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

April 5, 2021

Mark Few

Lucas Oil Stadium - Unity Court (South)

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Postgame Media Conference

Baylor - 86, Gonzaga - 70

THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with an opening statement from Coach Few.

COACH FEW: It's a really, really tough one to end a storybook season on. But, listen, Baylor just beat us. They beat us in every facet of the game tonight and deserve all the credit. And obviously we're all disappointed in here, but, you know, as I told the guys, like, you make it this far and you're 31-0 going into the last one, the last 40 minutes of the season, there's absolutely nothing you should ever feel bad. And they'll look back on this season as time passes as something just amazing and incredible. But hats off to Baylor. They dominated us on both sides of the ball.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. You've now had to address a losing locker room twice in a national championship game. Was it any different being that you had not lost prior to tonight?

COACH FEW: I mean, it's obviously a feeling these guys had never had to address and deal with. But I think the nature of it tonight probably made it -- I mean, it's not easy but, again, as a coach you just try to give them as much perspective as you can. And as is usually the case with everything, time will lend them the best perspective.

But, they've just been an amazing, unbelievable group. And I just told them they're just so easy to coach and so easy to travel with and so easy to deal with all this COVID stuff that we dealt with all year. I just was amazed at how they handled everything.

Q. As you look back on -- I know the season just ended, but what did you learn about yourself and the group of players that you coached in arguably one of the most difficult circumstances dealing with COVID throughout the entire season?

COACH FEW: I mean, a great question. What I learned was just my guys are of the highest character, and they just love this game and they loved each other and love this team enough that no matter all these crazy protocols that were put on them and not playing in front of fans, testing every day, and having to quarantine for 14 days because they might or might not have been close to somebody for over 15 minutes.

And none of them would take the love for basketball that they have away. And also the desire and love that they had to hoop together and to play together.

So their resiliency and their drive and stick-to-itiveness and their positive attitude and enthusiasm was something that I'll take with me the rest of my life.

Q. Jalen Suggs was obviously broken up and emotional after this one. Obviously a lot of one-and-done guys looking towards the future. What do you think it says about him how incredibly emotional he was?

COACH FEW: He's a winner. He's a winner and he lost for the first time in college basketball. So he's highly competitive. He doesn't like losing. And I think in his mind he saw us cutting down the nets at the end of this.

But he's also young. And as time goes by he'll gain better perspective on what an incredible impact he had on this team and on college basketball. And I mean, it was a blessing to be able to coach him. And I thanked him for just how coachable, what a great teammate he was and just what a winner he was.

Q. That start they got off to just put you in such a hole. Anything they catch you with that surprised you or were they just nearly perfect?

COACH FEW: They were just so much more aggressive. They literally -- we haven't played like that this year. They literally busted us out of anything we could possibly do on offense. We were playing with our back to the bask -- not facing up. And we couldn't get anything generated to the basket; we were kind of playing sideways.

On the other end we had no answers as far as keeping some of their guards in front and made a couple of mistakes we talked about not doing as far as giving them catch-and-shoot 3s or shake-down 3s, and they made us pay in a hurry.

Q. Obviously you indicated how much better Baylor was than you tonight. I'm just curious, was there a (indiscernible) for going undefeated all season? There's sort of a lore in American sports of an undefeated team. It doesn't happen in four and a half decades here. Could you address that notion and what it's like carrying that throughout a season, please?

COACH FEW: It's weird, I never felt like we played with that weight all year. I always felt like we were the aggressor and we were always, I call it attack mode. And we just ran into a team tonight that was, they were the aggressor, clearly. So I think that put us back definitely on our heels on both ends.

And, look, I've been watching them all year and watching last year and I knew they were going to be a handful for us. Just those guards are so quick and they can all get to their own shot.

They're obviously more athletic than we are up around the rim. But I thought we might be able to find some advantages, too, and we just weren't quite able to do that. And I think we got it to nine a couple times. And man, we did everything. We missed free throws. We have some tough turnovers. And you can't do that when you're trying to claw your way back in.

