NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - EASTERN WASH. VS KANSAS

March 20, 2021

Tanner Groves

Indiana Farmers Coliseum

Eastern Washington Eagles

Postgame Media Conference

Kansas 93, Eastern Washington 84

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Tanner Groves who scored a career high 35 points. We'll begin the press conference. Questions, please.

Q. Obviously a career high night for you. Obviously you don't get the win. How does it feel to fall out on this national stage and represent your school and also basketball in Spokane?

TANNER GROVES: Man, it's honestly so incredible. I'm honestly just so blessed to be here. I got great teammates that were finding me all game. I was knocking shots down. I was feeling good.

But we come up short. That's all right. I was just really happy with the performance that our team put together today for the most part. We only lost by double-digits, it was a dogfight the entire game.

It feels really cool that we were able to keep it pretty close here with Kansas and make it a game, give them a little bit of a scare. I played pretty well. That's just all credit to my teammates and coaches.

It's just been such a fun season. I'm already excited for next year.

Q. When do you feel good about this season?

TANNER GROVES: Yeah, I mean, the loss will definitely sting for a few days. I'm really looking forward to just getting back home, relaxing, having a little bit of time off, just taking a little bit of time to reflect.

I think this year we were projected to be No. 1 seed out of the Big Sky, we ended up winning the whole conference like we were projected to. Then we came in, gave one of the better teams in the nation a game until the very end.

I'm just so proud of my teammates, coaches, everyone in the program. Yeah, it's definitely going to sting for a little bit. At the end of the day you just got to be happy with our effort today.

I think we went out there and performed pretty well for the most part. We played hard the entire 40 minutes. So you got to be proud about that.

Q. What are you going to remember about this game? Will it be the quick start, up at half, disappointing at the end? What is going to stick out to you?

TANNER GROVES: I just think it's going to stick out, like, just how hard we played. I touched on it in the last couple questions, but like I said, I'm just so proud of our guys. I mean, we just played so hard. We battled all game. We tied with a much bigger team on the rebounds, which is pretty impressive, if you think about it.

I'm just really happy. I'm looking at the stat sheet over here right now, just seeing a whole bunch of things. But, yeah, I mean, I think just from this game, it's going to be how tough we played, how hard we played. I just love all these guys on the team. I couldn't be more proud to represent Eastern Washington and be from Spokane and represent Spokane. I'm just so proud of how we played today.

Didn't go the way we wanted, obviously. But I'm always just going to remember this team in general this year as only two other teams in Eastern's history have done what we did this year. At the end of the day you just got to be incredibly proud of our program, coaches and players, of just how we performed all season long.

Q. I'm sure this is disappointing, you're not looking too much into the future, but you did mention looking forward to next year, getting back out on the court. You guys are going to be returning basically all the key players except for Jack Perry and Davison next season. Likely to be the favorite once again. How much does that drive you going into next season and have the experience of the NCAA tournament to have a shot to do this again next year?

TANNER GROVES: Absolutely. You actually heard it here first, but Jack Perry is going to come back for some more next year. I'm really happy about that, because he's an incredibly heady guard. One of my best friends on the team. One of my roommates. Definitely looking to playing another year with that guy. He'll be back.

We're returning a whole bunch of guys, a lot of key players coming back. From what I see, the ceiling is so high for us. It's incredibly high. We just got a ton of hoopers on the team. We got a ton of guys, a ton of young guys, that are just really incredible. You only saw 17 seconds of a few guys there on the bench, like Steele Venters. I expect Steele to come in next year and be one of the better scorers in our whole entire league.

I think we got a ton of guys, coaches have done an unbelievable job of recruiting for our team this year, for the guys coming in. I think we're definitely going to be dangerous next year. I'm really looking forward to next season already.

I love basketball so much. I love my team so much. I just can't wait to get it going again.

Q. I know you're oblivious to this kind of thing during the game. Are you prepared for all the folk hero stuff you're going to encounter out on social media now? You're blowing up.

TANNER GROVES: Yeah, I mean, I'll have to see. I looked at my phone a little bit. I saw all the notifications. It's kind of funny.

I've worked so hard up until this moment, in my whole basketball career, in my life. I just couldn't be thankful enough for the people that have pushed me to be there. My parents have been so huge. My brother. Even my younger brother, he was in the stands today. I was happy to see the whole family. My girlfriend has been so awesome. Grandparents, everyone.

It's pretty crazy, pretty surreal that I'm getting a lot of publicity from all this. But I think I'm just going to continue to be myself and continue to be humble and be proud and grateful that I get to play at such an awesome university and get to play for great coaches, play for a great program with some of my best friends out there.

So at the end of the day, yeah, it's pretty cool. I'll probably look past it a little bit. I mean, I'll probably enjoy it for a little bit. At the end of the day I just got to be grateful for what I got.

Q. Looked like Coach Bill Self found you after the game. What did he share with you?

TANNER GROVES: He just said he had a lot of respect for my brother and I. Said we had a heck of a game. We both did. It's really cool to get some crazy recognition like that from one of the premier coaches in the entire NCAA.

I didn't really think about it at the time because I always usually do that, I usually go up to the other coach, even with the COVID, I'll always go up to them and I always got to show respect to my opponent.

But, yeah, it's kind of cool. It's really surreal that Coach Self came up to me and said he respected my performance today. I'm just thankful for the opportunities that we got today. So that was really cool.

Q. What was the most important thing that you did in the off-season that led to your spike in production this year?

TANNER GROVES: Yeah, I think the most important thing was, you know, obviously it was a COVID year, and our post-season tournament got canceled. I moved back in with my parents. My brother did, as well. That was probably one of my biggest assets is that I had my brother at home with me. I had a guy that was really willing to rebound for me, willing to compete with me every day, whatever we were doing, shooting, playing one-on-one, all that.

My parents were always out there in the driveway with us rebounding. My little brother Dylan, he was always out there, too, which was really cool. Being at home, the biggest thing for me was I just knew I had to have an edge going into the off-season given that the Player of the Year of the Big Sky was playing ahead of me. I had to take his position. So I knew I had huge shoes to fill, a lot of credit to my man Mason Peatling, who had an unbelievable year, 2019/2020 year. I knew I had huge shoes to fill.

Yeah, I just put my head down, grinded as hard as I could, did all the at-home workouts I could do. I always had a ball in my hand every single day of the quarantine. That was probably the biggest thing, was just the ball in my hand. I just worked on my skills and did everything I could do.

Q. More lighthearted question. On social media, which I'm sure you haven't gotten much of a chance to look at, people have been comparing your look to Bill Walton, Will Farrell from 'Semi-Pro'. Which one do you like more?

TANNER GROVES: I like the Will Farrell one best because I always loved him growing up. 'Stepbrother' is probably one of my favorite movies ever. That's really funny. If you haven't looked him up, look up Lil Dicky, too. A lot of people compare me to that guy, too.

Yeah, it's all fun and games. At the end of the day, basketball is obviously a game that brings so many people together. You just got to love the environment of March Madness and everything. It's really cool.

That's hilarious, though. I'll have to check that out. But, yeah, that's awesome.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.