NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR

March 17, 2026

Sean Miller

Chendall Weaver

Dailyn Swain

Tramon Mark

UD Arena

Texas Longhorns

Media Conference

Texas 68, NC State 66

THE MODERATOR: Coach, just your opening statement and this victory and winning for the Texas Longhorns.

SEAN MILLER: Yeah, I mean, there's two ways to be here at the end of the first game in the tournament. Your season is over and you reflect back on all that you've accomplished and how hard it is to call it an end, or you just have this thrilling feeling of being able to advance and play in this amazing tournament that all of us have watched really our entire lives.

One thing I'll give these three guys credit for and our team, they had a couple really tough losses at the end, losing an overtime game to a really upstart and really terrific Oklahoma team that was playing great.

And then we went to Nashville in a real quick turnaround. I don't think we were completely over the overtime home loss, which can happen, and we weren't ourselves against Ole Miss.

But as I think that tournament proved, Ole Miss was also playing at a very, very high level.

When you lose the last couple, what you don't want is a continuation of holding on to those negative feelings. This group right here got back to Austin. It was not easy. We practiced a couple days not knowing if we were in the tournament, took a couple days off.

I think talked, these guys among themselves, and we came up here with a clear mind, a good spirit, and I thought in a good place. Not that we played great, but I think a big reason we were able to win is that our group really came up here to win and came up here as one. They were together.

Dailyn has carried us a lot this year, and he was solid today. I don't think that was his best, but the other two guys on this table, Chendall, his rebounding, his effort level, his defense, he sparked us every time he was in the game, and obviously had a double-double.

And then obviously Tramon, not only the two huge shots that he made, but he got us off to a really good T mark and Chendall deserve a lot of credit for the victory tonight.

Q. For all three of you, can you talk about your view of the last shot, the three-pointer that went in, and your feelings when you saw what happened?

TRAMON MARK: Yeah, I got a great look. I looked at the clock, and I just sized them up and got a great look at the rim. I practice those shots every day, so just got a great look at it.

DAILYN SWAIN: Exactly what T Mark said. I see him make those shots every day in practice and I seen him hit them in the game, so when he put it up and I crashed the board, but I knew, like that was Tramon Mark, so it's a good chance it's going in. He's a tough shot maker. That's what he does.

CHENDALL WEAVER: I guard T Mark every day, so he makes those shots on me, so as soon as it went up, I knew it was going in.

Q. Tramon, I think this is your fourth game winner with less than five seconds left. Where does this one rank for you?

TRAMON MARK: This one is definitely first for me, just the way the game was going, the way the game felt. We had a big lead; they started making some shots; and then was able to silence the crowd with a big shot like that.

So I would rank it first for me.

Q. Chendall, you really took over the game until Tramon did at the end. What were your emotions, and did you feel like somebody has got to do it and you're the one?

CHENDALL WEAVER: Yeah, knowing this could be my last game I'm trying to leave it all on the court, so whatever my team needed, I tried to bring it.

Q. Dailyn, you know you got a lot of basketball left, but these old heads, this could have been their last game. What was the feeling being teammates with two guys that extended their careers?

DAILYN SWAIN: It's a great feeling. I always tell them I have their back, and tonight they had Chendall Weaver the most impact on the court, and Tramon Mark, like I said, when he put that shot up I knew it was good.

Just knowing that they have my back as much as I have theirs, it's a great feeling. So I have so much confidence and I have a lot of fun playing with these guys for sure, and I'm happy for them that it didn't end tonight.

Q. Dailyn, this is two years in a row you've played in this game and two years in a row it's come down to the wire and two years in a row you've been on the winning side. Can you talk about what this was like?

DAILYN SWAIN: Same feeling: two great games, two games I also didn't play my best in. I don't know if it's the arena or what, but we all kept our composure coming into time-outs. They hit really tough shots and Coach Miller calmed us down like, hey, we're going to win this game.

He made the right adjustments on defense. So it's not something I was too worried about knowing the coach that I play for and the players around me, but it's a great feeling playing in those nail-biters like that. I love it.

Q. Chendall, we've mentioned a bunch your double-double tonight, first ever. What brought that spark to you? Is it just that it's March Madness or you knew you had to bring those boards down?

CHENDALL WEAVER: Yeah, a little bit of both, just bringing that spark that my team needed, being the guy off the bench that comes in, changing the game.

So that was a big part of it.

Q. Tramon, I'd like to get your feelings overall. It seemed like you guys were kind of in control the whole game and then you were ahead by nine and it slipped away. What's going through your mind and psyche? You lost a lot of close games this year.

TRAMON MARK: In games like that your emotions can waver up and down, but I felt like throughout the whole game our team, we kept our emotions in check. We did what we needed to do.

Credit to them, they hit some tough shots. It's not like we just had mistakes, they just made tough shots down the stretch to cut the lead. But we kept our composure and we got the win.

Q. When you're a basketball guy and you watch this event for years and see games like this, and when you're a part of something like this, what's that feel like for you? What is that experience like to go through a game like this?

