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MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2019

Las Vegas, Nevada

Utah State - 91, New Mexico - 83

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Utah State head coach Craig Smith and student-athletes Justin Bean and Sam Merrill.

COACH SMITH: First, give credit to New Mexico. I thought they played a heck of a game. They made a lot of plays and they made it very, very difficult for us. They're incredibly talented. They're long. They're athletic. There's not much they don't have.

And so obviously they've kind of changed their style of play throughout the course of the year. And certainly seeing them against Wyoming last night, we figured they would pick us up full court like they did the first half at their place. And we really handled their press well there.

Obviously it wasn't so well tonight. But that was a big credit to them. They really sped us up. We hadn't played in nine days. Our break was longer than our Christmas break. And I thought we showed a little rust with that.

Then the other part of it, I didn't help our guys enough with our press break. We made a couple of adjustments at halftime that I thought really, really helped. We had 15 turnovers in the first half and nine the second half, two in the last eight minutes. And that's normally -- we really handled the ball well and take good shots.

But they got up by eight and our guys just were in the huddle. We've got to find a way to win; we've got to find a way to win. And give our guys credit. We stayed in attack mode. We had foul issues all night long. We had four guys, three guys with two fouls in the first half, and Sam picked up his third with about a minute to go, picked up his fourth with about eight to go. We just kind of had to keep negotiating that whole thing.

So at the end of the day you find a way to win. This is March Madness. You'll get everybody's best shot because nobody wants to go home and everybody kind of resets their record and resets their mindset and so forth. So we're fortunate to pull out that victory.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Sam, seems whether it's the NCAA Tournament or conference tournaments, a high seed tends to get a scare early from a school, like, that's seeded lower than them, then goes on to make a deep run into the tournament. Do you feel like that this was that game for you and you'll make a deep run into the finals or even further?
SAM MERRILL: We sure hope so. Like Coach said, obviously we showed a little bit of rust and felt like we only had 24 turnovers compared to how we felt. I felt like we had 35, 40 turnovers. But like Coach said, New Mexico is a good team. They've obviously had their ups and downs this year.

But at their best, they're a really tough team to beat. And we saw that tonight. I thought our crowd was awesome. I thought New Mexico's crowd was incredible. Give them credit -- 7 seed, they didn't have the year they wanted and they still show out and had three, 4,000 fans.

They deserve a lot of credit and our fans do as well for how much they helped us.

But you know, we're grateful that we were able to come out with a win tonight and we'll focus on whoever is next, whether it be Fresno or Air Force.

Q. Bean, might have been your best game of the season, 14 points, 15 rebounds, both career highs. How are you able to bring the energy throughout the entire game when you were facing like a really difficult press that New Mexico is giving you guys?
JUSTIN BEAN: I think what speaks wonders, not just to my performance tonight but this team is that we weren't very smart today, obviously, in the first half.

We didn't play our basketball, turning the ball over more than we usually do. But things that usually don't show up in the stat sheet are toughness and grit. And this team has that. So I think we collectively as a team did a great job just not giving up.

Credit to my teammates, they did a great job -- I tried to make good cuts to the basket and try and fly around the rim and they were able to give me some good passes so I could go up and finish.

Q. Merrill, 23 points, nine assists. Coach mentioned the four fouls you had to play with the last part of the game. How have you balanced your aggressiveness, your ability to get your teammates involved with knowing you had to be careful with the foul situation?
SAM MERRILL: That's the first time in a while that I've been in foul trouble. But our coaches do a great job no matter who is on the court, no matter who is guarding who of putting us in positions to succeed. To be honest, it felt like we were on defense almost the entire game. This was a football game, they would have completely dominated time of possession.

Coach told us to stay on attack, stay on attack. And even though we had 24 turnovers, we got a lot of really good looks and got a lot of shots at the rim and obviously shot a ton of free throws. And that's partially because of the way they played and partially because the attack mode we were in. So thought it was, aside from the turnovers, I thought we got a lot of good shots and that helped us.

