NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - GEORGETOWN VS COLORADO

March 20, 2021

Tad Boyle

Colorado Buffaloes

Hinkle Fieldhouse

Postgame Media Conference

Colorado 96, Georgetown 73

TAD BOYLE: You know, the first thing I would like to say is that I've got great respect for Patrick Ewing and Georgetown University and their basketball program. You know, it's kind of ironic that when we got here last Sunday morning at like 2:00 in the morning and you walk in the team room, one of the gifts for the players and everybody in your travel party was a book, autobiography from John Thompson, who obviously was a coach at Georgetown, recruited Patrick. I read about the first two chapters. I've been busy with film and stuff, but it's a great read. It's a book that I've really encouraged our players to read, certainly this spring or maybe this summer. Maybe some of them have dug into it already.

Again, what Georgetown University represents and the basketball tradition that they have and really the man that John Thompson was, I think it's important that we recognize that, acknowledge it, and I would encourage anybody listening to get a copy of that book and read it. Again, he was a special man, and I know he changed a lot of lives, Patrick Ewing's was one of them, and Patrick admits that. I just want to tip my hat to Georgetown.

Q. Two questions, two-parter. Number one, this is the first tournament victory for you in a while, and you and I both had a little more hair back then. What's it mean to you? And second, the players have talked about getting into their music and being happy before this game. Do you have music or do you listen to music or not?

TAD BOYLE: I do it on my walks, especially here in Indianapolis through the convention center. I just got AirPods for the first time in my life. I think that was a Christmas gift from my wife. I don't listen to it before games. I'm really kind of locked in to what our game plan is, what plays I'm going to run for who at what times and that sort of thing.

Yeah, our players, look, we have been a resilient team all year long. Last Saturday night when we played for the Pac-12 championship, we were not ourselves. The guys were, again, a little tense, and I think they were too worried about the end game versus just enjoying the moment and letting it all hang loose.

We talked about that this week, and our players talked about it amongst themselves in our team meeting that we had on Tuesday or Wednesday. It was on Tuesday, I believe. Tonight was a totally different kind of mentality, and we've got to keep that. We've got to keep being loose, but understand the game plan, and enjoying the moment, and hey, let it all hang out, pin your ears back and let's go have some fun, and when adversity hits, let's fight through it together.

This team has been doing it after losses all year long, so I don't know why this should be any different.

Q. Coach, if you guys play defense like this going forward, do you like your chances with whatever comes next?

TAD BOYLE: Yeah, when we guard, we're really, really good. Now, we didn't guard very well in the second half. They scored 50 points, and we've got to do a better job of guarding without fouling. We put Georgetown on the foul line too much tonight, so we've got to get our hands back and move our feet a little bit better.

But yeah, defense and rebounding -- now we got out-rebounded by one tonight, which I hasn't happy with, but when you make shots like we made tonight, it makes up for so many things, and that's what we have to really understand as a group is that on Monday whoever we play, if we're not making shots, we'd better be guarding better than we did in the second half. In the first half we did a really good job of it. But defense and rebounding keeps you in every game. And then on nights like this when you're making shots like we made, it's going to be a little bit easier.

But through this tournament, there will be some droughts, and again, depending on who we play, we've got to dial into that game plan.

Q. Strictly in terms of points in the paint, you guys were plus 8 tonight. I know you could assume they were going to attack the low post, but just with respect to that part of the defensive game plan, how pleased were you with the execution of that and just stopping their big guys down low?

TAD BOYLE: Very much so. I'm not sure we stopped them. Wahab had 20. He's a good player. They do a good job in their ball screens looking for him and rolling. He rolls and catches and finishes as good as any big we've played against all year long.

But the fact that we beat them in paint points and he still got 20 is a testament to our guys offensively because we wanted our threes to come as a result of our paint touches and attacking the rim, whether it was in transition, whether it was in the half court, and our guys did a good job of that.

When we're attacking the rim and finishing at the rim like we did tonight and we're kicking out for threes and making threes, we're a really, really hard team to guard. You think about as good as we were offensively tonight and Jeriah Horne really wasn't a big part of that, and we know how good of a shooter Jeriah is and how he stretches the defense. Jabari was feeling it tonight. D'Shawn made some big threes. Eli made a couple of them, but we're going to get Jeriah going and hopefully we'll be even harder to guard.

