WATCH: Jaime Jaquez Jr. on Friendly Fire Injury, Playing Topgolf with UCLA Teammates
UCLA men’s basketball guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. talked to reporters about the Bruins’ upcoming game against Colorado, taking an elbow to the head from Myles Johnson and playing Topgolf with his teammates.
JAIME JAQUEZ JR.
How are you recovering?
Ah, I'm fine, yeah. Yeah, nothing really big, I guess, just stitches. Other than that, I'm good.
Jake gives advice on dealing with Myles' elbow-related injuries?
Yeah, he told me to watch out. That's pretty much it, it's kinda hard, big guy.
Back to Topgolf?
Yeah, I was honestly hoping you'd ask me about that question. So yeah, we did go back to Topgolf, and I know Jaylen had some words to say, but what he did was he got the score before we got to finish the game. So when he was above me, if you could see on the right, there's shots, there was 20 shots and I think I was at 15 or 12, so it wasn't the full game, he just got it when he was above, so that's all I gotta say.
How did it finish?
Tyler won. Tyler, our trainer, he won. Topgolf, it's kinda – it's fun, but I don't know how accurate it is, if you know what I mean.
Who were players 14 and 17?
Oh, I don't even remember. I don't even remember who those were. I know Tyler finished first, that's all I remember.
Going to get on an actual course?
Yeah, I think that's something we're gonna have to do. It's busy during the season, so maybe after, postseason we'll be able to get out there and go play some holes, so that'll be fun.
Johnny said you guys were going to play nine?
We were able to. We went last – or I guess this past – offseason before and we went to the range a couple of times. And it was just fun getting out there, having some fun, not too serious.
Unique about Colorado?
I think they've got the big man Evan Battey back, so we obviously know he's a huge part in how they play. They're a great team, they play with great toughness and it's gonna be a battle for us here in Westwood.
Know Battey well? Know about his stroke?
Yeah, I know him pretty well. We played in the summer together, worked out a couple times and obviously playing throughout the Pac-12, so yeah, he's a great guy, and it's gonna be fun to have him back here. It's always fun going against him.
Going to get matched up with him?
Uh, I mean, I don't know, we gotta go through the game plan, we'll see this week how that's gonna work out. I know Myles is our big guy, so probably maybe start him on Evan, but other than that, we kind of just see how the flow of the game goes.
Posting up more often this year?
Yeah, it's something I've worked on this offseason for sure, just understand when I have a smaller guy on me to take advantage of my size and my strength and be able to create for myself and my teammates from the post. So yeah, that's something I've worked on this past offseason.
Hard defensive-oriented practices lead into UNLV game?
Yeah, for sure. I think just kinda going back to entering the Gonzaga game, I don't think we were as prepared defensively, mentally, just from our collective team standpoint and going into the UNLV game, we understood and we were very able to see from the film how much, how drastically we needed to improve our defense. And a game like that will show you against playing against such a great team, it'll show you where your holes are and we were able to try to fix that in practice leading up to UNLV.
Hardest practices of the season?
Uh, I mean, yeah, it's pretty early, so they were pretty tough practices, but it's early to say. I know preseason was very tough, but we're kind of just going back to practicing with that mindset going forward.
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