Ryan Boatright: "Now I know how Shabazz felt"

First New Year's Eve, now Super Bowl Sunday -- another awful loss for UConn in Houston. What more can we say? We'll let Ryan Boatright and Kevin Ollie do the talking:

BOATRIGHT:



“I kept going over, talking to K.O., he did a great job of helping me stay in the game, staying mentally tough, keep playing. Even though you’re getting hit, you’ve got to play through it, you can’t dwell on it.”

(on Amida Brimah's fifth foul)

“Ridiculous. Every time we come down here, tough, there’s a call like that. Last year, we lost when (TaShawn Thomas), they called a crazy foul (for) him. I just don’t understand. There’s three seconds on the clock, he caught the ball with his back to the basket. You know he’s trying to do a move that he’s not comfortable doing. Personally, it looked like he slipped to me. But that’s the referee’s call, you’ve got to live with it.”

“I’ve just got to continue to lead, continue to play UConn basketball. I never set out to play outside of the system. Today I shot 26 shots, I didn’t even know that. I don’t like shooting that much, personally. But it was called for.”

“I’m trying to play within the system and let everybody eat.”

“Now, I know how Shabazz felt last year in some games. I can honestly see what he was going through sometimes.”

OLLIE:



(on Houston committing just one turnover)

"You’ve got to get a little bit more ball pressure, take a little bit more gambles, getting in the passing lane a little bit. Because we need cheap buckets. We have a hard time now scoring in halfcourt. That’s been all year, that’s been one of our deficiencies.”

(on relying on Boatright)

“It’s a tough situation, any time you’re getting double- and triple-teamed. I’m not gonna talk about the refs, but some of those calls, he’s going to the bucket, he’s getting hit, and for some reason they’re not making the calls that I see out there. But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to leave the refs alone. He’s got to play his game. He’s got the heart of a champion. He tried to will us to a victory, but it was a little bit too late.”

“He’s got three guys draped on him. You’ve got to make the passes. We wanted to establish Amida. He got one dunk, but he got in foul trouble. I’m not gonna run an AAU team, he comes down and just run pick-and-roll and jack up on three people.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to have a pity party for ourselves. Nobody’s gonna help us out of this. We’ve got to help ourselves out of it by playing hard, looking at the tape, everybody coming in, chipping in and doing their part. We’re gonna play hard each and every game, until the end of the season.”

(on why UConn started off playing zone)

“They’ve got two 6-7 guys, and I wanted to keep Amida out of foul trouble. I knew they were gonna isolate Amida with Pollard. That was our matchup. He’s a 6-7 three-man. He can put it on the floor, he can shoot, so it’s a mismatch problem for Amida. I didn’t want to get him with a quick foul.”