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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DENVERMarch 19, 2016Mark FewEric McClellanDomantas SabonisDenver, Colorado Gonzaga - 82, Utah - 59 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to get with Gonzaga. Coach, just some comments on today's game. COACH FEW: Well, wow, it was just a tremendous effort by my guys. I mean, in a short turnaround preparation, try to get ready for a team like Utah, and they're really, really difficult to get ready for because they're so thorough on both sides of the ball, just I thought the staff did an amazing job. I mean, we played as good as probably we've played all year on it is biggest stage. From where we were in early December or even mid February where we had a couple stumbles to now, these guys deserve all the credit for staying positive and believing in themselves and making plays. I said before, I've never been as satisfied and happy, you know, just thoroughly, thoroughly pleased with a group, with just how they've responded and gotten so much better over the course of this year. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athletes. Q. Eric, what was the team's reaction to getting the 11 seed? Were you surprised by it at all? ERIC McCLELLAN: I wouldn't say that. I would say that we were more focused on the task at hand. It was a blessing just getting in the tournament. Like coach said, from where we were in December, even February, to where we are now, from the media saying the guards weren't good enough, we weren't producing, to where we are now, just extremely proud of our guys. Our focus was to focus on the task at hand and get ready for Seton Hall. The seeding didn't really matter. Q. Talk about the guards, the notion that the guards have been the team's weak link. How much of a motivating factor has that been for you? ERIC McCLELLAN: For me, I've been able to play college basketball for four or five years. My job is to get those guys mentally prepared. We had a group talk as guards. I sat down with the guys, I told them, Stay away from all the noise. There's a lot of noise out there, but just stay away from it. We know how hard we worked. We know what we put into our games. We believe in each other, in our coaching staff, they believe in us. That was just our main focus, man. It wasn't a motivating factor. When you do things, you know, outside of the realm of the locker room, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. That's what I wanted to stress to our guys. Q. When you know you're playing against a guy like Poeltl on the other side, is there any added juice there going into a matchup? DOMANTAS SABONIS: Sure. Obviously he's very talented. Of course, I was a bit excited to play against him. Our main focus was to win the game. I'm happy my teammates helped me out. Q. How did you go from a team that people weren't sure would make it to the tournament to now being in the Sweet 16? What was the magic formula? COACH FEW: Listening to their coaches (smiling). ERIC McCLELLAN: That's what I was going to say. Just being coachable. Especially for me and J.P. we worked so hard in the spring and summer. We knew how bad we wanted it. We weren't the most coachable guys at the beginning of the season because we wanted it so badly and we wanted it so quick. But just continuing to believe in ourselves, staying focused, trusting these guys. These guys are legends. They've been in this position so many times. We just wanted to, you know, come out here, you know, and just leave it all on the line. That goes for the last month or so. For the last month or so, I think we've been playing the best basketball. Q. Was there pressure? Gonzaga made the tournament 17 years in a row before this year. You didn't want to be the group that ended that run. ERIC McCLELLAN: No question. No question. Like I said before, my job was to get those guys mentally prepared, just stay away from all the noise. By the way we were playing, the way we've been playing, you couldn't tell if there's been any pressure on us. We've been playing free, we've been playing confident, we've been playing loose. Most importantly, we've been playing together. There's no magic formula. Just continue to be coachable, continue to stay focused, working hard and having fun. Q. Was there a point in the game in the second half that you felt that Utah quit? DOMANTAS SABONIS: I don't know. Like, we just stuck to the plan as a team. We listened to the coaches and we kept on doing what we had to do on the court. Everything from there just went on working really well. Q. Domas, they gave it in to Poeltl at the beginning of the second half. They posted him up on you. The ball never got to the backboard. Can you tell me what you remember from that play? DOMANTAS SABONIS: I don't really recall. What play? Q. At the very start of the second half, their first possession, you were guarding Poeltl, he tried to take a hook shot. I couldn't tell if you blocked it. Do you remember anything about that? DOMANTAS SABONIS: Not really. Probably just contested it. Q. Anyone? ERIC McCLELLAN: I definitely don't remember it. Q. What is this team capable of doing? Seems like you are getting better every game? How much further do you think you can go? ERIC McCLELLAN: Our job is just to focus on the next game. Whoever we're playing, just to come prepared, staying focused like I said. It's cliché, but just continue to take care of the process. When we've been able to do that, we've been at our best. Just being coachable. Like I said, just having fun, man. Not worrying about all the outside stuff, the media, the talk. Just continue to trust ourselves, believe in each other and let the chips fall where they may. Q. Coach, what are the elements that have gone into this tournament run that you are at your best right now? COACH FEW: Are you speaking specifically this year or... Q. Just coming into the tournament and through the first two games. COACH FEW: You know, I think there's a couple factors that lined up there. I mean, I don't think any of us can deny there's a little bit of a sense of desperation that we faced, our backs we knew were kind of pressed up against the wall. We had a talk in the locker room, fight or flight, man. It's human nature. We lined up and we all chose to fight and not to flight. We all kind of agreed that would be the plan. These guys have done a wonderful job of just winning the next game, you know, not looking at this whole