NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL FOUR: UCLA VS GONZAGA

April 3, 2021

Mark Few

Lucas Oil Stadium - Unity Court (South)

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Semi-Final Postgame Media Conference

Gonzaga - 93, UCLA - 90

THE MODERATOR: Coach, go ahead with an opening.

COACH FEW: What a great college basketball game. And to do it on the biggest stage is just awesome. And to come out with the win, I know we had a lucky half-courter at the end. But both teams battled, battled and dug as deep, I think, as they could. And, man, hats off to UCLA. They are really, really good. And just so, so well-coached. It was quite a chess match going on out there. And, you know, we had the last possession. And like I said, we were lucky enough to hit a 50-footer. So it helps when you have a magical, special guy like Jalen, special at the end of games.

Q. You just mentioned that shot by Suggs. Walk us through it from your perspective, what you were seeing?

COACH FEW: Well, I don't like to call timeout in that situation because I think you can make an open-court play better before they set up their defense. But I was wondering if we were ever going to get the ball out of the net. I thought we might need a timeout there. I was getting ready to yell at the guys. Then they got it in, and I knew we were good because it was in Jalen's hands.

And we work -- we haven't had many games like this, but we worked on it a lot, we worked probably work on more end-game situations this year than I ever have just because I knew we needed that. And he makes shots -- he's got that magical aura. He makes them in practice all the time. It's been crazy this year how many he's made in practice last-second shots. I felt pretty good. I was staring right at it. And I said it's in. And it was.

Q. What was the locker room celebration like? You've been celebrating these every single game, but winning in this sort of fashion, what was it like in the locker room?

COACH FEW: It was crazy. Euphoric. Guys were happy as, you know, you could ever be. You can imagine what it was like. It was awesome.

Q. May be too soon after the game, but did you have a sense that you were in an all-time classic there?

COACH FEW: No, no. I was just trying to call the right sets and get us in the right defenses. No. But, man, it was tough to get any kind of separation. You know, we were dealing with some foul trouble. We were trying to get Drew in and out of that thing and lost and all this, and the last-second shot, Jalen did an unbelievable job being up Juzang. They ran so many good actions for him, and he was all over him. And Juzang is just a big-time player, hits big-time, tough shots.

But, no, not at the time. But obviously at the end of it, you could tell how both staffs and all the players reacted that it was an all-timer.

Q. What were they doing to make it so difficult for you guys to get the ball to Corey? What was the problem there?

COACH FEW: Well, I mean, I don't know if they really were. How many shots did he get, 13 shots. We've been balanced all year. Sometimes Corey's getting shots and Andrew isn't or Jalen isn't and Drew is. Look, they're a really, really good defensive team, as you would expect from Mick. So I thought we found Corey on some nice pin-downs. And I thought he missed a couple of bunnies early and some finishes that he usually is good at. But he responded in the second half, hit some big shots. And, yeah, they're a pressure defense there. They were making it hard on all of us.

Q. You talked about this game beforehand, it was going to be a rock fight. And it certainly looked that way tonight. How happy were you that you guys were able to match their scrappiness and their toughness?

COACH FEW: I didn't think we did early. I thought they were really kind of beating us to all the 50/50 balls and taking some ones that maybe we had our hands on and were just a little bit more opportunistic than us. But true to form with these guys, they adjusted at halftime, and I thought we ended up -- both teams are still making plays in the second half.

And I thought that's how we grew our lead, was we got more aggressive. We started making handsy plays and digging some things out, and we were able to get out in transition and make some things happen.

Q. Maybe another player that got lost was Timme with four fouls drawing a charge at the end of regulation with the game on. And what he did early in overtime, just going to him and him producing.

COACH FEW: Yes, you've been with us all year. First of all, our best charge taker by far. I mean, I don't know how I felt about that, especially with four fouls. But he took it God bless him, and it was a big play. And then, hey, we've been going to him all year. And I think this game we found that it was a lot more effective if we could get him on the move. They were doing a great job of pushing him out and crowding him and fronting him and doing all kinds of things. And a stagnant post was not the answer.

So he's smart. These other guys are smart. Jalen and Andrew found him with some really nice pocket passes, and he went to work.

Q. You talk about Jalen's shot being sort of lucky, but the play that wasn't was a block he had on Riley and that pass-ahead to Timme that was electric. I'm sure you're used to seeing these things. But what level does he bring to this team? How much does he elevate you guys, just in general, on both ends of the floor that way?

