NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - OKLAHOMA VS GONZAGA

March 22, 2021

Mark Few

Hinkle Fieldhouse

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Postgame Media Conference

Gonzaga 87, Oklahoma 71

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with some opening comments from you, Coach.

MARK FEW: That was a hard-earned win for us to get us to our -- I think it's our sixth straight Sweet 16, which is just an awesome, awesome accomplishment by all the people involved. Man, Oklahoma is hard to guard. Lon does a great job of figuring out what you're doing defensively and then he starts picking on that. When you switch to a different kind of coverage he starts picking on that. Reaves was a handful, and then some of their -- I thought some of their secondary players really kind of stepped up and were hurting us, too.

By and large I thought we did a good job on manic. We were really concerned with him. Outside of that first one we gave him, I thought we did a very nice job on him.

Q. There's been so many disruptions this season, from teams all over the country. What have you done to try to establish some sense of continuity and a normalcy? Also, how much of those disruptions and lack of continuity has resulted in a lot of the upsets that we're seeing?

MARK FEW: You know, the first thing that has been the whole key for us is this group I'm coaching. I literally think they could handle anything, probably even being shipwrecked on a deserted island. They'd figure it out.

They've been a joy. I think there's been a positive aspect of this, and we've just drawn so much closer, all of us, kind of within our little core group because of this, and it's really helped in building chemistry.

I don't think at the start of the year people realized how much changeover we had. Everybody was picking us No. 1 in the country, and we lost a lot of key components from the year before, and we plugged them in, and if anything the COVID situation, as screwed up as it's made it for us as far as a sense of normalcy, it's really drawn us closer, and this group especially has just embraced that fact and ran with it, and they play that way, too.

Q. More broadly just with the tournament and the upsets, do you think that has a role in this?

MARK FEW: I mean, well, first of all, I think this happens every year, and it's like Lucy pulling the football on you people that are in our profession, but there are a lot of good teams out there, okay, and when you play them on the biggest stage and it's just one game, it's not a seven-game series, anything can happen.

There's a lot of great coaches out there. You give them enough time to game plan for stuff like this, they're going to take away your strengths. Somebody maybe you never heard of gets hot, and all us teams, we go through phases. Sometimes we're playing good and then sometimes we kind of level off, not so good.

I mean, I would start with that, but I would also add that, yeah, I mean, it's been hard, I think, for some places to get rhythm and maybe get everything in because of missing practices and all that. I mean, I can just honestly say I don't know that we've experienced that. I feel -- I think my players would say we've probably had them over-practiced. They're probably done with practice, but not for another week.

But I would say the former is the answer to that.

Q. Is your hair wet right now? Did they have a little celebration in the locker room?

MARK FEW: We've been celebrating every one of these wins. We celebrated the other night. We celebrated this win. If we're lucky enough to get another one, we're going to celebrate like crazy for that one. This tournament needs to be celebrated. It's been a long, hard slog to get to this, and the people at the NCAA deserve a lot of credit for sticking with this and putting it on. Dan Gavitt is a rock star. I know he's got a lot of help. But they deserve a lot of credit for this.

Q. Seeing you over the years, you guys do play hard and celebrate hard. I know that there's things that a coach is going to find frustrating you've got to iron out before next week, but at what point does the locker room get treated to a headstand from you?

MARK FEW: I mean, I can't confirm or deny, but it could have been tonight, it could have been -- I don't know. It's hard to -- we'll wait and see when the facts come out.

You're right. You know, Zags go really, really hard and they prepare really hard, and after a win we celebrate hard and we know how to have a great time. And I think that's one of the things that makes our program so special.

We're definitely going to celebrate tonight. We're going to have fun in the bubble with ourselves.

Q. What you talked about with your players being able to handle a deserted island and a shipwreck --

MARK FEW: Maybe not the best analogy, but --

Q. I get the point. There aren't obvious like advantages in this tournament, but is this one, that your guys -- there's a genuine fondness and compatibility among them?

MARK FEW: Yeah, great call. You nailed it. There is a genuine fondness between these guys, to the point -- they love each other. That's not corny stuff, it's real. They care deeply about each other.

But to your also point, there's a tremendous amount of compatibility. There's a ton of fun-loving dudes that just love to have fun, but yet are ferocious competitors when you're keeping score. So the combination of that I think has worked just magic with us this entire year, and that's why it's been so fun.

Q. They got off to a nice start against you, and some teams have done that. Do you think for teams that are unfamiliar with playing against you guys, it's difficult for them to understand how your offense is just going to keep coming at teams?

MARK FEW: I mean, to be honest with you, I can't speak for what other teams got going. I think the one thing when you're on our bench, there's a comfort in knowing that eventually we're going to get going, at least that's how I feel.

There's all sorts of adjustments being made on both benches, and we needed to adjust to what they were doing to us. And obviously we came out with our plan A coverage, and it wasn't working. So fortunately we had a day of practice yesterday to go over plan B and C, and we had to kind of segue into that.

This group is really, really good about, okay, moving to the next phase, whatever it's on, offense or defense, and they certainly did that tonight. They're really a difficult guard with -- they've got skill at the end, and with Harmon being out, these guys have really stepped it up. And you don't have much data on these guys because Harmon was handling the ball a lot and had a lot of usage, but these other guys are dang good players and they came in and made some really big-time plays and big-time shots.

Q. I think it was mentioned at the end of the broadcast that not your best night shooting percentage-wise, yet you still win by double digits. What does that say about the way the defense played today?

MARK FEW: I thought our defense was good. At the second media time-out I think we were dialed in enough on what we wanted with our coverages and where we were pulling help from and loading up and all that.

I think our shooting percentages are probably a little bit out of whack because the big fella must have blocked five shots of ours at the rim or something and pinned them, and then we missed a couple lay-ins early.

But, hey, look, our defense has been good. Pretty dang good all year. I think our offense has been at a historical level, so it gets a lot of the pub. But I think we ended up top 10 in DER this year, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Q. Today was a very hard and physical game; what is the key to keeping those emotions in check and just staying focused until the final buzzer?

MARK FEW: It's what these guys do. These guys have played enough big games, and they're conditioned for that. I don't worry about our guys. Our guys are mentally tough, and they understand what it takes to win, so they're great about that.