GEICO PLAYERS ERA MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP

November 27, 2025

Josh Pastner

MGM Grand Garden Arena

UNLV Rebels

Postgame Press Conference

Rutgers 80, UNLV 65

JOSH PASTNER: Okay, first off, credit to Rutgers. I thought the first half up 39-33 and the second half they came out with more energy, so credit to Coach Pikiell and his team. It was pretty much a tale of two halves.

Obviously I felt all three games we played in this tournament we looked small. I just thought we were a small team. We were definitely the smallest team in this field and part of that is because our three 5 men were out with injuries.

You know, we've just got to -- as I said, tough week for sure, but we'll get better. We need to get, first and foremost, get healthy, need to get some guys back, and through time, we'll just keep improving and plugging along, with all of our focus and energy towards making sure that we're as ready as we can be when we inter-conference play in later December.

I hope we start making some threes, too. That would awfully help, too. There's two things we're not good at right now -- there's a couple things we're not good at, but the most glaring are we foul and we're not making threes. Those are the two things.

We've done a good job of taking care of the ball. There's some other things we've done. We're just not making shots, and it just becomes really hard offensively because they're so packed in. Obviously guys are at different positions.

Look, Tyrin Jones is our 5, and that's not a natural position for him to be our 5 man. But that's where we're at. He's more of a 3/4, more on the 3 side than anything.

But we've just got to keep improving and getting back to work next week and improve.

Q. Josh, you talked about the week that the program has had. Considering how well the first half went for you guys, does that make this finish a little bit tougher to deal with?

JOSH PASTNER: Yeah, it was like the Maryland game. We were up to start the second half -- we were up 6 even with 10 minutes to go in the second half and lost it. Here we're up 6, we had control of the game, and I just thought we ran out of gas.

Even in the Alabama game we cut it to 12. We weren't going to win the game in the end there, but we were down 12, 11, with about 12 minutes to go and then we just ran out of gas.

I don't believe it's the conditioning part because we've run a lot. I think part of it is guys like Isaac who obviously was out for a long time, trying to catch him back up to speed, having guys in and out of the lineup. So it's been a difficult -- it's been challenging for us to try to figure out, get a feel of our main rotation, and then having to move guys to different spots on the floor.

Obviously we've had a bunch of injuries, but yes, it's disappointing that we kind of -- that was a tale of this whole week is we just got kind of beat up inside on the offensive -- on the defensive glass. Our lack of size really stood out from top to bottom. Obviously a lot of that was our bigs are not playing.

Then the second thing, I thought we just weren't able to close games out or keep things close. In the game with Alabama we just ran out of gas. Those were two glaring things besides the three-point shooting.

Q. You talk a little bit about the conditioning. That second half when things went left, it was when they hopped on that full-court press. Did the team surprise you with how they handled that, and was that exactly what went wrong in that moment?

JOSH PASTNER: Well, the full-court press was a man-to-man. We had a time-out called on that one time, but then the one time Dre threw it right to Walt for no reason. Walt was clearing out. It was a man-to-man press.

But look, Tyrin, in our press break Tyrin has been at the 4 and at the 3, and in the last walk-throughs we've had to put him at the 5 spot. We've had to put him in there.

So we were not set up exactly where we wanted to be that one time. But in the end, it wasn't the press on that. We missed a lot of shots. Even in the first half we had some times to really open it up and we missed some lay-ups and wide open threes.

And even in the second half to start, Tyrin missed two free throws. Then he missed the dunk. Kimani was right at the rim. We had an open three that we missed. It's hard when you can't score. The hardest thing to coach is when you can't score. We've been scoring like crazy. This week we just were not able to score.

If you ask me what do we attribute that to, besides our shooting, because we have not shot the ball well all year long and we've scored, but not having our 5s, not having Jacob in there and our normal 5s so we can play our normal offense has really affected us this week.

Q. They came out 11-0, you call a time-out. What did you tell them during the time-out and what did you see?

JOSH PASTNER: Yeah, I just thought our energy was bad. They kind of punched us and we didn't respond the right way. But part of it, we couldn't score. We got stuck without scoring. Tyrin got the shot blocked; Kimani misses that one right at the rim. Missed some free-throws. Had an open three as I mentioned that we missed, and we went stretches without scoring and they were on the other hand scoring.

They kind of purged us inside. They were really intentional the second half on going inside the paint, knowing our lack of size; and then secondly offensively they really stayed down and didn't go for any fakes. They just stayed home. They were really in the gaps, and we've got to create more openings.

But because of our shooting, they just sucked in, you know what I mean? They're not moving out to guard guys, which deservedly so because we're not shooting the ball well and haven't shot the ball well.

We've just got to figure that out and keep making sure that -- and we were a better shooting team than our numbers. I know people are tired of me saying that, but your numbers are what your numbers are.

We're due to get hot hopefully the month of December; when it turns December 1 hopefully we'll get back.

Q. Defensively the last two games you guys broke down a lot. What were you seeing?

JOSH PASTNER: There was some lack of -- undisciplined things, staying down on shots, not doing some certain coverages. I thought a couple guys looked tired towards the end.

Also, we're just spread out. Guys like -- our bigs, which are Tyrin and Kimani, are battling -- Maryland they got the kid Payne who's just humongous, and then the kid in Alabama who's really big, and today No. 21. Those guys are so big down there, and we look really small.

You just kind of get spread out on what you're doing on the coverage and you just get behind -- we weren't real good defensively in the last, second parts of each game. You're right about that. Part of that is we've just got to continue to get tougher, too. That's a big part of that is just getting tougher.

Q. Josh, you mentioned some of the shooting woes, but you did have a game against Memphis, for example, and you had Isaac Williamson taking a lot of threes. Is it a matter of a strategy of shooting less threes? What's happened from Memphis to now?

JOSH PASTNER: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, when I say I don't know, meaning that we just -- I thought there was a couple times there were some threes that were in the course of this stretch, haven't been good shots. But the majority of them, we've had some good looks and just got to make them. Just part of the toughness part. Got to step up and make them. It's almost like it's a contagious thing. We're just due to get hot at some point here.

We've got to get back to the drawing board and figure some things out offensively to help our guys if we're not going to have our bigs back. Part of it is we've got to get healthy. As we're going to the starting lineup playing Maryland, we beat St. Joe's, beat Memphis, beat St. Joe's, practice, off Friday, full practice Saturday, full practice Sunday, shootaround Monday, and then as we're about to put the starting lineups on the board, 25 minutes before the tip, they tell me Jacob can't play.

Then I find out the next day, Ladji refractured his foot, so he's been playing on a hurt foot the entire time, and that's why he doesn't look good.

I'm like, what the heck.

Things that we weren't planning for at that time, and then we kind of had to adjust on the fly and we're not real physical without those guys there. So Ladji is going to be out for a while, unfortunately. Got to hopefully get Emmanuel and Jacob back as soon as we can but that will open some things up if we can make some shots. We did in Memphis, we've just got to find a way to make them here.