What Tommy Lloyd, Dalen Terry and Christian Koloko said after Arizona’s win over Oregon State

Arizona overcame another slow start to overwhelm Oregon State 83-69 Thursday night at home. Our recap of the game can be fond here.

After the game, coach Tommy Lloyd, Dalen Terry and Christian Koloko spoke to the media. Here’s what they had to say.

Lloyd on the slow start: “I’m gonna wear that one today. That’s on me. We got a little maybe too tricky with our game planning, and to be a good team, you can’t trick the game. That’s on me. Trying some things maybe defensively that we obviously weren’t doing a very good job of doing. I thought it took some of our aggression away, and I just thought we were playing pretty lazy overall and probably a lot of that was the scheme.”

Lloyd on what led to making changes to the game plan: “It’s stuff we’ve been kind going in and out of all year. Maybe some different coverages. I think they’re a great complement to our base defense. But, if you’re not playing extremely hard before you get to those, it’s a problem. So that’s just what I felt. I just felt like our ball pressure really dropped off. I thought our bigs weren’t playing the way they’re capable of playing. I really challenged the guys at halftime to pick me up. Us coaches aren’t perfect either. Rally around that, and the guys did a great job in picking us up to start off that second half and tried to give us a comfortable lead.”

Lloyd on prioritizing attacking the paint: “I’m going inside first, for me. You always want to go inside. Attack inside out. I think (Azuolas Tubelis) is a special player and he gives you so many easy two point baskets that aren’t sexy, but they just add up. If you look at a lot of those runs we’ve had over the course of this year, it’s Zu getting two or three layups to get us going, whether it’s a transition and find one on a dunk in and throwing in the jump hook and getting an offensive rebound. That’s beautiful basketball.”

Lloyd on an ideal number of paint points per game: “A lot. No, I don’t have an ideal number. A lot more than the other team.”

Lloyd on what’s changed with Tubelis over the last few games: “It’s not rocket science. I think Zu got off to a really good start. Then he hurt his ankle. He’s a soldier and he toughed it out and gave us some minutes when he wasn’t at 100%. Not many guys would do that. I think now he’s back to 100%. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.”

Lloyd on whether he changed anything offensively: “Yeah, for sure. Always something. I think as a coach, you got to be careful. I have a little saying I always keep in my office, it’s “Effort … before execution.” I think sometimes as coaches we get a little too cute. And at the end of the day, nothing beats great effort.”

Lloyd on cleaning up fundamentals: “The list is too long. We don’t have enough time to go over those. There’s always things coming up and at this time of year, the seasons are long and coaches and players, we wear it sometimes. So sometimes I think you just got to get back to the basics and tighten up the fundamentals and understand sometimes you make so many adjustments in scouting that maybe the players and the coaches forget what the base is. So sometimes you just got to get back to those basics and we’re probably getting close to that point.”

Lloyd on whether the effort was lacking: “If it’s not easy to come out with 100%, I got the wrong kind of guys. So I’m not blaming it on that. I know I got the right guys. I think you chalk it up to Oregon State and give them a little bit of credit. Maybe human nature got us a little bit. But at the end of the day, if we’re hemming and hawing over a 14-point conference win, we’re probably nitpicking a little bit. I don’t care what the margin is, I just care about the result.”

Lloyd on preparing for Oregon: “I think they’re a really good team. Obviously he’s a great coach. It’s a great program. And he’s done a really good job building a strong recent tradition. I know for one they’re probably gonna have their hands full tonight at Arizona State. However that game turns out, I have a feeling we’re gonna get a great effort from Oregon Saturday night, and so we’ve got to be much better than we were in the first half.”

Lloyd on his relationship with assistant coach Riccardo Fois: “We’ll keep Riccardo and my private conversations to us. Riccardo and I, we’re like brothers. So I think you’re gonna have a little bit of that but I love Riccardo and he helps me a ton. He’s got a great basketball mind. He’s not afraid to share his opinion sometimes And I need those opinions. Because a lot of times, he’s right.”

