Golden Nuggets: Post-Game Reaction from Cal’s Win Over UNLV

Men’s Basketball

(if you’re having audio problems, it’s not you, don’t know why the volume on the MBB conferences are so low, its not the first time)

There’s a pretty lengthy transcript provided from Cal Athletics so I will only paste a few here.

Mark Fox

Overall thoughts: “That was a hard-fought game. That was a great college basketball game and we beat a very well-coached UNLV team, a team that was very determined throughout the night to win. I was proud of our kids’ competitive endurance to keep playing and to play through some mistakes and to make plays. I talked about it probably six or seven of the timeouts during the game, is just keep competing — have a competitive endurance about you. We kept battling and, in the end, found a way to win. So, really proud of our team.”

On the difference in Cal’s play in the last five minutes of regulation: “I thought the difference — and I told the kids at halftime — I said the first team that starts playing defense is going to win. I didn’t think either team particularly was great defensively in the first half. But in the second half, both teams decided to start playing defense so I think what the difference in the game was, was the turnovers. In the second half, they had 12, we had five. I thought that was really what was the deciding factor. We just kept battling, we just kept playing hard and found a way to win.”

Joel Brown

On his 3-point shooting: “I think the opportunity presented itself. They left me open so for me it was just a confident thing of shooting. Off the court and in practice, I have really been working on that and tonight was the perfect opportunity to kind of get it going. When the first one dropped, I knew that it was good, and then from there just going.”

On how much it helped on defense having Juhwan Harris-Dyson back:”It was great, just having him back 100 percent healthy now, just having another athletic body — someone who is active defensively and works hard is a great feeling.”

Kareem South

On his team’s ability to stay composed even when they were down: “Coach Fox always reminds us to stay even — never too high, never too low. Tonight was just an example of that.”

On his team’s defense down the stretch: “I think down the stretch we were very locked in, we forced deflections and we were also able to get rebounds when it mattered. At the beginning, I have to give credit to UNLV’s guard play, they did a really good job. Defensively I think we just picked it up when it was the moment of truth. We locked in and got the stops.”

On what a win like this can mean moving forward in the season: “I think this is what is going to shape out identity, is just our toughness. Like I said, in the moment of truth, it is about the team that is more tough and I think that’s what we showed today. Again, we are just going to keep on trusting the process and trust what our coach has told us for the next game plan to succeed.”

• Post-Game Notes from the game, find out (among other things) the last time Cal won an overtime game!
• There’s a solid chance the Bears could be undefeated when they play Duke next week? Wouldn’t that be something?

Football

• Find out all the things that let the offense finally show some life against the Cougars.
• Makai Polk is known as “Showtime Makai” on social media and he earned that nickname with his first collegiate touchdown last Saturday. See how his friends reacted to the play.