NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - ST. BONAVENTURE VS LSU

March 20, 2021

Jaren Thomas

St. Bonaventure Bonnies

Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall

Postgame Media Conference

LSU 76, St. Bonaventure 61

Q. I just wanted to ask you about Dom Welch. Looked like he was struggling through some pain there. What does that mean to you to see a teammate kind of go through that and play through an injury?

JAREN HOLMES: It's special because Dom is a special person. He cares about every single one of us, and like I've been saying and preaching, we have genuine love for each other. When Dom went out, he kept telling us, I'll be back, I'll be back, and he was working just to get back. When he went down I knew he was coming back, I knew he wasn't doing for the game. For him to come back and finish it out like we started, it's just emotional. It's big. He's a great guy. He's a great human.

I think a lot of people don't see those type of things because they're behind closed doors, but he's a brother for life to me, and he's family. He's just a special guy. It just shows his toughness and his love for the game, honestly.

Q. You were guarding Cam a lot of the day. Just what did you think of that assignment? How tough is he? What did you think of guarding him?

JAREN HOLMES: Cam Thomas is a great player. It was a very tough assignment. One of the things was trying to keep him off the foul line. I don't know how many foul shots he got, but -- 11 for 13, so I mean, we did the best we could. It was great guarding -- I always wanted to -- myself, just challenge myself, and he was the best player on that team, best scorer on that team. I wanted that assignment.

Didn't get it done today, but I got in foul trouble for us, so it was a lot easier for him to kind of attack me, try to go at me, not trying to pick up that fifth or that fourth. He's a great player. He's a pro and a highly touted guy. We have just as highly touted guys over on our end, too. I think we showed that today.

Q. In the first half do you think it was more of a case of just shots not falling for you guys because you were keeping everything else in the stat line pretty consistent?

JAREN HOLMES: Yeah, I mean, it wasn't our best shooting day. Shots didn't fall for us, but I mean, that's life. That's basketball. Sometimes it just doesn't fall. Those are shots we want. Those are shots we normally hit.

They just didn't fall today. Theirs fell.

We did what we were supposed to do. We got the shots we wanted. Every shot that we wanted, it just went in and out or we missed it. But ultimately those are shots we practice and those are shots that we work hard at and that we trust in each other to make.

Q. Also I know it's still really fresh with the loss, but when you think about this season and all you guys overcame and all you guys accomplished, what is your main takeaways right now?

JAREN HOLMES: Enjoying life, enjoying this moment. We just played LSU in March Madness at Indiana University. Like this is an historic, historical arena, while in the middle of a pandemic. This is something that I'll be able to tell my children about, talk about forever, honestly. Honestly, this is a magical experience. Not everybody gets to experience March Madness, and today we did, and we got to play a really good team.

We gave it all we had, and we left it all on the floor, and that's all I could ask for and that's all I tried to do today, especially playing a tough team like LSU.

We definitely will look at the tape, and we're not going to hang our heads. This is a year for excitement. We were A-10 champs, regular season and tournament. It hasn't been done in, what, 42 years? Like this team is magical. It's just emotional because you never know at the end of the year if this same group will come back. It's just kind of emotional on that end because I love all these guys so much, and I'd do anything for them. I put that on everything. I'd love anything for them. Love them to death.

Q. Jaren, your team cut the lead down to 10 points three times in the second half and to nine points. What did LSU really do to keep you guys, push them off and reopen its lead?

JAREN HOLMES: They hit a couple shots. They hit a couple threes. And they were getting to the line, slowing the game down. You get to the line and let a shooter continue to get to the line and see the ball go through the net, it's good for him. They got to the line a lot.

I don't know if they -- I don't really know the whole -- their guys had a couple guys with double-doubles; we could have boxed out more. But then again, like the ball just wasn't falling our way. We played hard, and we fought together. That's all that matters, honestly. We didn't come out victorious, but we learned something today, and we're going to use it as scar tissue and just keep going, keep going. I think we're all juniors, the whole starting five is all juniors, and that's a fact. Another year and we're just going to continuously, continuously work.