big picture, reading about, Well, boy, you're not projected to do this, you're not projected to do that. We just needed to win the next game. Strategically I think we've played with more balance. That's really helped us. I think early in the year we were getting such dominating performances from Domas and Wilch, with the guards. It was on me also. We were really telling them to look inside, look inside, get these guys touches. We're a much better team now. Any of those five can get 20, even six, sometimes Silas can come in and do some things. Then the last thing I would say is this whole process with the RPI and the analysis and overanalysis and all that, we were a unique team. We had these losses, but literally, I don't know, maybe five of them were on the last possession. We had led games for literally 38 minutes sometimes and had leads in the second half. We were never, ever, ever in a position where anybody blew us out or anything. We played a very difficult schedule. I felt like, again, this is for later stuff, but we need to do a way better job. The RPI has a tendency to really skew some things one way or another. Everybody gets obsessed with that. All of a sudden you're out of the tournament. We haven't played a bad game this year. We've had some bad stretches, maybe in the last five minutes or something against Arizona and UCLA, and at Saint Mary's we fumbled and bumbled around. We haven't played a bad game, we haven't laid an egg. I haven't had a team that did that. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time. Thank you, gentlemen. We'll continue with questions for Coach Few. Q. Do you feel like the Selection Committee missed the boat a little bit on you guys? COACH FEW: No, I mean, not really, probably not. Everybody just gets fixated on this RPI, kind of the numbers. Then it becomes a circular argument because it's, like, Okay, if you don't believe in the RPI, but, gee, they don't have many top-50 wins. Well, that's based on the RPI. There's so much interest and now everybody's got an opinion on it, a lot of really intelligent people, I think we come up with maybe a composite number or something that might help. As I said, we were a unique team. We literally came down, except the SMU game, really came down to the last possession. We either had a shot, didn't get a stop, then we had to foul. It might have ended up four, but it came down to a last possession, which is just crazy. Our numbers weren't great. They kind of seed off the RPI. That was fine. End of the day we're playing our best basketball of the year at the right time. The guys are confident. They're making plays. They're having fun. It's working. Q. You said part of the reason the guards got better is because maybe they needed to get more involved. Was there anything else? COACH FEW: They needed to become more coachable. They'll tell you that. I think they're a product of a generation that when you get corrected, you have this tendency to take it personally. Boom, heads would go down. Their confidence or whatever. It's just like, Hey, we're just telling you to do this on the ball screen. I didn't tell you, you know, you're a bad player. I said, Make the right read on the ball screen or do this defensively. So there's a little bit of that. Again, these are guys that, you know, in some cases the freshmen hadn't really had to deal with that. In other cases maybe the other players haven't processed it well. They made a change. They've been very attentive. We have a lot of details with our scouting report. They've done an incredible job with their attention to details on the scouting report. We are playing with way more balance, spreading it out. We're really getting a lot of mileage out of doubling the post. Utah was doubling the post tonight. We were throwing out, and those guys were making plays. They were not only shooting threes, but we were driving closeouts, which led to some easy baskets. Q. What did you do from a defensive standpoint to really slow down their perimeter guys? COACH FEW: We were really concerned with Loveridge. Loveridge, especially, he's the one guy we didn't want to get going from three. Myself, I was really concerned with Taylor. I thought he loves to take big shots. When stuff wasn't going great, I watched on a lot of the tapes that he started to take over. That was the dilemma that we had. We knew we had to double the big fella. Then we got three or four different ways that we double. We tried to test each and every one of them, mix it up a little bit so we didn't get comfortable with it. I thought we rotated and scrambled out of our doubles as well as we have all year. Again, this group of guys deserves all the credit in the world under a short prep. We had an hour on the floor here yesterday. They picked it up and executed it really well. Q. How freeing, if at all, is it to be a lower seed as opposed to a one or two with a target on your back? COACH FEW: You know what, I could sit here and say it doesn't matter. It's a different feeling. I've been a one, I've been a two, I think I've been a three, probably a four. I don't know. Having been both, at least with this particular group, because we were under a lot of pressure early, it didn't go as well. It's been really comforting and freeing, we can go into these games and kind of just let it rip, play great basketball, play confident. I think certainly these last two games have shown that. I thought we did a great job in our league tournament of playing like that, even though we were the two seed. Certainly we want to keep that thing rolling. I think we'll be in a great situation in Chicago. No matter how anybody wants to dress it up, I don't think we should have any expectations on us. Q. Sabonis really dominated inside. COACH FEW: He does that a lot. It's not a first-night deal. Q. In this game what swung it in his way so much? COACH FEW: He's a really, really aggressive and tough, tough kid. If you haven't faced him or felt him, you know, live, I think there's an adjustment period. He's getting better and better and better every week this season goes along. He adds just a little bit more. Now he's facing up and shooting the ball extremely well from the elbow and even out to three. He's also getting more adept at driving, as well as his post moves. Today I thought he hurt them early with some nice offensive rebound putbacks. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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