California Student-Athletes

On the win…

Paris Austin: This means a lot to us. You know, we fought back as a team and just, you know, coming off of two losses, you know, our coaches did a great job this week, just preparing us, you know. So I think for us to show that fight and just come back and get the win was really good for us.

Kareem South: You know, I think it's just a testament to us trust in the process. You know, we just kept on fighting. And that was the result of the game. You know, we were down eleven at one point and, you know, credit to Stanford's team, they're a really good team. But we just kept on being physical and kept on fighting to the last play.

On the final play…

Paris Austin: You know, coach trusted me to get the ball, you know, and make a play. So I thank coach for trusting me. Thanks to coach, for trusting me. But I just want to make a play for myself or my teammates. And it worked.

On getting his shooting back…

Kareem South: You know, in practice, coach gave me a lot of good advice. You know, just to stay confident and trust my shot. One thing they told me was work on my follow through and hold my follow through. And that's what I practiced on throughout the week. And, you know, the shot went in. My first shot went in. So I just felt confident after that.

On the rivalry…

Paris Austin: I think that the rivalry is very big. I think for us as a team, you know, there's another win for us. Stanford is a really good team, but we don't let it be become a big rivalry or anything like that. We came in with a plan we wanted to win.

On the crowd…

Kareem South: It was huge. I mean, having such huge support behind us is great for for anybody. I mean, the energy was just super contagious. And we felt that we felt that throughout the whole game.

On Kobe Bryant…

Paris Austin: It is very sad. You know, seeing Kobe passed knowing that he was a legend and how many players he's impacted. You know, watching basketball growing up. Kobe was my Jordan, you know. But it was a hard hit. It was a hard pill to swallow for me. Yes, for sure.

Kareem South: I mean, I grew up watching Kobe. Kobe was one of my favorite players growing up. And it was really shocking. It's really hard to kind of absorb right now. So it doesn't really feel real because he was such an inspiration. His work ethic was insane. And it's just a tragic, tragic story.
 

Head Coach Mark Fox

Opening statement…

Mark Fox: Look, let me begin by sharing our condolences and our thoughts and our prayers with everyone that was involved in the crash today. Certainly Kobe and his daughter and their family, but also the other victims in the crash because everybody is suffering and it's just awful when things like this occur in life. And and our thoughts and our prayers are with them because, you know, you don't wish that on anybody. And it's just it's just a tragedy. And certainly, I think we all have heavy hearts.

On telling the team about Kobe…

Mark Fox: I met with our team before we came up to start stretching for the game. And I just sat them down and talked to them about. You know, I know that Kobe was the one who is maybe the reason why they fell in love with basketball. And a few years ago, my dad passed away and I had a choice whether I should coach the game or not. And I chose to coach because that's what my dad would have expected me to do. And so I just sat him down and I talked about how I know they must be hurting. Like Kobe was a great competitor and he would expect you to compete and you should honor him with your effort. And I think they did just that.

On how big today's win was…

You know, today was a great win and it's a great win because, you know, our teams fighting to rebuild the program and those kids deserved to be rewarded. It's great win because we had great fan support and they were right there with us. It's a great win because we beat a good Stanford team. It's a great win for a lot of reasons. But every win counts the same in the standings and we celebrate every one of them. And certainly tonight we'll probably celebrate this one, too. But it was a great win.

On maturity of the team…

Mark Fox: I think we have matured. We've become a little bit more battle-tested. You know, I think that we missed some easy ones. We missed a couple layups. It would have really kind of calmed the waters there, but we couldn't finish. So there's more layup drills. But, you know, I think that this team has continued to come back and learn from what happened before. And we try to learn from every game. And they have been very consistent in their approach to learn from winning or losing. And the fact I think they just have invested so much that you demand that much of young people when it gets to those moments of truth, they fight a little harder. And tonight, we had a lot of fight.

On the play of Paris Austin…

Mark Fox: Well, he's practiced unbelievably, and he's had a terrific attitude the last week or 10 days and just felt like he was going to play super. And he did. And I'm really happy for Paris. He's a great kid who has who's been through a lot. He's had a lot of different coaches, but he's always open to coaching. And he's you know, he's a little stubborn at times. But that stubbornness can be an advantage in the middle of a game. And he just wasn't going to get beat today. And I was really happy for him to play as well as he did.

On the final play…

Mark Fox: Well, everybody thought Matt Bradley was going to be the guy, you know. So, Matt, I mean, they got smart coaches and they got smart players, you know. But, you know, we're in bonus and Paris had a hot hand. And I knew we can draw a foul and we can win at the free throw line and fortunately it worked out for us.

On facing Stanford for the second time…

Mark Fox: Well, we were more disciplined throughout the game. We had a better poise about us. And part of that's playing at home versus playing on the road but we didn't change a whole lot. We really didn't. We just executed a lot better.

On the second half…

Mark Fox: No, I thought we started second half so bad. If we had seven timeouts I would have called them all, you know. And we started out the second very poorly defensively and then we didn't finish a couple of plays. It took us several minutes to get it kind of locked back in defensively. So there's some room for improvement there. You know, Stanford has a good team and they're a hard team to guard. And we were fortunate to guard them well today.