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NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FINAL FOUR

April 1, 2017

Phoenix, Arizona

Gonzaga - 77, South Carolina - 73

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Gonzaga head coach Mark Few and student-athletes Przemek Karnowski, Zach Collins and Nigel Williams-Goss. Coach, if you could give us an opening statement.

COACH FEW: I don't know that I could make a statement that would sum up, A, how I feel and, B, to describe that game. Man, just an awesome, awesome basketball game, with just how hard both teams competed. I mean, that run South Carolina made on us, that just shows just the heart of a lion that they have, that Frank instills in them, that they get from him. And it took everything we had to hold them off and come back.

And I was just really, really proud of our guys, our late-game execution. I think that's been a topic of speculation, because we haven't really had many close games. But we practiced it a lot. And I mean, the guys executed it perfectly, especially down the last four minutes. So really proud of them for that. And just ecstatic to be still playing, and to be playing the last game of the year is just crazy cool.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Nigel, when you were walking back over here, you were saying, they said we were nervous, they didn't believe in us or something like that. How do you encapsulate what you're feeling right now as the first Gonzaga team to make it this far?
NIGEL WILLIAMS-GOSS: I feel blessed, blessed to be part of something so special. The journey we've been on has just been unreal, and we just never stopped believing and we've had the utmost confidence in ourselves the entire season long. And like I said before the game, I guess they were making comments that we were the most nervous team in the tournament. And, you know, we just heard everything this year -- we've heard the conference, we've heard we haven't played tight games, that we're not tough, we've heard everything.

Again to be 37-1 and playing the last game of the season, it's just a blessing and I just couldn't be more happy to be playing with these guys.

Q. Nigel, pretty similar to that one, in February, in L.A., you told me that you felt like for this program to get the respect they deserve, you guys had to make the Final Four. You get here. People talk about your path, playing an 11th seed in the Elite Eight. Do you feel like you earned that respect and if not are you excited to go get it on Monday?
NIGEL WILLIAMS-GOSS: I mean, again, we only played an 11 seed because they had to beat higher seeds. So we can't control who we played. Obviously I mean these teams have all beaten really good teams. Look at the teams that Xavier beat from down the line -- Arizona, Florida State, Maryland, South Carolina beating Baylor, Duke.

No one's here by accident. I said all four teams are more than deserving. And you gotta give them a lot of credit. They came out here and competed like we knew they would. So, again, I think the respect thing has to go out the window. You have 37 wins in a college season, I mean that's just unbelievable. And to be playing the last game of the season, we have a chance to play for it all. And we're here to win it.

Q. Nigel, what did you guys do with Sindarius Thornwell to kind of slow him down, especially down there in the last five, six minutes when you really didn't get a good look at the basket?
NIGEL WILLIAMS-GOSS: You've got to give a lot of credit to our coaches. I've said it all year long that they just do an unbelievable job of getting us dialed in and prepared to the players' tendencies. And they do a great job of telling us even counters that they might go to. All we have to do is go follow their game plan. It's actually pretty simple.

But we just try to give them different looks. We had J3 guarding them for a while. So we had a 4-man. Then I took him on a couple of possessions. Sometimes we stayed on his -- trailed his screens. Sometimes we switched him. So we just tried to keep him off balance and just make it as tough as possible. He's a great player and we knew it wasn't going to be easy to contain him.

Q. Zach, six blocks today. That's a career high for you. Albeit you're a freshman. But what was going through your mind this game -- they say defense wins championships -- but what was going through your mind and what made you step up?
ZACH COLLINS: That's my job is to go in and rim protect. So every game I try to do the same thing, just try to rim protect without fouling. I had four fouls today. But I thought, you know, getting those blocked shots would help us. And they attacked the rim really well in the first half they attacked me three or four times and I didn't get the block and they made the shot.

So they were a really good team. They attacked the rim really well. I just had to use my length, my hands and stuff to get blocks and help our team to win.