COACH SMITH: On a side note, I'm proud that Sam used the football reference.

JUSTIN BEAN: I'm a football guy, too.

COACH SMITH: The Saints, how did they do?

SAM MERRILL: They did better the Vikings.

COACH SMITH: I know.

Q. What did you guys do in the second half to really exploit that press a little bit better? New Mexico's coach said you switched some things a little bit in the second half to do some things a little bit better offensively?
JUSTIN BEAN: Coach Smith at halftime, like you said, he drew up some good plays for us to have more -- we needed more urgency, that was the first thing. We couldn't be scared. That's what he told us. Don't hide from the ball. Make sure you flash. Help our guys out, especially Abel Porter, who had most of the weight on his shoulders bringing the ball up. He had a couple of good plays that he drew for us that we practiced and worked on, and we were able to execute them and really attack the middle.

SAM MERRILL: Yeah, Coach just reminded us who we are as a team, and obviously we didn't play like that in the first half. But he just continually reminds us to play with poise and confidence. Aside from the X and Os adjustment he made, more so it was a mentality, like Justin said, of coming to the ball, being aggressive, being on attack mode, and that's what helped us out the most.

Q. Sam, I know it could be either Air Force or Fresno State. I'm curious -- I'll ask you about the games you played during the regular season with the Bulldogs. Why do you think those games were so intense, so nip and tuck and they both came down to the wire? What made those such good games between you guys?
SAM MERRILL: I think both teams are really good. Fresno poses a lot of challenges to us. And they obviously have really good guard play with Braxton and Deshon. But they really do a good job of spreading teams out and we struggled at times with that. Did better at it at other times. But they can really shoot it. They've got a lot of guys that can shoot it. They play with good pace. They're really well-coached offensively. They get a lot of good shots. If it does come to be them, I anticipate another fun game.

Q. Sam, you said before that you want to erase any doubt and win this thing, so Selection Sunday is easier. What do you think a win like this does to your chances? Do you like your chances regardless what happens from here on out?
SAM MERRILL: Like I said last week, you never know what's going to happen. So we have one goal for this weekend and that's to win the whole thing. And it wasn't pretty. But we're one step closer.

So every win, I think, will help our resumÃ©. So we're going to go try to win tomorrow and not only will that help our resumÃ©, but that will get us one step closer to winning the tournament. That's our main goal right now.

Q. Coach, I think it was around the 15:08 mark you called a timeout. It was on that run they made back-to-back 3-pointers. What did you talk to the guys about in the huddle to get them to rally and make the run they eventually did?
COACH SMITH: Well, two things, we talked about NBA, and NBA a lot of people think is National Basketball Association. And for us NBA means next best action. When you get to tournament play and March Madness and this and that, it's always about the next best play.

And then the second thing, and we've been saying this from day one, is you've got to earn it. You've got to earn respect. You've got to earn victory. You've got to earn everything in life.

And they got up eight and they made their run and now it's our time to fight back. And it's a 15-round heavyweight fight. And so they won round, what, eight, nine, and 10 so let's win 11 through 15. And let's be the last man standing.

Q. Sam and Coach, we talked before the season about how excited you were, how everybody was just bought in. How good does it feel now to be where you are and be able to kind of tell people we weren't just saying words, that we knew what we were talking about?
SAM MERRILL: It feels good internally as a team. We've obviously made a lot of progress throughout the year. And for good reason expectations weren't super high, like I've said before, before the season from the outside. But we felt like our culture and our identity would win us a lot of games. And I think it really has.

We're not the most athletic team in the world. To be honest, we're not the most skilled team in the world, but we have things you can't measure, like Justin said, like toughness grit, heart. We really played well together as a team. It's been a really fun run so far and we are hoping it keeps going.

Q. With the foul trouble you got into today, I noticed a lot of frustration from you. Is that frustration about the calls or were you frustrated with yourself?
SAM MERRILL: Just I'm trying to be on the court as long as I can.