COACH FEW: Well, I mean, yeah, he elevates us tremendously. He's a hell of a player. I mean, he's electric. You know, especially when you get him out in transition. He's confident enough. And to make that pass to Timme, when I saw him sizing it up, I was not thinking it was going to be one of his greatest decisions he's ever had. But he's got a knack, again, for just -- I mean, fitting things into small windows.

And how about Drew? You've got a 6'10" guy running that fast, scooping a cut bounce pass, 50-foot bounce pass up and dunking it. He's got great hands. That was just an amazing, amazing play. And Jalen, the beauty of Jalen is he does make plays like that and has made plays like that defensively where he comes down and blocks bigs because he's so athletic and he's so tough and he's not afraid. He's not afraid to try.

And that's absolutely what he brings to our team, is just this fearless attacking, very confident player with a great feel for the game. And so he's elevated us tremendously this year.

Q. Your team hasn't really had to claw its way back in a game like this since the West Coast championship against BYU. And I'm curious, how does your team not grow complacent? Did you reference that game at all in getting ready for this game and trying to stay resilient?

COACH FEW: I think you guys are kind of -- I mean, not just you but everybody -- to think that we would be complacent in a Final Four game, in a National Semifinal game is nuts. We're going to be as fired up as we've ever been. And we haven't been complacent all year, and we're sure as heck not going to be complacent in a Final Four game.

We just played a really, really hot team that was playing fantastic basketball and was tough as heck to try to score on and to keep off the glass.

And, you know, we survived them because, you know, we played really hard. And we played -- both teams played smart. They only had 10 turnovers. "Complacency" wouldn't be a word that I would ever use with this team that I've got.

Q. You were talking about your effort in the first half and it not being the greatest. And Joel --

COACH FEW: Mental effort is what I said, got some balls, but we had some defensive lapses where we weren't thinking very well.

Q. Ayayi came out and had 16 points in the first half. How big was that for you in the first half?

COACH FEW: It was huge. Joel played great tonight, just great. We needed every one of them obviously. And especially in the first half. Again, I thought at least early they were jamming us a lot. We didn't quite have the rhythm that we normally had, and he did a great job of stepping up and just making big plays. You could tell he was feeling good about his stroke, and he was hunting it a little bit.

And he had some nice plays in the second half, too. God, he had a couple of those runners down the lane where we made defensive plays that just missed that I think could have really helped break that thing even more open.

Q. Obviously it was a very intense game. Pretty much the entire game. What do you tell your team right before overtime?

COACH FEW: That, hey, we're fine. We've just got to keep getting stops. And we're going to win this thing. There's no doubt we're going to win it. We just -- we've been making the right basketball play all year, I told them, we've just got to do that. We had strung together some really nice stops down the stretch of that game, and then just they hit some tough ones to get it into overtime, I thought, that were well-guarded.

But, yeah, I said we're fine, we've just got to keep doing what we're doing that got us that lead.

Q. Another play that kind of gets lost is Andrew's 3-pointer, which I think made it a five-point game. How important was that shot, knowing what kind of transpired after it?

COACH FEW: I mean, it was huge. And it was so great for Andrew, because he really is a good shooter. And he's deferred a lot occasionally. And all of us have been on him, myself and his teammates, to not defer.

And hey, I think he's played fantastic these last two or three games for us with great pace, and he's just a brilliant decision-maker in ball screens. And when he hunts his shot like that, I think we're at our best. And then also he ended up making a lot of defensive plays tonight like he has all year, too.

Q. You've taken this program to heights unseen, and you're one step away from history. Just talk about continuing to grind; it's just one more game, but what goes through your mind after watching this entire process? I mean, it looks phenomenal to us.

COACH FEW: Yeah, what goes through my mind is we've got a short duration here to get ready for just -- gosh, just a terrific Baylor team. I think now they're back playing the way they were earlier this year. And so well-coached. And just great plan. And just executing the plan. Stepping up, making shots. Playing great defense.

So unfortunately it's just kind of -- that's how it is. I always tell everybody at the end of the year when I'm standing in a river all by myself somewhere in Montana or Idaho, Alaska, somewhere, then you kind of start laughing by yourself to where we were in '89, '90, to where we are now, it's unbelievable. And atmospheres and events like this.

But unfortunately, no time for that right now. We've got to get ready for a terrific Baylor team. And we're going to have to play great.