On UCLA’s health:
“They seem pretty healthy. Reeves’ eye looks bad but seems to be OK. Honeycutt is banged up a little bit. But today he played without the covering on his shin for the first time. For the most part, we’re healthy, knock on wood.”

On Tyler Honeycutt, and if he’ll see more minutes:
“He produces. Our identity has been being a good defensive team. We’re going to play the guys who defend best and try to get good starts that way. His first two games have been against two very good opponents. It hasn’t been easy. As he gets more experience, he’s going to get settled down.”

On the team schedule:
“You make these schedules years in advance. I did a poor job with this schedule. You want to build some confidence by getting some wins early in the season. We really haven’t had them. It beats you down after a while. We have to be mentally tough. We are where we are.”

On the team’s improvement:
“There has definitely been some improvement. It’s hard sometimes to judge that when you look at the last three or four games. I thought we played really hard and well against Butler. Those other two games, we did not. We’ve had a change in the lineup with Gordon being out. I thought we played hard and competed against Kansas, but they’re just better than us. I was really disappointed and frustrated by (the) Mississippi State (game). We watched the film in its entirety yesterday as a team. These kids care. We have good kids and they care. They want to win.”