Q. Przemek, take us through the play where you got poked in the eye, who you saw at halftime and how it affected you from there?
PRZEMEK KARNOWSKI: I got blocked, but he just put the finger in my eye. I had blurry vision, a little bit shadow. I couldn't really open it. So I just went to the locker room. I saw eye doctor and one of our trainers, tried to take care of it. And by the time we were going out from the halftime, it started feeling a little bit better. And throughout the whole second half it was getting better and better.

Q. Nigel or Przemek, just your thoughts on the kind of game Zach played, the two-way game he played, and how instrumental he was to you guys figuring out a way to win this game.
NIGEL WILLIAMS-GOSS: Well, me and Zach are roommates. And we've been roommates all year long. And he told me before the game, he said, look, I wouldn't want to be playing against me today. And Coach says it all year that we just can't talk the talk, we gotta walk the walk.

And when he told me that I looked at him and I said, all right, let's do it then. For him to come out with a double-double with six blocks, he walked the walk. Just couldn't be more happy for him. Again, going back to us being roommates, he said all year, man, I gotta get a double-double, I gotta get a double-double. So I guess it's a pretty good time to have one in the national semi game. And, like I say, he was just huge. All these guys were huge. But couldn't be more happy for Zach.

PRZEMEK KARNOWSKI: I'm really happy for him. His work ethic is awesome. He's been playing well for us the entire season. Whenever I go to the bench he gets in, and basically our team doesn't drop a bit. So he's been huge for us. And not only this game but the entire season. And with six blocks, you know, my career high is seven, but six is still good. (Laughter).

Q. Zach, two things, first of all change your roommate. And second thing --
ZACH COLLINS: Not changing my roommate.

Q. After the big run they made you came in and you shot a 3. Was that designated? You made it, do you remember?
ZACH COLLINS: I don't think it was designated or anything. But I knew they were heating up Nigel. And I just wanted to come in and hit a shot. Right when I flashed up to the high post I knew I was going to shoot it. I think Przem was open on the low post. I probably should have passed it but luckily it went in.

Q. Zach, you talked last week about planning your journey with Gonzaga. But, one, did you really say, I wouldn't want to play against me tonight. And, two, if you did say that, like what gave you the confidence on that stage to say that?
ZACH COLLINS: I really did say that. And Nigel said the same thing back to me. But I don't know, I just felt like we did our homework. And the scout was really good. And we've been guarding them, their plays really well all week. And we were all really confident whether they went zone or they went man.

And I knew I had a couple of rough games before this. And I wanted to come out and just play a lot better for my team. In my head, I just said, I had no choice. And that's when I told Nigel I just felt really good.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. I don't mean to put a damper on this thing --
COACH FEW: Then don't.

Q. First-half defense a little shaky. Maybe not the game you really wanted to play. So what's tomorrow going to look like in preparation for Monday night?
COACH FEW: Well, first of all, to be honest with you, if I had my choice, that was exactly the game I would have chosen. I envisioned going into this like 25-22 at half. The fact that it was going up and down is the way we want to play and like to play and when we're at our best.

I was disappointed in our transition defense. And just a couple one or two breakdowns. I thought they hit some really, really tough shots over our rim protection. But you gotta give them credit: They took the hit from ZBO and Przemy and delivered.

But then they got in at half and I think they shot 37 percent. Again, sometimes our defense, it has kind of a cumulative effect on you, and at the end of the day you hold a team like that in a Final Four game in the 30s, that's a really good thing.

Q. That last sequence, you guys were up three. Was it communicated in the huddle not to give up a 3? And if you were in a bad way, just to foul knowing that you guys had opportunity to get the ball back?
COACH FEW: Well, I stayed consistent with what we've done all year. And hopefully we'll be in that situation Monday, and it's fine that they know it. But we love to make the ball handler use as much time as possible where he's not in a threatening position to take a shooting motion and then foul. And I thought we waited a little long to do that quite honestly. But Perk went out and grabbed him before he was in the shooting motion and as it turned out you couldn't be any better, you know?

