Arizona took care of business on Wednesday night, holding Samford’s pressure defense in check and maximizing its own offensive chances for a lopsided win to get back to .500 on the season.
The game saw a change in the starting lineup, as well as the collegiate debut of a promising prospect, as well as a big performance from Pac-12 Player of the Year Caleb Love.
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Love, Tommy Lloyd and Trey Townsend said after the victory:
Lloyd on handling Samford’s press: “I felt really good overall. In the first half, I think we only had four turnovers, and I can think of (only) that one was versus the press, that I can think of up off the top of my head. We were able to handle the press, get to a little lead. The second half, we kind of lost our way. And they do that to teams. They kind of wear them down a little bit. Maybe I should have subbed or cycled through, but we didn’t get off to a great start. I kind of wanted to see if we could build back up a lead before we cycled back through our rotation. Maybe some guys got a little bit tired, but still, that’s no excuse for not being tough. I could think of two vivid rebounds where, I think Delly had a rebound and Tobe had a rebound, and they just threw a blind outlet that normally maybe you’d feel good about. But against these guys they stole both of them and three. Those were disappointing a little bit. And then I just felt, during that stretch in the second half I think a few guys, Caleb, and maybe JB, maybe tried forcing a ball into a small window. I don’t think you need to do that when you’re having a lead. You need to find a ways to be a little more solid.
On shooting a season-high 58.2 percent: “The other thing you got to handle with them is just the changing defenses on the other end. 2-3, 1-3-1 zone, they play a man, obviously. So I thought our guys did a good job of handling that for the most part. Because, you can’t really get in a rhythm in calling sets. You got to rely on concepts and fundamentals. And I thought our guys did a good job that overall.”
On the transition game: “Transition is great, but you also have to be good at the half court. And I thought our ball movement was better just overall today, just had a little bit of feel to it. You can say that showed in the assist numbers for that. We were connecting a few more passes, and that’s really important. The way we play passing the ball is so important, and quite frankly, just hasn’t been quite good enough up to this point. So hopefully we can keep making progress there.”
On Love going for 23 after 7 vs. UCLA: “Caleb’s a good player. And you know what? I’m gonna hang with him. I mean, that’s my job. We’re gonna hang with him. I’m not a fair weather guy. I love my players. And listen, I hold them accountable. We have a lot of conversations about things, and we have real talks. But this is college basketball, and I don’t care if there’s NIL involved or what, my job is to kind of help a young man through tough times and through struggle. That’s my job, and I’m going to do that. And you know, what? I’ll wear it when it doesn’t go good, and when it does go good, I won’t take any credit for it. That’s just how I’m going to operate. I’m proud of how Caleb played, but it’s one game. Got a game on Saturday, do it again.”
On Love getting taking 8 foul shots: “We’ve noticed his free throw rate is a little bit down from last year. I don’t think there’s anything like tactically that we’ve talked about. We want him getting to the free throw line, and he did a good job of it today. He’s got to find a good mix of hunting catch-and-shoot shots and drives and playing in transition.”
On why he started Anthony Dell’Orso over Carter Bryant: “Trying things. I don’t profess to have all the answers. You guys know I’m not a guy … shakes up starting lineups often. I will once in a while, if I think it can help our team. But I just felt like at the start of these games, maybe a little more shooting could help us. And listen, Delly was shooting like, coming into the game was like 52 percent from 3, and against UCLA I didn’t get him enough minutes. So I wanted to see what it looks like with him starting. The funny thing is, guys, believe it or not, I don’t have the magic pixie dust because he didn’t start well. But we did. So we’ll take some positives from that.”
On Bryant’s play: “He’s growing in the program, guys. Today’s the first day we kind of played him some some minutes at the 4. Maybe I could have did that earlier. When Big Mo was looming and coming back and going to be at the center of the nucleus of our team, you have to kind of plan for that. If he’s in there, it kind of maybe knocks Henri down to some more minutes at the 4, so all these things kind of happen. But the biggest thing is, the 4 and the 3 in our system in the way we play, they’re just, it’s a little bit different movement patterns. And sometimes for a freshman it could be a lot. Carter, he’s had a steep learning curve, but he’s climbing that.I thought he really impacted the game and played well.”
