here<\/a>. Below is what Lloyd said postgame.<\/p>\nOn his overall thoughts on the win: \u201cWell, first off, the credit goes to UCF, the university and to Coach Dawkins. That was an amazing environment. It\u2019s a big time college basketball environment. UCF is building their program and establishing their traditions and their legacy. But that was up there with any of them. So a credit to you guys, and it was a joy to compete in that environment. So just thankful for the opportunity.\u201c<\/p>\n
On Themus Fulks\u2019 career-high 30 points: \u201cWell, he\u2019s a heck of a player. And he\u2019s got good speed and he\u2019s got good swag and good confidence. We kind of had him pegged as a little bit more of a passer, because he\u2019s had 12 assists each of the last two games. We knew he could score a little bit, we told our guys, he\u2019s also a double figure scorer, but he hit some pretty tough shots. So I think, maybe in the second half, we just got fortunate some of those shots rolled off and, I don\u2019t know, maybe get a little bit tired but to him to drop a 30 piece on us, that says to me he\u2019s a heck of a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Brayden Burries playing beyond his years: \u201cHe\u2019s a basketball junkie from a basketball family. Some kids just have it. They have that poise and that presence and and he has it. I\u2019ll give Brayden a lot of credit. There was obviously high expectations for how he was going to play this year for us. And he may have started out a little bit slow, but he\u2019s really hung with it. He\u2019s just such a steady person that you knew that it would come through in the end. I even told one of our assistants today, I had a sneaky suspicion that he was going to play pretty good today, so he did a great job. He hit a couple of timely shots in the second half, that three kind of on that broken sideline inbounds play was huge. I felt like it kind of gave us enough cushion to kind of ride out the craziness of the last couple minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Arizona\u2019s 19-2 run in the first half: \u201cWell, I think our guys settled into the game a little bit, settled into the environment. We attacked the paint, we were able to get some stops, they missed some shots, and kind of able to get some stuff out in transition. Settle in and kind of establish our post players. You always have a healthy respect for your opponent, and so I don\u2019t take lightly being able to build an early lead, because I know there\u2019s ebbs and flows to the game, and just to be able to build a little bit of a cushion, I don\u2019t know, I think they tied it? I don\u2019t know if they ever did to actually take the lead. Maybe they did, but I felt really comfortable where we were at. You don\u2019t want to come to a tough environment like this, and start off slow and be on the other end of that run and and you\u2019re playing uphill on the road, it\u2019s a tough job.\u201d<\/p>\n
On UCF\u2019s program under Johnny Dawkins: \u201cListen, Coach Dawkins is a legend. I grew up watching this guy, and he was just a unbelievable, smooth lefty, one of the first great college guards that I remember watching. He\u2019s just a classy guy. He\u2019s just a classy guy, and he\u2019s doing a great job with the program. It\u2019s not easy for anybody right now. Obviously, with the turnover they\u2019ve had on the roster, he did a great job building a team that looks like it has cohesion. I know it has talent, I know it has experience. And, yeah, just really impressed. To me, it\u2019s early for all of us, so that there\u2019s, no, I don\u2019t need to be a predict the future, but that certainly feels and looks like a good NCAA tournament team to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
On overcoming Koa Peat and Anthony Dell\u2019Orso poor scoring nights: \u201cI told our guys that. To be able to kind of win on the road in an environment like this against a team that\u2019s 14-2 with Koa kind of had a couple, a tough foul call early, I thought. You hate to see one of your better players get foul, and the ref called it, so it\u2019s a foul. Then kind of a random kind of hustle, rebound foul, the second one. We had a lead. So subbing wise, I was kind of managing our lead with his fouls. Just felt like it wasn\u2019t worth putting him back in the game while we had a lead. And felt like we were doing okay. Even though they made a little run back at us, we still could absorb that run a little bit and kind of save him and his fouls for the second half. It\u2019s just not going to be your day every day. And Koa is such a high character guy, he understands this is a team game, and he\u2019s going to be great one day and you may not be his day the next, but he\u2019ll bounce back for sure. But credit to our team to absorb that. Delly missed some wide open shots that he hits. He played actually a really good floor game. He just didn\u2019t make any of his shots. That\u2019s how it goes sometimes, but I felt really good with his minutes out there as well. And so to us absorb those two guys not having their normal production on the road says some good stuff about our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Arizona being intentional about going to Motiejus Krivas and Tobe Awaka: \u201cYeah for sure. We have big guys, and we\u2019re not afraid to play to that. I feel really comfortable rotating those three bigs in there. They just probably had to play a little bit longer stretches in the first half than normally we\u2019re accustomed to. Maybe they wore down a little bit. But on the road, it takes what it takes. You don\u2019t get to script these games. I don\u2019t get an instruction manual on how to coach them. You just got to kind of feel the game as it plays out, and make adjustments where you need to make adjustments and trust your gut in moments you have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the comfort of knowing Arizona can overcome a poor half from a player like Peat: \u201cIt\u2019s really comfortable. It\u2019s really comfortable. Our young guys have an experience beyond their years. Ivan even had some, turnovers today that are probably a little bit regretful that he\u2019ll learn from whether they were fouls or not fouls, I don\u2019t know. But at the end of the day, you got to be stronger with the ball on the road, especially, but anywhere. But yeah, it\u2019s a group that has a winning DNA. It has winning DNA in it, and that\u2019s something you don\u2019t take for granted. I\u2019m not going to sit here and take all the credit for it. It has winning DNA, and we try to do our best job building a good, strong culture and that gives us kind of a foundation to be consistent, and then that\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
On having an advantage with Arizona\u2019s size: \u201cWe always feel like most days, we\u2019re going to have an advantage playing through our bigs inside, and we\u2019re always going to test it. It\u2019s part of our DNA and part of our formula and how we play. I love big guys and I always will. The more the merrier. I\u2019d play three or four of them at a time if I could. You need a few guys to dribble and move the ball, but I love having those big fellas out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Arizona getting to the free throw line: \u201cBradley, some of those are at the end. Bradley, he\u2019s world class game finisher for us. So he gets the ball. You want to get the ball to him at the end of the game in those situations, so he can get fouled. Because you trust him at the free throw line. And he trusts his decision making when the ball\u2019s in his hands. So getting to the free throw lines a lot of things, it could be how strong you drive, or do you get knocked off your line? Are you able to hold your line? And if you hold your line, obviously it looks rest will respect that and call fouls on it. It\u2019s not just the inside game. There\u2019s a lot of things that go into the foul pressure. Being a team that goes to the offensive glass, you can get a lot of fouls getting blocked out. When teams aren\u2019t used to maybe blocking out as often.There\u2019s lots of ways to do it. And yeah for sure, we were we love free throws. They\u2019re my favorite shots in the game. Layups too. I like layups too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a day when Arizona got minimal production from Koa Peat and no scoring from Anthony Dell\u2019Orso, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[9763,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-544269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-arizona-basketball","9":"tag-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115914805592274579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}