What Tommy Lloyd and Justin Kier said after Arizona’s loss at Colorado

It was one of those nights for Arizona—and most of the top teams in college basketball, it turned out—as the second-ranked Wildcats lost 79-63 at Colorado, missing out on a chance to wrap up the Pac-12 regular season title.

Our full recap can be found here. Below is what coach Tommy Lloyd—who didn’t do a postgame radio interview because Buffaloes fans remained on the court after storming it—and guard Justin Kier had to say about the performance.

Lloyd on Colorado playing so well after losing by 17at home to ASU on Thursday: “You knew they were going to play better. Their program has had a lot of success, has a successful coach, he’s got a ton of pride and he really challenged him and they were great.”

On what was the difference in the game: “They were way more physical than us. They kind of got the game on their terms once they got the lead in the second half and were kind of able to control the tempo and everything.”

On the offensive struggles: “I didn’t feel like we went on too many streaks, not good ones.”

On Colorado outscoring Arizona 54-26 in the paint: “They had us spread out, and we lost some of our gap integrity and rim protection. That’s something we’ve got to look at.”

On if the Buffaloes’ physicality intimidated Arizona: “I’m just chalking it up to that we got beat by a better team. Probably wanted it a little bit more than we did today and played a little harder.”

Kier on Colorado’s effort: “We expected them to come out and play hard. That was a great team. We knew it was gonna be a tough game and they had a great game plan, so credit to them, credit to them bringing high energy. They just played harder than us today.

On learning from the loss: “We gotta take this one to the chest and remember that. Remember all those fans running on the court, and take that as a challenge to not let that happen again. We’re gonna be fine. We’re a very competitive team, so we hate losing, no matter what we’re gonna fight to the end, so we’re gonna bounce back.”

On what Colorado did well: “I think they executed the game plan. They really read our read our reads, to our bigs and stuff like that. Their game plan was just pretty good and we tried to adjust to it, but they ended up making some good shots and making a run. We kept fighting, we kept fighting and couldn’t make shots that we wanted.”

On why Arizona’s offense didn’t produce: “I think we just didn’t make shots. We were hoping to get a few calls down there, but we can’t blame the refs for that. We got to execute and just play better, play harder, honestly. We’re fine. We’re gonna be fine and we’re gonna bounce back, and that’s the maturity of this team, maturity of the coaching staff, is to know we’re going to be okay. We’ve bounced back like this before, we lost like this on the road.”