On Bryant coming along slowly: “The 4 and 3 in our system for a first year player, it could be a little confusing. You know who figured it out? A kid named Pelle Larson. He figured it out with ease, so it was easy to kind of do different things, lineup wise, with him. Carter, with a little more experience, I think we’ll be able to do that as well.
“He’s finding his way, and everyone runs their own race, and I’m really confident Carter’s race is gonna end up in a good place. Just like our team, we’re going through it. You gotta kind of hang in there. It’s been a month. A month is not going to define Arizona basketball, or it shouldn’t even define our season. Now it impacts it, 100 percent it impacts it, but it doesn’t define it. So let’s fight for the result we want, and that’s what we’re doing. And I think Carter’s doing the same.”
On facing TJ McConnell while at Gonzaga: “TJ McConnell versus another kid named Kevin Pangos. Wow. Two complete studs getting after it. They both went on and, Kevin had a cup of coffee in the NBA, but he’s crushed it in Europe at the highest levels. TJ, obviously, has had a lot more, he’s had a full keg in the NBA. Those two guys are studs, and any college basketball coach who could get a player like that would wrap their arms and take him in a second.”
On Emmanuel Stephen scoring on his first career attempt: “Heck of a tip in. Just what we drew up.”
On deciding to play Stephen for the first time: “He’s ready. We’re going to see how it works, because we think he’s ready to contribute. He probably needs another week or two of good practice, and then, so we kind of figure out some packages we can play with him in that makes sense for him. But hey, when you see him, your eyes are on him, right? There’s always something happening. I mean, he’s kind of a whirling dervish out there, which is exciting, because there’s so much potential.”
Love on his performance: “Just seeing a ball through the hoop, that was a great feeling. But I give all my credit to my teammates, because they put me in position. I was moving a little bit more, and I know I got to do that for the team, for the spacing. I just kind of got in the rhythm from there.”
On starting off with a made 3: “If you see the first one go through, you’re feeling good with yourself. You just want to take the best shots as possible as you can. I give my credit to my teammates for the creating for me. That’s just good basketball, not just me. When we move on the ball I feel like we’re at our best.”
On getting to the line: “Finally. I had only shot 12 free throws coming into the game, and to shoot eight tonight, it felt good.”
On his confidence: “When you’re not shooting the ball well, or making shots that you usually make in practice, or workouts, you get in your head a little bit. You just got to double down on your workouts and double down on your faith, and still believe that you can make those shots. My teammates got confidence in me, my coaches got confidence in me. It shouldn’t be a question about my confidence.”
On dealing with the slow team start: “We just got to still believe that we’re a great team. In the summer time, we felt like we had a great group of guys and we could be the best team in the country. And just because we’re 5-5 and struggling early on, that shouldn’t take our belief away. We got to continue to build and build each and every game. We just got to take it game by game. And I think it’s just opportunity for us to make this a great story.”
Townsend on dealing with the press: “We’ve had a good week of preparation for them. Our scout team did a great job with the pressure throughout the week to try to get us ready for it. We really focused on fundamentals throughout the week, so we were prepared. We knew they were gonna be pressing, trapping the whole game, and for the most part I was happy with how everyone did. They stayed poised, and we’re able to kind of be with ease for most of the majority of the game.”
On facing two straight teams that force a lot of turnovers: “They’re both very aggressive. Obviously, we got to experience that this past weekend, but it just came down to being fundamentally sound like I said we worked on a lot this week, and just being tough with the ball. Once we were focused on the fundamentals and just being tough, everything just came easier to people. We were slowing ourselves down seeing passes instead of letting the defense dictate our speed, we were trying to let our offense dictate the defense.”
On the goal for Saturday’s game vs. Central Michigan: “Try to play a full 40 minutes. Obviously, we were close to that today, but there was a three, four-minute stretch where we kind of slowed down. I still don’t think we’ve played a full 40 minutes.”