And then all the while I kept checking our DER. And we were never consistently really able to get stops against these guys. So they deserve all the credit. They were terrific. And, quite frankly, they were terrific this whole weekend here at the Final Four.

They were just on it. And sometimes it goes like that during the season when your team kind of ebbs and flows. And they were definitely hitting on all strides.

Q. I know you focused a lot with your team on trying to make sure they were as aggressive as possible after that game Saturday. Did you see any carry-over from that at all, from fatigue or energy standpoint?

COACH FEW: Obviously, it's a tough turnaround. It was more just the aggressiveness and the athletic, just the athleticism of Baylor that just had us on our heels. I don't know that it was due to our fatigue. And, yes, again, usually when you're the most aggressive team you're going to get the calls and you're going to get, you're going to make the plays. And I mean they were just clearly way more aggressive than us pretty much the entire night. So I don't think that was because of fatigue at all, no.

Q. You started the game plan man to man. Then you went out to zone. Seemed like it helped, got you all back in the game. What happened in the second half that just seemed like it didn't work anymore or, like, what was going on?

COACH FEW: They hit back-to-back 3s on it. So they scored six straight points. And then tried it one more time and they got either a high-post jumper or a guy caught it in the middle of the zone and bounced down. So they scored eight quick points against it.

It was time to go back to man at that point because it was difficult the entire game to get consistent stops. We track points per possession over there and the zone was worse than the man which was hard to do tonight. But it actually, it was worse.

Q. What happened with Butler? Have you ever seen a player like him during the season?

COACH FEW: He's an excellent player. What makes him tough is he can score at all three levels. I thought we could have done a better job of forcing him to taking those 2s. And he was a guy that hit -- I think he hit back-to-back 3s later in the clock at the start of that second half. And that's what we didn't want him to do. We wanted him to bounce it.

But he's had a heck of a year, a heck of a career. He's a complete player. He can guard. He can score mid-range. He can score at the basket. And he's a deadly 3-point shooter.

And that's what all four of their guards do, actually. So that's why they're so tough to handle.

Q. My question, is it fair to say, in your opinion, it was just one of those nights where you could tell it was just their night from the beginning?

COACH FEW: Well, you try to do everything within your power to flip the switch. But I mean, yeah, I mean it was tough. When they're consistently more aggressive on both ends, it was, like I said, it was hard to generate rhythm.

We'd score a couple times. We couldn't ever get consecutive stops to kind of close some gaps. And we didn't help ourselves. We turned the ball over. We missed free throws. We had some really, you know, kind of -- and, again, I think maybe that's just from, as we got into the tournament here, it was tough to really practice as much as we wanted to because things were -- we had one less day of prep.

So our defense -- we were supposed to be in this coverage in ball screens and we wouldn't be in it. We were supposed to be switching things, one guy would switch, one guy wouldn't. That's stuff we just didn't do all year. That took a bad situation and made it even worse.

Q. You talked throughout the year about how this season in particular was so important to you to just cherish every moment because we learned last year that basketball is not guaranteed for us. What do you think that kind of joy and excitement that you really tried to get out of your team, how do you inspire them to have the year they had because looking back it's been a fantastic season for you guys?

COACH FEW: It's been a fantastic season. These guys have just a great enthusiasm about them. Just such a positive spirit but yet such a competitive spirit. They're such all great competitors.

And, again, I just marvel at everything they had to deal with this year. I mean, our isolation, every time we were on the road and all the COVID protocols and the changes and not being able to practice and practicing and sitting out for 14 days and things like that. Yet they always just had an amazing attitude and positivity about them that's just -- you can't thank them enough.

And they're all going to be great successes as they move on as husbands and fathers and whatever they choose to do with their lives, because they're just such high character guys and they have such a great positive spirit about them.