COACH SMITH: He didn't play five minutes tonight. That's five times as much as last four games. He should be well-rested tomorrow.

SAM MERRILL: Yeah, just every game has calls that go your way and calls that don't. But, like Coach said, we just try and focus on the next best action and move forward from there.

Q. Knowing that you have the depth that you do so that even when there is foul trouble you can have someone on the court that you trust. How much does that mean to you as the MVP, as the fans were calling you?
SAM MERRILL: I mean, there's been multiple times this year where I've been out of the game and we've gone on runs. So personally I'd like to be out there. But I have all the confidence in the world. And we as a team, like I said, we play as a team and we're not focused on one guy. So whoever is on the court, we're going to stick together and try and do things the right way.

Q. Justin, can you talk a little bit about the free throws at the end? You haven't been -- at the end of games you haven't been there?
SAM MERRILL: Almost airballed one.

JUSTIN BEAN: There wasn't any pressure. That's why I missed that one. Yeah, I've always felt like I was a confident free throw shooter. Like you said, there hasn't been many opportunities. I can think of maybe Nevada late in the fourth quarter a couple minutes left, I was able to hit a couple that pushed us up again by four. But it was a similar situation.

So I think that mentally really prepared me for that. And so, yeah, I was able to just be poised. I saw my family just sitting in the right section of the bleachers. And so that always helped, too, having them here from Oklahoma. And my teammates as well. They just kept telling me knock these in. So their confidence as well as Coach's meant the world to me and so I was able to get it done.

Q. Diogo Brito in the second half was amazing, 14 points. He had a really important steal there at the end on a 3-point attempt. His first half performance was nowhere near that level. What happened at halftime? Did you guys say something to him? What was he like at halftime that kind of maybe changed his attitude a little bit?
SAM MERRILL: He would be the first to admit he didn't play well in the first half. But I think this -- that's the identity of our team. No one's yelling at Diogo for his turnovers, besides maybe Coach. But as a team we're just constantly trying to focus on the next play, the next play. And Diogo has been so big for us all year. But especially throughout this stretch run.

So we have all the confidence in the world in him and in the rest of the team, and he was like I said he was awesome and huge for us in the second. Hit a couple of big 3s, couple big steals and that was big for us.

JUSTIN BEAN: I agree with what Sam said. Real quick, Diogo he's the next best action guy. He's not too worried with -- when he makes mistakes. He's always looking to the next play. What I love about him he's always trying to help the team collectively and tell the next guy you've got this, if we make a mistake. He's always comforting or trying to motivate them to do better. So it's a great thing about Diogo.

Q. Coach, New Mexico opens up an eight-point lead in the second half. And then Coach Weir picks up a technical foul, you score four straight. Seems like that was a little bit of a turning point in the game. How do you feel like that specifically impacted the second half and impacted the game?
COACH SMITH: Anytime you can go on a 4-0 run, anytime you can put a string together of stop and score, stop and score, that's huge. I'm not sure exactly what happened. But obviously he got the T. Sam made both free throws. We ran a baseline out-of-bounds play. Sam had a clean look at it, missed it. I don't know who got the offensive rebound but I know we scored off of that.

So it's such a fine line. Division I men's basketball, it's amazing with the 3-point line how quick things can change. We experienced that in a major way both ways, against Colorado State at the end, but we flipped the script at Boise in winning a game like that.

It's just a fine line of winning and losing, but I think you said it was eight and we cut it to four in a matter of whatever, ten seconds. So those are big momentum plays. But obviously New Mexico played really, really well and we kept coming back and they would answer the bell. And they would come back and answer the bell.

And then we were just able to make just one more play. We were up one -- I think we were up three and then they score, and then we were up one, and we run a play. And it was kind of -- Abel made a good decision and got it to Sam and it was a play where Sam just had to make the right decision.

And depending on if they stunted at him, Sam would get a clean look. If they didn't -- they rotate to him and he goes one more. That's the story of our team.