LSU, they did a good job of really getting to the paint and hitting shots when we tried to double Watford and take the ball out of his hands. They had good shots, and they got a couple offensive rebounds. They were just getting easy looks. They were falling today for them, and they were hitting shots. So kudos to LSU.

Q. You just touched on it, but I did want to ask, as painful as a loss like that can be, you guys are in kind of unique position where you could conceivably have everybody back next year. How much do you think a loss like today, just kind of the way it went, how much can that fuel you guys going into next year?

JAREN HOLMES: Every guy in that locker room is a competitor, and I know one thing about a competitor is he wants to be the best and continue to be the best, and right now today we weren't the best. That's a problem for us. That's going to be in our heads for a long time. But it's just going to make us better, and it's going to just make us keep fighting and working hard and coming closer together.

This is just -- overall this is just a blessing to be here. To make it with these guys and to make it with these coaches and the year we had, I know for a fact that everybody back in Olean is happy and proud of us. I know Dr. DePerro is looking down on us, and he's super proud. With that loss, just to use this game and us making it to March Madness to uplift a couple spirits back home in Olean, and the DePerro family, it's a blessing. We'll be back. We'll be back for sure. That's all I have to say. We'll be back. We're not going to stop working. We'll be back.

Q. First off, congratulations on a great season. The cameras picked up late stages Kyle Lofton getting very emotional on the bench. In that situation, this is somebody who's one of your best friends, the leader on this team. In that situation what do you say to him in that moment?

JAREN HOLMES: Man, that's a good question. Me and you are going to have to talk after this.

Kyle is my best friend. To see your best friend emotionally hurt and to see him crying and in pain and -- you don't want to see that. He's worked his butt off countless hours in the gym, just like every single one of us. To see him cry and to see him really just like go into his emotions, honestly it's just -- it's hard to see, but when that happens, you know that person left everything on the floor. He might be disappointed in the outcome, but you know he left everything on the floor.

He fought today. He's going to continue to fight. Kyle is a great guy. He's a great person. Good basketball player, even better person.

I just hugged him in the locker room and just really just told him I loved him. We both had an emotional moment where we were all crying. But I just told him I loved him. He's my roommate. He's my brother. We ride to school together every day. Like we're going to be talking about this a long time. It just brought us closer together, honestly. When you see somebody cry, you normally don't say -- you see the quote is like men don't cry, but I believe that real men cry. Real men show emotion, and that's the true showing of a man, one who wears their heart on their sleeve, and he does that, every time he goes out there on the court and every time he's in the locker room with us and we're having a good time.

He's an emotional guy. Everybody on this team is emotional. It's a tough loss, but we're going to become better from it. We're going to become better people and better players, and we're going to remember this for the rest of our lives, sharing this moment together. We'll probably laugh about it 20 years from now, me and Kyle, talking about we were crying.

I just told him I loved him and I'm proud of him everything he's accomplished, and that I want him to go for more and continue to stay hungry.

Q. We know that LSU's roster is talented from top to bottom. Can you talk about what it was like to play against a team with that kind of talent?

JAREN HOLMES: Magical. You always want to play against the best. I think they were just in the SEC championship and lost by a bucket. They're a great team, you know? As a competitor you want to go against the best, and that's what March Madness is about. It's the best teams in here, in this tournament. For us to play against them is something I'll remember for the rest of my life. All the time you don't get to play LSU or you don't get to play Michigan or you don't get to play Texas.

Today we went out there and fought for each other, and ultimately we didn't come out with the victory, but we proved something to ourselves and to a lot of people that doubted us at the beginning of the season that we wouldn't be here and that continuously doubt us every year just because of the facilities and they don't think the players are as good. But we're going to keep proving people wrong, and today I think we showed a lot of people what we're made of just from that little town in Olean.