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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DENVERMarch 17, 2016Mark FewKyle WiltjerDomantas SabonisDenver, Colorado Gonzaga - 68, Seton Hall - 52 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Gonzaga. Coach, just some comments on tonight's game. COACH FEW: Well, I mean, we prepared all week for a physical, physical fight. We talked about it. We knew Seton Hall was a really, really tough team. Not only physically tough, but kind of mentally tough. They come at you. I'm just really, really proud of our guys. We fought. We fought. We were able to withstand a couple different runs there, withstand some pretty serious foul trouble, for us, especially with these two guys. I think this is our eighth consecutive first-round win. This group of guys, as well as the guys before them, have just done an unbelievable job of making streaks that just seemed impossible when you look back at them. 18 straight NCAAs and now eight straight wins in the first round is pretty special stuff. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for our student-athletes. Q. What were you guys able to do on Isaiah Whitehead that you were able to contain him or was it just a bad night for him? KYLE WILTJER: I think the common theme was just making it tough. He's obviously a great player. I think it wasn't just one-on-one with him. It was kind of a team effort. We were in the gaps. Especially Domas, he did a great job of vertically contesting when he got down there. So it was just a team effort. DOMANTAS SABONIS: Yeah, as Wiltjer said, basically a team effort. Everyone had a part in it. We all shrunk the court. The goal was to make it shoot tough twos and make it or not. Q. Domas, how physical was this team compared to other ones you've played this year? DOMANTAS SABONIS: They're a very talented team and obviously very physical. Their bigs were physical with me. I like those kind of matchups. I try and use it to my advantage. Q. Domas, obviously the matchup between Jakob Poeltl coming up against Utah. You knew that might be a possibility. How are you feeling about that matchup? Do you take it any special way? DOMANTAS SABONIS: I'm going to take it like other game, any game. He's a great player. He's very talented. I played against him before. I know he's very good and I'm going to have to work a lot. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time. We'll continue with questions for Coach Few. Q. You really kind of took control of that game late in the first half. What were you able to do to take control and keep it throughout? COACH FEW: I felt like we lost control of it a little bit there in the second half when they made that run, but then we were able to get our feet back under us. Mostly we had a stretch where we were very, very efficient on the offensive end, then were able to get in the gaps, like these guys said, and make them take some tough twos. And we rebounded the ball great. Like I said in my opening remarks, that's a tough, tough, physically tough, come-at-you tough Seton Hall team. For us to win the glass by 14, that was a huge stat we thought going in. Again, like they said, just try to make Whitehead take tough shots. Have bodies around him, contested hands on all his shots. Then, you know, gang rebound it when he missed it. Q. After you lost Karnowski in late December -- COACH FEW: No, early, 1st of December. Q. Did you know that Sabonis could have this kind of effect? Did you foresee this? COACH FEW: Actually, when it went down, it was hard to envision making it through a whole season. I think that's what's been lost in this run by our guys. I think everybody is judging them by the pre-season ranking we had, which was nine or ten or something like that, which we very well probably were and would have been at the end of the year if they would have had Przemek. When we lost Przemek, we lost all our depth inside, our best rim protector, we lost a guy you had to double on the offensive end, a fantastic passer. We lost our most experienced player in our program. So, I mean, we basically had one starter back then from the previous year. So we knew Domas was good. The thing about Domas that limited his minutes last year was his foul trouble. He was constantly in foul trouble. He's done a great job. I mean, obviously you saw how he can score it, his footwork, his rebounding. He's the best rebounder I've ever coached, one of the best rebounders I've ever seen in college. But he's really managed his game and managed his fouls 'cause we've essentially played with, you know, two bigs here for pretty much the whole year. Q. What do you know about Utah and Larry's program looking ahead? COACH FEW: I know a lot about them. I have as high an amount of respect for Larry as I do for anybody in the entire country. I think he's a great person and he's an outstanding basketball coach. I mean, he was outstanding when he was at Montana back in the day. He's got great schemes. I like how he thinks and tries different things. They're very physical. They're very sound. They've done a nice job of really creating a winning culture down there. Q. Given the way you started pretty hot and the opposition wasn't as hot, do you feel like your tournament experience played into your success at all tonight? COACH FEW: I mean, it's hard to say. I can't even tell you how much -- Perk has never played in the NCAA tournament. Silas might have played minimally. Eric McClellan didn't play in the tournament, but minimal last year. Obviously having Wilch, having Domas, Kyle Dranginis has been in there. I think it was more just the way our game was flowing. Our guys were in the flow, stepped up and made shots. We've been doing that this last month now. Hopefully we'll continue to do that. Q. Question about managing the game. You had the last six minutes of the first half without Kyle on the floor. How were you able to maintain and hold on? COACH FEW: I think we kept getting stops. I mean, our first shot defense was off the charts. About the only way they had success, at least in the first half, was either off turnovers and/or on second shots. By and large we did a really nice job. Tommy did a nice job with the scout, made it real tough on our first-shot defense. The turnovers are frustrating. But Seton Hall is the type of team that can make you look bad at times and silly. I think there was a little shock to the system for us just how physical and how quick-handed they were. Q. Silas seemed to provide a big lift for you. How crucial was he to the win? COACH FEW: He's been crucial during this whole win. Our upswing through February into March has been that Silas has been playing so well, Perk has managed the game well. Eric McClellan has played well. Kyle Dranginis has played well. I mean, for Silas to go get seven boards in a game like that is a huge, huge stat for us and a really, really good sign. Q. Did you feel any validation for your conference today by winning your first game, upsetting a higher-seeded team? COACH FEW: I mean, I just always focus on us. Really I don't think we think in too broad of strokes like that. We came to win a little four-team tournament. We got step one out of the way. We showed some real fight, some toughness and grit. Now we got to get ready, rest up, see if we can take step two on Saturday. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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