PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2021

Alonzo Verge

Arizona State Sun Devils

Postgame Press Conference

Arizona State - 64, Washington State - 59

Q. Bobby said you were more vocal in practices just the last couple days and you were everywhere today. Just what was your process like even past the Utah loss?

ALONZO VERGE: I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I'm sorry.

Q. Coach said you were more vocal in practice the last couple days, just getting ready for this tournament. I was wondering what your process was like for flushing out the Utah loss and then getting you and your guys ready to go at it when your season's on the line?

ALONZO VERGE: It's kind of self-explanatory, man, when everything is on the line and you got nothing to lose, we just want to kind of like give it everything you got. For me specifically it's my last year with these guys and I know this group will never be together again. It's just, I just want to give them everything I got and that's what I've been doing in practice and just being vocal and things like that.

Q. Talking to coach, obviously it's been a tough year for you guys overall as a team, but what does a victory like this do? PAC-12 tournament, like you said, it could be your last game, win or go home, but what does a victory like this do going forward now playing obviously a tough team like Oregon? What does it do for the psyche of the team?

ALONZO VERGE: It just gives us momentum. Every win counts and we know that. So it just gives us momentum going into the next game. That team was pretty big, so we kind of contained them on the backboard and we just got to go back to the drawing board and see what we got to work on.

Q. Can you talk about, obviously you had a great offensive game. Can you talk a little bit about Jaelen House and what he does for this team? I mean, it just, the catalyst.

ALONZO VERGE: Absolutely. That kid is, he has a motor where in order to get that motor out of him you have to rip out his heart, like, literally. That kid, he does everything that other people don't want to do. Those are the type of people you need on your team because they don't complain, they don't worry about shot selection, they just go out there and they just play. And Jaelen House is one of those guys. You can put him on any team and he's going to flourish because the type of player he is. And just being in the passing lane, steals, I think Jaelen House had a couple steals and just being a difference-maker, man, he brings that to the table when he comes off the bench.

Q. The closing minute or so, there was the turnover when it bounced off of your hands and it was going to be their ball, but then on that inbound Holland Woods was able to grab the ball and there was that big jump ball, I want to ask about that defensive play and what was going through your guys' heads to get that ball back and have the chance to take the lead?

ALONZO VERGE: That's why I love my team, man. My team, we've been through so much this year, it's just like the ball went off my leg and I kind of like, I lost it, mentally, I was like, man, like everything just started coming to me at once. But my guys just said, Stay with it, bro, we are here, we're good, like they were just letting me know like it's still time, like we can still win this. And Holland did a great job listening to coach getting that jump ball, because we knew the next jump ball would be ours, so we wanted to get the jump ball and Holland did a great job just hunting the ball down and getting that jump ball for us so we can get another chance to win.

Q. I know this is a season that really brought a lot more frustration than joy, but the fact that six of your 11 wins have been five points or less, what does that say about the team that probably had 10,000 reasons to quit, to mail it in during the season, to come up with another gritty victory this late in the year?

ALONZO VERGE: It just shows you the heart that this whole program has, starting with Coach Hurley, he gives us everything he has from day-in and day-out. It just shows you like that we have so much fight left in us and this thing is far from over. And we just are trying to keep mailing it in, take it day by day, and just focus on the next game and next task at hand.

Q. When coach was asked about your shot there in the lane, he said that you're a tough-shot maker, that you can make difficult shots. How does one become a tough-shot maker?

ALONZO VERGE: Really just previously me being at JuCo and just I always been that type of player to just make difficult, weird shots and that's just how I've always been. I don't know where it came from. I guess it's just the confidence and just keeping that confidence because I could have honestly mailed it in and just not had that confidence at this point of the year. But nobody can take that away from me. When you put in the work, you just trust the results. And that's what I do, I put in the work and I just trust the results, and at the end of the day, my teammates trusted me to take that last shot and my coaches trusted me, so, and Jalen Graham, too, by the way, like he had that big-time block off the glass and that's how we got the lead again.

So it's just, my team is so much more than just scoring the ball, it's, we have a lot of people that do all the dirty work.

Q. Here at the arena we heard you talking, saying, I can't hear y'all to your bench and just sort of getting fired up. What can you say about having everybody up on defense and cheering and having that momentum going into this next game tomorrow?

ALONZO VERGE: It's big. It's big time. Just knowing that the guys behind you have your back, it just makes you go that much harder. So I know if our bench is loud and talking, then that makes us want to stick defense more, that makes us want to be in the passing lane, that makes us want to jump to the ball and do little things that we probably don't necessarily want to do, but our teammates are so excited for us we have no choice but to do it. So it's a big part, it's the time of the year that we need everybody from the walk-ons to the managers to everybody. So it's just, everybody plays a part.

Q. Take me through your mindset and what you were thinking on that last second floater.

ALONZO VERGE: I was really trying to see what he was giving me and if I could pull up. I knew they couldn't keep me in front of them, so I just wanted to get to my spots and try to get a floater up, which I did. Kind of, I leaned into him and he kind of like gave me -- I kind of felt his body, so I bumped up and I just got a good shot at the rim.