Quotes, video off UConn's win over UCF

Some video and quotes off UConn's 67-60 win over UCF Thursday night at Gampel:

KEVIN OLLIE:

“Start of the game, I really liked our aggressiveness. We wanted to get back to playing UConn basketball.”

“We just relaxed. Good teams can’t relax. But, I was proud of our guys in the second half. To hold that team to 60 points, when they were averaging 75 in the American Conference, that’s a pretty good job by our defense. Now, we’ve just got to understand, to win games in big-time environments, we’ve got to do a better job at the free throw line.”

(on UConn's 21 assists to eight turnovers)

“I’ll take that ratio, any day ... It’s hard to guard when you’ve got 21 assists.”

(playing at Gampel)

“It felt great. Our crowd was great. The student section was jumping up and down, and we felt the energy. It’s just great to be back home. It seems like we haven’t been home in like a month, and we haven’t played here in, like, two months. Just to get a little home-cookin’, come out here and play, and let our fans know we’re gonna come out and play with energy and passion.”

“Hopefully, they keep coming out, because we need them."

(on Omar Calhoun's powerful, where-did-that-come-from? slam dunk)

“That was pretty nice. Then Daniel came back with a dunk after that. To see that explosiveness, I know Omar’s getting back to himself. To make that play was big-time.”

RYAN BOATRIGHT:

“That’s what we’ve been looking for all year, man, to come out like we did in that first half, with that intensity and that ball pressure on the defensive end. It was fun being out there. Everybody was sharing the basketball. There was a lot of energy in the crowd. I tell the guys all the time, if we can start the game like that, we’ll be in every game.”

“That’s always disappointing when you make the game harder than it’s got to be. Once you get a team down 18, you’ve got to step on their neck and put them away. That’s what teams do to us. You get down 13, they try to kill us and put us away. But, young team ... it’s a learning process.”

“If we can get the big man to take one step forward, he’s gonna catch that lob all day long.”

“I love playing at Gampel. To get the students here early, they’re rowdy, and then the crowd is magnificent when we play in Gampel. I don’t know why we don’t play as much in Gampel, but I wish we did, definitely.”

HAMILTON:



(on his steal that thwarted a 3-on-1 UCF fast break that could've cut its deficit to four with just over 7 minutes left)

“I knew he was gonna pass the ball. I knew he was gonna try to dish it to the big man so he could get a dunk. I acted like I was gonna play him, and I slid back and got a steal, and we got a fast break.”

(on Calhoun's dunk)

“That caught me by surprise. That caught me by surprise. I’ve seen him do a couple of dunks in warm-ups, but I’ve never seen them in a game, so that caught me by surprise a little bit.”