Sam is such -- eight assists tonight, nine assists. Sorry, Sam. And 23 points. And just makes the right play and goes one more. And like you said with Diogo, drills that 3 in the right corner, and that was a big dagger, most definitely.

Q. Could you talk a little, what is your assessment of how you guys responded to New Mexico's defensive pressure? Because you had about 19 turnovers in the first half, I think. And also could you talk a little bit about your center defensive play? There seemed to be a lot of defensive tussling going on between your center and New Mexico's big men?
COACH SMITH: The first part, we had 15 turnovers in the first half. And like Sam said, it felt like 25. And, first of all, they did a great job. They really sped us up.

We were on our heels, clearly. And in the second part with that, like I said earlier, I didn't have our guys in the right positions. So we made some adjustments at halftime and changed -- we have a bunch of different press breakers, but we started utilizing a couple other ones that we should have been in earlier, quite frankly.

So we weren't -- as a coaching staff, I didn't think we set our guys up to have success. And it's a player's game. Players got to make plays. At the same time coaches have got to put guys into positions to make plays.

So we had nine in the second half, I think two in -- nine turnovers -- two in the last I think last eight minutes including the one with 12 seconds to go. So they did a good job.

And the other part of that, I don't want to make it a bigger deal -- but when you don't play for nine days in basketball, like that's a long -- that's a long break. And on the flip side, New Mexico played three games.

So as we all know basketball is a rhythm game. And they sped us up. Second part, Neemias Queta is a big time player. It's hard to believe that he's still a true freshman at 19 years old. So obviously he was named the Freshman of the Year in the Mountain West Conference and the Defensive Player of the Year in the Mountain West Conference. He's a force to me. Six blocked shots tonight, played 35 minutes.

He had that look in his eye. He really wanted it. And he was a very, very determined individual that wants to be coached. And a lot of guys say they want to be coached but then you get critical of them and then they don't want to be coached. And Neemias, he wants to be coached and he wants to be special.

All three games when we played these guys, including tonight, it's been a fistfight. Literally that first game in New Mexico, Bragg was big time down there. He made I think four 17-foot jumpers. When he gets in a groove -- there's a reason he was at Kansas to start.

And they do, like I said at the top, they're so athletic. They have great size. And they sub one big guy out and here comes the next one. And here's the next one.

And they're all 6'10" and sturdy and athletic. But it's been a physical battle. And you know in March it's always going to be physical.

Q. Despite the 24 turnovers, you held them under 40 percent shooting. You shot 53 percent. How are you able to settle into your style of play as the game went on?
COACH SMITH: We just kept chopping wood. I know it's an analogy that our local guys have heard us say, but you can't knock down a tree with one big swoop of an axe. You've got to keep on chopping and chopping and chopping and eventually it should fall down. And at the end of the game we got six of eight stops to finish the game. Yes, six of eight stops to finish the game. Bean ending possessions.

It was a difficult -- do we play big for us, meaning like Quinn at the 4, Neemi at the 5, Bean at the 4. We went a little bit where we had the four guards in there but not very much. But then Bean, we were ending possessions.

This is a team, New Mexico, that was averaging 17 offensive boards a game over the last five games. So just we had to have some level of physicality. And Justin Bean is just a magnet to the ball.

So fortunately as a coaching staff our guys have really bought into the defensive side of it. Last year our program was at -- we were at the bottom or very near the bottom in basically every defensive stat, statistical category you can imagine.

So for us to end the game with six out of eight stops and have a plus-18 rebounding margin, 46 rebounds to their 28, I think really speaks volumes to the buy-in that our guys have had. And what we've done all year.

We're the number one defensive rebounding team in the country this year. We finished the regular season as the number one defensive rebounding percentage defense and number four in two-point field goal percentage defense. So we're top five in both of those categories. It's only been done four times since 2002. So the proof is in the pudding.

