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UCLA men’s basketball guards Johnny Juzang and Jules Bernard talked to reporters following the Bruins’ 84-81 loss to Oregon on Thursday night, breaking down what exactly went wrong, the Ducks’ superior intensity and what the message was from coach Mick Cronin at halftime and after the game. 

Tough loss, what do you take from this?

Jules Bernard: Obviously we have to learn from our mistakes this game and we’re not done. We played poorly today and it’s past us. We’re definitely going to study and realize what we did wrong this game and come into Saturday with our heads high and to get a win for our team.

What went wrong?

Johnny Juzang: I mean, we just – We could’ve probably got some better offensive (inaudible) down the stretch. In a close game like that, you gotta capitalize. But I think the main thing is we just need to get stops. They have talented guys but we got to come up with stops down the stretch and we just didn’t do that. We got to tighten up. Close games like that, against good teams, you can’t have any mistakes, and we had a lot.

JB: I think we had timely mistakes too. There were times where either they were pushing ahead or we were surging back and they had the lead. Or we had the lead and they were chipping away. We had timely mistakes and defensive lapses, ill-advised shots. There were a lot of mistakes. It’s hard to pinpoint one, but definitely tough shots, turnovers, and getting stops, rebounds on the defensive end.

Bad practice day on Wednesday?

JJ: We weren’t as sharp yesterday in practice, didn’t have the energy probably that we needed. I thought how we recovered, focused, locked in, high energy shootaround, but if you want to be the best team or one of the best teams in the country, it’s got to be every single day, so we need all of it. I thought we could try to pick it back up today but yeah, we need to bring more aggression in practice. Gotta get all the preparations in, gotta prepare to win, as coach says.

JB: I think greatness requires consistency. Coach talks about it in practices, we have to prepare to win. We had a tough practice yesterday, and you could sort of see it in our game today. But I feel like we had a concerted effort this morning in shootaround like Johnny said, but it's all about consistency. We have to have practices that are intense and high energy all the time. In practice, we have to prepare to win. Like you today, teams are, especially with the spotlight and being the top team and playing a great team like Oregon was, teams are coming out and trying to go at us. That's what cost us today. Being prepared for teams like that is extremely important, and we didn't do that yesterday.

Longer halftime in locker room? Coach teach you how to pass?

JJ: Yeah, just moving the defense, getting the ball to new spots on the floor is something we need to do better. Probably getting better in the second half, but, again, we got to do this (inaudible). Great team, it's consistency, you have to do it all game long. When you play a good team (inaudible) big goals, big aspirations to do something special. Just got to have better consistency. (inaudible, something about better activity level in second half) is something we've got to improve on.

Being hungry and humble – got away from you a bit?

JB: It's tough to say, but you have to give credit to Oregon. They were a great team. Regardless of their record, they had games that they were very close in. Their record could definitely be completely different. And in their recent games they've been hot. So we knew coming in that they were a very capable team, a great team in the Pac-12 and they have history in this league with winning. (inaudible). They came in and they were ready to fight and play. Then players got hot. When you let players like Young and Richardson and Harmon and even their big man get hot and build that energy, it's tough to cool them down. But that's us. That's what it comes to – consistency. Just coming out of the gate, shutting all them (inaudible) to let them.. (inaudible).

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