But we always want to play inside-out. The threes come as a result of paint touches, either by our bigs or by our guards penetrating.

Q. Is that as good a 40 minutes as you guys can play?

TAD BOYLE: You know, offensively I think it's pretty close to it. We had 12 assists. I thought we got a little careless there at the end. We didn't handle our press as well as I would have liked to because I think if we would have been a little bit more aggressive we could have got something on the other end of it.

On the offensive end, yeah, it's as good as we can play. Defensively we can do a better job of not fouling and we can't give up 50 points in the second half. But you score 90-some points and you shoot the way we shot tonight, again, it makes up for a lot.

Great first game. Kind of got the jitters out. Our guys were amped up before the game. There's no doubt about that. But they -- and then we lost our poise a couple of times in that second half, but we regained it, and credit to our seniors and our players for playing with poise because we talked about that the second half, play with confidence, play with poise and play with aggressiveness, and I thought we did that for the most part for 40 minutes.

Q. Talk about the implications of their kind of like dropping the big man halfway down the lane on a pick-and-roll. It seemed to really open up your pick-and-pop and your perimeter ball movement action. Talk about that.

TAD BOYLE: It did, yes. I mentioned on our radio here with Mark Johnson, Wahab at the 5 gives us problems in terms of his ability to roll and score in the paint because he's a really good low-post scorer and their screen-and-roll game is pretty darned good. On the other end of the floor with Wahab, sometimes he shows or tonight he was plugging, we felt like we had the advantage on that in terms of pick-and-popping. We had a couple sets that we were ready to run to pick-and-pop with our 5 man, which we normally don't do, but because of his plugging and kind of being in the lane there, we wanted to stretch the defense with our 5.

Dallas made a three, which he's capable of doing, but we also got Jabari in some pick-and-pop, especially after he made the first one out of the motion set, and then once Jabari makes one, he kind of gets -- he's kind of a rhythm shooter and we ran a couple pick-and-pop plays for him because when he was in with Jeriah, Wahab was guarding Jabari, and that's a really hard lineup when you have a pick-and-pop 5 man and they have a big guy like Wahab, that makes it really difficult for them, especially when our 5s are shooting it like they can they and they did tonight.

We tried to expose that the best we could, and I think our guys did a good job of it.

Q. McKinley had 12 and 5 and then 13 assists. He out-assisted Georgetown by himself. How important was he in his ball movement for the win?

TAD BOYLE: Huge, because you could tell Georgetown's defensive game plan, or at least part of it, was to when McKinley came off ball screens to really make him play in a crowd and not let him score the ball. When that's happened before at times this year McKinley has gotten frustrated. Tonight he didn't. He just took what the defense gave him. Our bigs did a great job of rolling or popping, depending on the case, but McKinley did a terrific job of just being patient.

There in the second half, Evan set a high ball screen for him and rolled and McKinley just kept the ball, kept the ball, engaged the big and then boom, hit Evan with a pocket pass for a wide open lay-up. Again, we were shooting the ball so well, they were sticking with our shooters on the tags and McKinley played a really heady game from a ball screen read standpoint. It's as good as he's done all year long with his reads in the ball screen consistently.

He didn't get frustrated with his lack of scoring because we want McKinley to be a scoring point guard. That's what he is. But you've got to take what the defense gives you, and our guys did a really good job of that tonight. 27 assists on 34 baskets means you're moving the ball and you're making some shots.

Q. So much is made of upperclassmen guard play this time of year. Between McKinley always wanting to get on to this stage and the way he played tonight and then what Eli Parquet did today, what did you see out of your guards?

TAD BOYLE: Well, they played terrific, terrific basketball. Those two guys combined defensively are so underrated because people look at their size and maybe lack of length, but Eli Parquet is as good of an athlete as we have on our team, and McKinley, he's an All-PAC-12 level defender. He's one of the top five defensive players in our league. I know Eli got that award this year, but McKinley as a sophomore and junior was first team all-league on defense. We know those two can really guard.

Eli has really done a good job of playing his role and taking open shots and making open shots for us. He did that again tonight. He doesn't force things. Those two guys, we've got a lot of confidence in those two guys in the backcourt. They're going to need to play well as this thing advances because you're exactly right, guard play means a lot this time of year in this tournament.