that runs a pitch-back dribble weave type of offense, I don't know if we see that in the league (Pac-12) very often, so we don't have a ton of time spent in practice on that. Going through that, you duplicate it for a few days, but it's much harder until you get into the game and see it live. I thought in Jaylen's case, being on the perimeter, you have to know when to switch and know when to stay with your guy, and that's not easy. I thought he was okay, nothing great. I thought Ivan was sound, but I think they both did a good job offensively. Ivan (Rabb) does a great job rebounding, he's one of those guys that you would describe as a natural rebounder. Thirteen rebounds in 16 minutes… he goes and gets rebounds. He got them in Australia, even with two guys on him. He knows how to keep the ball alive and keep it high. I can only imagine when he continues to gain strength on his body the type of rebounder that he might become.”
On what team can improve on…
“I don't know where the thought comes from that after the first game of the season that you wouldn't have stuff to work on. I don't care what the talent says. There have been so many teams over the past 50 years ranked this and ranked that but don't pan out and don't execute. There's always a long way to go, and after our second game (including Monday's exhibition), we are still going through different things, dealing with the environment (and) the excitement. You have to think of if I don't get shots tonight, how do I manage that? If I don't defend well, I get in foul trouble, I don't make my free throws, there's always the next game. It's one game at a time, that's how I look at. Easier said than done, but we still have a lot of things to work on. I am just glad that we have a guy like Tyrone Wallace who is a senior guy who understands and is battle tested, and when we get in a tough patch, he can get us out of a jam.”
Ivan Rabb
What was it like to play your first official game as a Cal Bear here?
“I feel like we were over prepared for this game. Our coaches put us in the right positions with the scouting report and I feel like we came out and we executed our plan so well that we had a good time easing into the game”
How do you think the team is developing defensively?
“I feel the chemistry. I think if we continue to stop like that, it's going to make our offense more potent and get better transitions. With the size and length that we have, all the different tools, there's no reason why we can't be one of the best defensive teams in the country.”
Jaylen Brown
What was it like to play your first official game as a Cal Bear here?
“It was definitely a great experience playing my first game. I had a lot of excitement built up into the game. There were a lot of fans out there showing love so we had a good time, I had a good time and we are ready for the next one”
Did this game accurately showcase the team?
“I think we're just scratching the surface. We have a lot of room to improve. I think as the season goes forward, you guys are going to see a lot of improvements.”
What did you think of Jabari Bird's performance tonight?
“Jabari, that's my guy. We have a saying that goes 'one for your brother, one for yourself' so every time I see one of my guys performing really well, at a high level- especially being sidelined from injury, I'm happy for him. So I hope to see more and I expect to see more from Jabari. We're just going to keep pushing each other so we can get better together.”
Jordan Mathews
What did Jaylen and Ivan show you and the team tonight?
“They showed me they're ready, they showed us all that they're ready. It doesn't get any easier. I'm a junior and even I had the pre-game butterflies; we all do. It's natural, but all season, even when we went to Australia, they showed great poise and they're ready for anything, and that's going to help us down the stretch in January, February and March wherever that takes us. Sharing the balls like we work on every day in practice. That's what we practice every day. Coach says 'share the juices' so we just share the ball. Everyone gets a shot, and when you share the ball great things happen as you saw.”
Did this game accurately showcase the team?
“You saw a win and that's what we want you to see. We shared the ball; we did a great job- that's what we do. We shared the rock.”
Rice Head Coach Mike Rhoades
General thoughts on loss
“I thought we got very selfish with the ball and put ourselves in a tough position to win. We had to deal with a lot of adversity and we'll learn from it and we got a lot of young guys who are learning it's a lot harder to win college basketball and they learned that just now. We have no excuses. We cut it to ten and had the ball then had a turnover. Then they scored six points to go into the half. And the best way to have momentum going into the second half is to take it with you at halftime and we didn't do that. We didn't shoot well—shot a little better in the second half—but we're going to get a lot better. A lot of young guys got a lot of minutes. We didn't turn it over a lot but we didn't put up good shots.”
On not having many assists
“Yeah that's not us. They were switching everything and they were just so much bigger than us one through five and so they made it harder and they stayed with their shooters. They didn't want to get beat with one shot. We have to do a better job sticking with what we do. One thing you learn when you have young guys that are talented, even Egor who's only a sophomore, when things break down defense dictates what you want to do—guys break from stuff. And that comes with experience.”
On still competing until the end
“We even told them at the end in the last four minutes 'when we come back out there let's see if we can have a positive four minutes.' Plus there are a lot of young guys out there and I told them 'every minutes you're out there makes an impression on the coaches for the next game'. So tonight was a bright spot for Amir Smith. He played well today. He's that young freshman but he got valuable experience today and it was great to see that. I also thought Max played well but we got to play better off that.”