Q. Was there any point in this game that you thought maybe the team had gone into it too confident or overly confident?
COACH SMITH: Listen, New Mexico, we've had -- I mean, that game down in the pit was crazy. We knew this was going to be a dogfight. We've had very good practices coming into this, like I felt good. Our guys have been locked in.

This is a prideful team. They're not prideful in a bad way. I mean, this is a team that has a bit of a chip on their shoulder. And there's been very, very few games or even halves where we've had to kind of like rip them for this or that or the other. And our constant is we show up ready to play. We have good effort. We're really unselfish.

So there was no figment of overlooking or anything. They had our respect, without question. We knew -- we felt this could be this type of game.

Q. You've said throughout the season that the goal for this team is to win the Mountain West title. But you know that tournament play is far different than just regular season.
COACH SMITH: Absolutely.

Q. What did you see tonight that helps you to believe that this team can actually go and win the next two games and the Mountain West title?
COACH SMITH: We found a way to win. I thought New Mexico was really, really good tonight. And I've watched so many of their games, as obviously our staff and our players. And they're incredibly talented. And like Sam said, our fans traveled well and they had -- I mean, last night you're hearing the roars when they were down 13 to Wyoming, and all of a sudden Jackson just kind of puts them on their back.

And I was up in the lobby, because our practice time was basically right after their game. But it started early because the game went a little bit longer than we anticipated. And all you could hear was the deafening roars up in the corridor, or whatever you call, out by the concession stands.

And so you could feel that tonight without a question. So tonight we obviously found a way to win when things were not going great and things didn't look -- they looked a little bleak for us there for a stretch.

But at the end of the day, our guys have great resolve. They have great pride. They want to represent Utah State in the right fashion. They want to represent the Mountain West Conference in a great fashion. And, listen, like after we clinched the regular season title, or at least a share at Colorado State, when you win a conference championship in the regular season, you go 15-3 -- we started out conference play 1-2.

So I think we've won 15 out of 16 now, eight in a row. You've got to battle everything. You're battling sickness. You're battling travel. You're battling your body not feeling well. You're battling six of our 12 guys that dressed being true freshmen so they've never been here before. You battle all kinds of things.

So for us to be able to do that, it's given us incredible amount of confidence that we can play with anybody in the country on any given night.

Q. You mentioned the buy-in and some of those defensive statistics, how they've flipped. How hard is that to do in one year with a coaching change? And I guess how impressed are you with the guys of doing it so quickly?
COACH SMITH: Literally -- I don't want to sound like a clichÃ©, I literally cannot give our guys enough credit. This is a team that returned four guys that had ever averaged more than seven minutes a game in Division I basketball: Dwayne Brown Jr., Sam Merrill, Quinn Taylor and Diogo Brito. And Crew Ainge and Abel Porter were the two guys that averaged seven minutes a game but they didn't play every game.

So, like, that's a challenge. And those four guys have been tremendous leaders for our guys. Quinn Taylor is like the Mr. Unsung Hero. The guy is like a rock. He's the godfather or the grandfather, but his stable leadership for our whole team, but especially Neemias Queta, when you have a freshman that can literally -- I don't want to say look up to him, because Neemias doesn't look up to a whole lot of people physically -- but he's been unbelievable for Neemias with his mentorship and leadership and communicating and all that kind of stuff, as have all our upper classmen.

And our guys just kept chipping away. And you have a guy -- Sam's obviously the player of the year and well-earned. But Sam is just so competitive.

And what I was told when I first got hired is all that guy cares about is winning, doesn't care about his stats, doesn't care about his numbers. He likes to play, like he said, but the guy just wants to win.

So when your most accredited -- he's a returning third-team all-league guy from last year. He was the only guy on our team that's ever had anything like that at this level. When you have a guy like that that's your hardest worker and he's so selfless, so many times he could have forced tough shots or whatever, but he just makes the right play, how contagious that is for your program.

And not only that, he wants to guard the other team's best player every night, best perimeter player. So the buy-in has been incredible and the leadership has been incredible. And so I can't just speak highly enough to those guys.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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