Feb. 28, 2008
California head coach Ben Braun
General statement:
Washington State has a way, if you're not at your best, they will expose you because they'll play at a level, and I thought they did that tonight. If you show impatience, they'll take advantage of it. You can get away with double-figure turnovers against a lot of teams. If you turn it over against Washington State, it's like committing double the turnovers, because they're going to take advantage of it. They got 21 point off turnovers. When you turn it over, they make you pay. They're a veteran team - they've got seniors and they play like it.
On the team's frustration and how it affected Cal's play as the game wore on:
You can't get frustrated. You're going to make some mistakes. But as I told our guys, I really was disappointed and I think our team was frustrated. That's a key word right now: our team played frustrated. They didn't pressure us into turnovers as much as they played great position defense. We tried to make some tight passes that I think weren't there and we got some post entries that were ill-fated. We lost some of our patience tonight, and we did it starting on the defensive end. We didn't stay patient through the possession and we didn't do a good job getting through the screens.
On the Bears' defensive shortcomings and the Cougars' hot shooting in the second half:
I thought our help defense coming off those screens wasn't good. They screen as well as any team in our league and they really play well off each other, and I thought we did a poor job getting through those screens. They had some pretty good looks and of course they knocked them down. They shot the ball pretty well. This game was very reminiscent to me of the Oregon game, the second half. The first half we held (WSU) to 42 percent (shooting), and we thought things weren't going our way. I said guys, that's 42 percent. We hold teams to 42 percent, most of the time I think we're going to be in pretty good shape. But the second half, they came out and went for 66 percent, and they found ways to get open looks, and I thought their team did a great job of getting looks by rotating the ball and showing screen patience. I thought Washington State played very patient offensively and they took advantage of every opportunity they could.
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On Cal's 16 turnovers and their effect on the ensuing defensive efforts:
We can't come down and play giveaway basketball against Washington State. They'll turn the turnovers into possession for them and now they've got the ball in their hands and it becomes frustrating. We broke down defensively because we lost our patience.
Washington State Head Coach Tony Bennett
General comments: "That was a significant win. I told the guys you have to play solid and that is what they did."
On containing Ryan Anderson:
"We did a solid job on (Ryan) Anderson. It was a great job. Nikola Koprivica did a nice job defensively on Ryan (Anderson). Offensively he took some bad shots."
On winning 10 Pac-10 games in consecutive seasons:
"I'll take that (10 Pac-10 wins) any time; that's impressive. It's a harder league this year and we pulled through."
