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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SALT LAKE CITY

March 21, 2019

Salt Lake City, Utah

Gonzaga - 87, Fairleigh Dickinson - 49

THE MODERATOR: Guys, welcome. We welcome Gonzaga representatives to the stage. We have student-athletes Brandon Clarke and Killian Tillie with us and we will ask Coach Mark Few to make a brief opening statement.

MARK FEW: Just a great performance by my guys here. I thought they did an excellent job in all facets of the game. Obviously, it started on the defensive end in the first half. After watching Fairleigh Dickinson, they came in on quite a roll, the guards were really shooting it well and their bigs were athletic and very good around the rim and so that kind of had us concerned. By and large, our intensity was good. Our attention to detail was excellent, like it's been all year. And then that led to us getting out running, and when we get out and run like that and share the ball, I think we had over 20 assists. That is a really, really good thing.

Very proud of them and good to get the first one under the belt so we can get moving on.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Gonzaga student-athletes.

Q. This is for Tillie. You've had a rough go at it this season. How nice is it to get out there and start feeling it a bit?
KILLIAN TILLIE: It feels great. Being back with my teammates is really fun. They did a great job playing with me. I think I did a great job playing with them. I think it was pretty good night tonight, yeah.

Q. And for Clarke, Tillie had an impressive dunk late in that second half. How cool is that to see?
BRANDON CLARKE: That was really crazy. I have been waiting for that moment for him, honestly. Because he -- I don't think he's had a dunk yet this season and I've been waiting on it personally. (Laughter.) And that one was a crazy dunk. It was over two guys. That shows how bouncy he is and plus he can shoot threes, too, floaters too. So he's a really, really tough player to deal with. So obviously if he can do that, we will be a really tough team to beat.

THE MODERATOR: More questions?

Q. FDU is one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country. What was your game plan to stop their three-point shooting?
THE MODERATOR: Brandon?

BRANDON CLARKE: I would say we were trying to not gap off, I believe his name is Edge, and also Jenkins and also their four man. I feel we did a really, really good job of doing, like two things at one, so being like in the gap and then getting out on the shooter still. I feel like we had a really, really good focus on the defensive end tonight doing that, so that made it harder for them to hit threes.

THE MODERATOR: More questions for the student-athletes? We'll let these gentlemen go and when they've left the stage we will turn it over for questions to Coach. Questions for Coach Few.

Q. Mark, you guys are awesome offensively, you have been most of the season, everyone knows that. I wondered what you thought defensively, you guys were so good especially early, they just looked like you had punched them in the face and they didn't recover.
MARK FEW: I loved our intensity from the jump. You nailed it. But also, a great attention to detail. We've been pretty good with that all year, of finding the scouting report, understanding it and then taking it out on the floor. And I thought the combination of both those, great intensity and the physicality around the rim.

What I saw from Fairleigh on film, they are playing three bigs now, they are a good size, they walk out on the floor, you don't think it's a 16 seed, just their presence. And I thought we did a good job handling the physicality with our vertical contests and got up and blocked some shots which we have done all year. When we're doing that, that gets us out running and we're obviously at our best when we are out running.

Q. So, just about a month ago Tillie left the game with that partially torn ligament in his foot. You talked about how much Tillie meant and wonderful he was to coach. How much joy does it bring to you to see him back out on the court?
MARK FEW: Just an absolute incredible amount of joy and satisfaction to see somebody that worked so hard, had such a great year last year for us, and then, you know, the practice before we go down to play Florida State, he has this fluke injury so he wasn't able to obviously play in that game, and then he had to miss a bunch of the off-season, kind of getting back in the fold. And then hurt his foot again and had surgery.

And actually, it's funny you say that because what the date -- the night it happened, the trainer and I and Tills were looking at this, Okay, are we going to play on the Thursday or the Friday? Here's what we've got to work with. And it's a plantar fascia tear and we can do this.

He did a great job staying positive. He had a bad run of luck there. It's awesome, awesome to see -- and you guys can all see if you've forgot, I mean, he's a hell of a player.

Q. Mark, Zach did so much for you guys tonight, 13 points, 7 assists...
MARK FEW: I like that.

Q. He would probably say he only went 4 from 12, he would be mad at how he shot it. I was curious when you watched him in high school, in AAU, did you imagine he could do this, that he could like fill a stat sheet for you or did you think he'd be mostly a shooter?
MARK FEW: I hoped we'd get some development out of him. I was happy to watch the game, he had 14 or 15 threes in one of the back gyms in Vegas and that's what really initially caught my eye.

The other thing that caught my eye during the recruiting process with Zach was what a great leader he was. You know, Simeon has an awesome, awesome history of basketball, and he was without a doubted the leader on that team. And he's rounded into quite a leader for us also. I'm probably most proud of that.

And he was the guy that spent most of the night on Darnell Edge who was an excellent player and came in on a roll and Snacks did a nice job of making it a tough night for him.

THE MODERATOR: More questions for Coach? Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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