Because the problem with it is if you foul too early, you know, you've got to get the ball in. You've got to make free throws again. You've gotta do it all over again. The second part of it is, and when you practice it and you know your team, this is what frustrates me when people tell you what you need to do, is you have to rebound the free throw. And we have been as bad at rebounding free throws, I think we gave up I think two dead-balls, one today. And for whatever reason we just don't rebound free throws very well. So I mean in my mind I was thinking play it out, but then also I just -- I went with my gut and said let's foul if we can.

Q. There's a lot of talk about you having a really deep team this year, but you only played three guys off the bench. But Silas came up big in the first half, Tillie at the line there late. And Zach Collins huge all game. What confidence do you have in your bench on a stage like this?
COACH FEW: I have a lot of confidence in it. If you've looked, watched us play, you realize we play -- the rotation is eight. We've got four inside and four on the outside. And we rotate them around. And it's pretty much what we've done all year.

The depth has really helped us. It's helped us in practice. If there is a situation where there's an injury or maybe we're struggling somewhere, then we're comfortable to go with Jeremy Jones or Rui, get that ninth player out there. And even Bryan Alberts. But that's basically how we've done it for 38 games.

Q. You said last week that you recruited Zach and then you get Przemek back to start. Can you go through Zach's mindset the whole year from the beginning to now, I don't know if you can predict it in this stage, how he's matured, the progression of him as a player and as a kid?
COACH FEW: The best thing about Zach, he's as great a kid as you're ever going to coach. And he's an unbelievable team guy and that's all he cares about. I think sometimes there's a lot of noise about things, maybe minutes, or points per possession and stuff like that.

He loves being part of this team. He loves what he's doing on this team. He's, from the day one, he came in, we recruited him as a starter and then Przemy's deal happened, so it's crazy. He's had a great attitude about that. I consider him a starter.

We've shown -- I've shown, we've shown all year that at game point we love going to him. In fact, we went out of a timeout under the four-minute mark to him, when he got into that offensive foul that I didn't think was an offensive foul. But that's a whole other diatribe I could go into here.

But, no, we trust him. I trust him and Tillie at the end of the game. So sometimes it's just situational and he's handled it masterfully all year. He's actually been really good from the jump. I mean, he's been on a growth plane. But hardest thing is keeping him out of foul trouble. He's so innately aggressive, which you love, but it's very difficult to keep him -- and that's limited his minutes more than anything is his foul trouble.

Q. Is this the toughest team you've ever coached here at Gonzaga? And how do you encapsulate this run you've made after all these years with the same program?
COACH FEW: Well, I don't know that I do a great job or even am uncomfortable comparing this team to that team or whatever. Certainly look at what this team's done, we make an assumption that they're as good as anything that's ever walked the soil up in Spokane. And I wouldn't argue with you.

I've had some really, really tough teams. I've had some really close teams. I've had some teams that have been crazy efficient on the offensive end and ones that have been pretty darned good on the defensive end that probably didn't get credit for it. These guys are all of that. All of it.

And the story with these guys is it truly is, and I think it's been kind of under-talked about, is how they came together. We had eight, nine guys that were new to the program. On September 1st, I mean when Jordan showed up, that's when we were finally complete as a team. Perkins and Melson were the only ones that played the year before significant minutes.

But yet from the jump, these guys have jumped into roles. They haven't fought anything. And it's absolutely been amazing, the sacrifices they've made. They gave up shots, minutes, roles, just like Zach Collins a little bit. And Perkins and everybody. So it's been great stuff.

Q. When you went into the locker room just now, you did a handstand. Can you describe what the emotion was?
COACH FEW: Are we calling it a handstand because sometimes they've been a little weak.

Q. I didn't see it but --
COACH FEW: I felt pretty good. I felt like I stuck it. (Laughter). I don't know if I stuck the landing, but -- yeah, no, over the years on big wins, road wins, you know, just to get this team to have some fun. And we've been on this team to show some emotion, because there's always expectations with Gonzaga teams that they should win every game. And so it becomes a little bit -- sometimes I worry that my guys get, like, it's a job. And we've been on them to show emotion.

So they're always on me to show emotion after a win. So that's my fairly weak effort of showing emotion. So I got out of it with healthy rotator cuff and a healthy Achilles, so I think I'm in a good place.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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