WATCH: Jaime Jaquez Jr. on UCLA's Margins of Victory, Fast Break Offense
UCLA men’s basketball guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. talked to reporters about his team’s win over Marquette, the takeaways from the stressful travel weekend and what he thinks are the reasons for the Bruins’ recent dip in field goal percentage.
JAIME JAQUEZ JR.
Flight home a little less eventful than the one out there?
Yeah, very smooth, got back pretty late but got some rest and took the day off, it was good.
Handling Marquette's press?
I think towards the beginning, we handled it well. Towards the end, they kind of turned up the heat a little bit, we made some errors that we probably shouldn't have. But overall, I think we handled it well, we knew what we needed to do, tried to do anything we can to get the win and that's what we did.
Shot selection a reason for recent field goal percentage dip as a team?
Yeah, it's something we talked about in practice yesterday. Shot selection is one of them, but another thing is just fast break points, I think that's kind of an area where we're lacking. Fast break points, easy layups is kind of what brings your percentage up and if we're just scoring in the half court, trying to get layups there and shooting jump shots, it's gonna go down a little bit. So I think that's just kind of our main thing, trying to get more on-the-break points.
Ready to have to win by a lot in order to move up in the NET like coach was talking about?
Yeah, I mean, when we're going into a game, we always wanna play our best, do whatever we can to win by the greatest margin necessary, especially with how the NET rankings are and how that implements how we're gonna be into the tournament. So we're just gonna go in, play our best and try to win by as many as possible.
Thoughts on that being part of the NET rankings?
I don't really have an opinion about it, I kinda just play. Yeah, I don't really – that's not something I think about when I go out on the floor. So that's what they do, that's what they do, whether I'm a fan of it or not, it doesn't really matter. It's how it is, so it's how it is.
Home games at Pauley without students on campus?
We're just excited to have as many fans as we can. As of last year, anything is better than nothing at this point. I think it shows that we're very appreciative of any fans being there, it's important to us.
Sister come to all the games?
She tries to. She's in her season now, my brother's in his season so she tries whenever she can to get out. She's been to probably a few now, I don't have the number, but she's been out to a bunch of games.
Is she lobbying to keep you around so you can be here at the same time?
We haven't had that conversation yet but that would be something that would be really cool, really special to have.
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