SEAN MILLER: Well, I mean, I think to a large extent it's why we all want to be a part of college basketball, to be a part of the NCAA Tournament, March Madness.

The incredible journey to make the tournament, which is an accomplishment in and of itself with the parity with our game, and then being able to get into the tournament and fight to advance, the thrill of advancing, and really the incredible pain of a loss.

Obviously when you're in the tournament you experience both. Like NC State, it's tough on those guys. They had a great season. They hit some really big shots and made big plays down the stretch. They easily could be on this podium advancing going to Portland.

But as often as is the case in this tournament as I see it, players make plays. We're here in large part because the guy Tramon Mark made two incredible shots. If he didn't make either of those, one of them, I don't know if we win. I think that's the one thing you learn.

The other part is if I evaluated our team's performance tonight, there's a lot that we didn't do well, but there's also times I've been in this tournament with a team that I've coached that's played great and lost. The difference now is it's just about one thing: Can you stay in the tournament? Can you advance?

The fact that we were able to do it, I'm happy for our team, program, university. I'm happy for our conference, the SEC. You're in a game like tonight, you call on all of the experiences of the last couple of months, and there's not one experience that's easy in the SEC.

It's like we say it all the time, there's no pop quizzes. It's straight tests, 18 in a row. No matter who you play, you have to be ready, and I think all of us enter March Madness and this tournament more prepared to battle and advance, and I'm glad we were able to do that tonight.

Q. Sean, the other day you said that if someone had told you your team would score 80 points seven times and you would lose, you wouldn't have believed it. If I had said to you a week ago that your team would hold a team to 66 points and you would win, what was your reaction have been and what was the difference in your team being able to turn it around defensively?

SEAN MILLER: I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think I'm going to be accurate and I'm right. This might be the first game that I can really look at and say we won because our defense. We've been able to score at a very high level; tonight we didn't.

Credit NC State.

Also I think just kind of the magnitude of the moment, playing in a quick turnaround, you're in the tournament. We had some turnovers and plays that just -- I'm sure they did, as well.

But one big thing when you play NC State, this year's team, is you have to defend the three-point shot. If you really look at the game, until the very, very end, it's the thing we did the very best.

That's what I think we can hang our hat on as we leave here, that we knew we could not allow them to get going from the three-point line, and I think they made three or four really great shots at the end. I think all of them were contested.

But for the other 38 minutes, we really probably did as good of a job in that area as maybe anyone has. That's the one thing that I feel good about tonight's game. That and our rebounding. I thought we really created some second shots.

It wasn't always our big guys, it was our guards, too, and those two areas probably are the reason that we advanced.

Q. I was going to ask you about the three-point line. The press really bothered y'all. Why did you feel like y'all had so much trouble and almost cost you the game?

SEAN MILLER: We did. Number one, we had two time-outs in and around half court. It's difficult for the coach to call time-out because I didn't look at us as being in trouble. We had to cross half court and play the game.

Again, when you get into March and you're in this tournament, the magnitude of being able to advance versus not can sometimes take over a player's mind. We didn't execute as well.

A couple of our time-outs, thank goodness, saved us. And credit NC State. Those guys did a great job trapping. They didn't just play straight man, they mixed it up, and then they simultaneously hit shots that set up their press.

Normally throughout the year, as you know, we would get the ball in, get fouled, march to the other end and make free throws. That's something we've been really good at. We were not good at the end of tonight's game.

Q. Y'all have had trouble closing out some games, but you closed tonight. Talk about your resiliency. Was there just kind of that intestinal fortitude?

SEAN MILLER: Yeah, this is Game 33 tonight, and it's kind of unique in that most of our wins, we kind of had it in the bag. There weren't really a lot of last-second victories or last -- single possession games, just how it went.

We won the game. We won by eight points, four points. We just kind of went -- some of our losses, as you know, we had a lead late and guys made plays and we lost heart breakers, maybe two or three of those. So we won one tonight, and it came at a good time.

Q. Sean, a couple days ago you mentioned when you were at Zona you had to play Wichita State after they won a First Four. What can this win do for you going to Portland, specifically against BYU?

SEAN MILLER: Look, I haven't really looked ahead too much. I know it's a long trip from Dayton, Ohio, to Portland. I know the time of our departure is midnight. I know what that means. I know tomorrow we have media and we're going to be in the west so we have a big night ahead of us.

I do think there's power in playing a game in this tournament. I've referenced it three or four times, where sometimes a player or a team is not themselves. I don't want to say, jitters but March Madness looms big. We fought literally from game one when we played Duke in Charlotte to make this tournament, and finally you're here and now you're close to advancing. You've got to make big plays like Tramon Mark did.

I think our nerves sometimes can settle through Game 1. You can gain confidence. You already have one game to your advantage. But we're going to have to play a really good team, and we're definitely going to have to play better than we played tonight. We know that. But we get that opportunity. That's the thrill of it.