Lloyd on Tubelis’ ability to run the court: “Obviously, the faster you start out the better, right? You can build on it a little bit. There’s some techniques and some tricks. A lot of it is just willingness. If you run hard and the ball never gets delivered, guys kind of stop running, right? So you got to do both. I thought we had those two at the start of the second half I think somebody threw him an over the top pass and he kind of bobbled it and secured it right in front of our bench. Then I thought Kerr threw him a great one that he just for whatever reason couldn’t gather. Those are the turnovers I’ll live with because if we complete that it’s two points. So I love that threat, that thrust, and I’ve said earlier in the year, I think he’s the best running big man in the country.”

Lloyd on whether this is the first time he’s thrown a curve: “No, not really. These are things we’ve done, but I think sometimes like I was saying earlier, you adjust, you adjust, you adjust and then your players might be doing things that aren’t part of the base, just because maybe some of those adjustments bleed into your base defense. There’s a time and place for the adjustments to be executed, but that that’s the time and place. They can’t be all the time. So I’ll wear that.”

Lloyd on whether he wants his guards to find an outlook pass: “100%. Look up and you always want to throw it ahead. Hopefully a good decision behind it. We don’t want to throw 50/50 balls. If it’s 90/10 I feel good about it. So we practice that stuff every day.”

Lloyd on his plans for College Gameday: “I’ll probably be watching it at Baja Cafe with all the rest of the T-Locs. Is that what they call them? I’ll be there with my T-Locs.”

Terry on what’s behind the slow starts: “Honestly there’s nothing to it. It just kind of happens. That’s on the players, obviously. We got to pick it up. We did a good job of picking it up in the middle of the first half and keeping it in the second half of the game.”

Terry on the team committing fewer turnovers the last two games: “Tommy in practice has been on us about just using our fundamentals. As you can see the last two. games we’ve been using our fundamentals and getting guys shots. Just trying to find people, play together, just having fun out there on the court.”

Koloko on the importance of Arizona's interior play: “That’s the good thing about our team. We’ve got different pieces. If we’re not shooting well, we still have a lot of bigs like me, Oumar (Ballo), Zu. We just got to deliver inside and every time we get the ball we just got to deliver and play hard.”

Koloko on knowing he’ll get touches inside: “It’s really fun. When the ball goes inside, (the guards) are going to get open shots too. Sometimes some teams double or they just kind of help and you just got to kick it out and get an open three. It’s better for the guards and the bigs.”

Terry on whether he looks for outlet passes: “Most definitely. Zu is always on me. He’ll be telling me to look up. Last few games we’ve connected on that. So I just want him to get going. I know that when he gets a dunk, McKale gets rocking. We all get rocking. That was an exclamation point for our team to get going. I literally told him the play before that I need him to dunk the ball and he dunked the ball right after that.”

Terry on whether the team works on outlet passes: “We have a drill that we do. All guards got to do it and the bigs run and we pass it. Long pass. Use our fundamentals and that’s how that happened.”

Terry on whether he’s improved at outlet passes: “Yeah, definitely. There’s eye contact. I looked at Zu, he looked at me, he kept going. He went down and dunked the ball. It can happen with anybody on our team. It’s not just me and Zu.”

Koloko on whether Tubelis has made an improvement recently: “Not really. He’s just healthy now. He had an ankle injury so that was bothering him. Now he’s back to, I don’t know if he’s 100, but close to 100%, so he’s just back to himself. That’s how Zu is. He’s always running hard. Play hard. He’s just got to finish inside. That’s where he is.”

Terry on College Gameday coming to town: “It’s cool. It is what it is. It’s still a basketball game. We’ve got to play at 8:00 at night. We’re not really worried about that that much. We're just going to lock in for the game and get ready.”

Koloko on whether he’ll be watching College Gameday: “It depends on the schedule. It’s up to the coaches. They know what’s good for us. I don’t know the schedule yet. Maybe we’re going to have something in the morning in the arena. Then have time to rest and come back and get ready for the game.”

Terry on whether he would participate in College Gameday if asked: “Yeah, how could I not turn it down?”