here<\/a>. Below is what Lloyd, senior Tobe Awaka and freshmen Koa Peat and Dwayne Aristode said about the victory, Arizona\u2019s sixth in a row by at least 20 points:<\/p>\nLloyd on the 1st half: \u201cI think we just kind of had to find our rhythm and our flow a little bit. Give San Diego State a lot of credit, they came out with a game plan where they were really forcing us to play outside in. They were really heavy in that first gap. They were going under a lot of our ball screens. We really haven\u2019t faced that much conviction with that defense. So I think it just took a while for our guys to get comfortable in the game. So sometimes you got to make a decision, maybe today is not the day you shoot it as good as we hoped. There\u2019s lots of ways to win, and if you can win in the effort areas, which we did today, that\u2019ll go a long way to helping it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Awaka: \u201cIf people aren\u2019t paying attention, I don\u2019t know what to tell them. It was amazing what he did. To be honest with you, the only guy I can compare him with, with just how he impacts a game with effort and toughness, is Domas Sabonis. An NBA All-Star. I know Tobe\u2019s putting hisemlf on people\u2019s radar with just the force he\u2019s playing with and how much better he\u2019s gotten. It\u2019s crazy impressive. And you know what, I\u2019m going to give credit to Big Mo, too. Big Mo, he was always kind of an offensive-minded player. An offseason project was kind of trying to rewire him. He takes one shot today, they were double teaming him. He had a couple turnovers I\u2019m sure he\u2019s not happy about, but he has 13 rebounds, and he impacts the game defensively. He draws five fouls. Those two, the combination of those two, man, I\u2019m telling you.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Aristode: \u201cDwayne played some of his most valuable minutes, his offensive rebounding. The dive, that play when he dove on the floor in the second half was big time. And then, sticking that three, and then he also had a couple great drives, jump stops, to kick outs.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Peat\u2019s return to Phoenix: \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to come back home. He started off good then had a couple fouls and I\u2019m kind of managing the game. And I\u2019m sure he wanted to go back in. I just kind of decided not to do for those last couple minutes (of the first half), because I was hoping it was manageable. But we got down seven, and I was thinking about it, but then we made that quick 8-0 run at the end of the half.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the poor 3-point shooting: \u201cThey\u2019re playing with a ball they\u2019ve never played with before. That can be difficult, it just has a different feel. You\u2019re not making excuses, because, I think both teams probably suffered from it. They were 1 for 14 from 3 and their only one was a bank. And coming into the game, they were shooting 41 percent from 3 as a team. The plan wasn\u2019t to let San Diego State shoot open threes and they\u2019re going to miss in an NBA arena. That just happens sometimes. I just proud of the way our guys hung with it, because then that can be a little bit frustrating to think you\u2019re heavy in the gaps and and you\u2019re missing a few shots you want to make, but we hit the ones at the right time, and we were kind of able to get a knockout punch in that second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
On playing with a \u2018new\u2019 ball: \u201cWhen you\u2019re playing these events there\u2019s a sponsor. The ball is probably fine, I\u2019m not here to bash the ball, it\u2019s just if you haven\u2019t been using it. Could you imagine baseball, if they played with a different style of baseball? They don\u2019t do that. They have a standardized one. And we just don\u2019t have that in college basketball. You\u2019re seeing a lot of Nike balls, a lot of Wilson balls. You just don\u2019t see many Spaldings. The Spalding kind of throws our guys for a little bit of a curve, but I\u2019m sure there\u2019s been other nights where we\u2019ve shot the ball well, tonight just wasn\u2019t the night. Maybe we\u2019ll chop it up to great defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
On what he said during halftime: \u201cI told them this is how I thought the game might go. There\u2019s no reason to feel bad. We obviously didn\u2019t play our best in the first half and you\u2019re up one, because we made a nice little run there. And I just really challenged our guys. What happens if we come out and hit first. It probably doesn\u2019t get enough attention, but you we\u2019re also a pretty good defensive team, and I thought our guys did a great job just being sticky and having constant ball pressure on these guys and in the right spots in the gaps. I mean, you hold a team that good to 26 percent shooting? I mean man, that\u2019s impressive. That really was the story of the game. It was our man-to-man defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
On playing in Phoenix: \u201cIt\u2019s special when we come up here and we want to keep building it. Obviously, we really value our fans that come out with the support we get up here, and I think there\u2019s a lot more potential. I think we got to kind of go back to the drawing board and figure out, how we could make this a bigger and better event for the University of Arizona, because it\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the quick turnaround with a Monday game: \u201cWe\u2019ll come meet in the afternoon, go over Monday\u2019s game plan, kind of a light practice, and come out Monday and have the same effort energy we\u2019ve had in the other games this year. It\u2019s obviously been a good start, but we want to keep pushing. We know this is a long season, and we also respect that no one knows how things look in a week or two, so you just gotta keep going at it day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Awaka on his rebounding: \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s just whatever I can do to help the team win at the end of the day. If it\u2019s scoring 15,if it\u2019s getting 15 rebounds, so be it. Five blocks, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n
On leading the nation in offensive and defensive rebounding percentage: \u201cI didn\u2019t know that. At the end of the day, it\u2019s just when the shot goes up, go chase the ball. The stats and stuff are cool, I know people are going to bring it up. As long as we win that\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
On having only one turnover in the 2nd half after 10 in the 1st half: \u201cJust stay poised. We know what kind of team they are in terms of their full court press and what they do defensively. I think it\u2019s just getting a feel for the game, seeing what the style is like, how they\u2019re playing. At halftime we\u2019re going to make an adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peat on returning to Phoenix: \u201cIt felt great. When they announced my name in the starting lineup I had goosebumps, the cheering and all that. It was great to come back to Phoenix and be victorious like that. And just just to see the U of A fans in this stands like that, them cheering us on, getting us hyped, it was really cool to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his fan section: \u201cMy whole family came out and supported me like they always do. I mean, they\u2019re coming out in Tucson too, and supporting me down there too. But it\u2019s special to see them and see all my friends. I was just out there for like 10 minutes just talking to them, it was real special.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the 2nd half: \u201cWe also started playing with swag.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aristode on the 3-point shooting: \u201cWe just had to stay confident about the shot. I think we\u2019re a good 3-point shooting team. Some days we might not hit 3-pointers but second half we found a way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX\u2014For the third consecutive December Arizona played a nonconference game in the same arena in the state\u2019s capital.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43772,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-103547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-arizona-basketball","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}