MAUI JIM'S MAUI INVITATIONAL

November 24, 2021

LaVall Jordan

Bryce Golden

Jair Bolden

Butler Bulldogs

Postgame Press Conference

Butler - 84, Chaminade - 51

LAVALL JORDAN: We appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the Maui Jim Maui Invitational in Vegas and these opportunities are great because you learn, you're learning your team. There's obviously unbelievable competition regardless of who you play, well-coached teams, and got to learn a lot about ourselves through a week and seek to improve and that's the journey I think everybody's on, just trying to get better each and every game out, each and every walk-through, each and every film session.

So to see our guys improve a little bit more today against a good opponent, a well-coached team, and I knew they were going to keep fighting. They did a heck of a job on the boards coming after us on the offensive glass. Still things to get better at, but again, you get to challenge yourselves in these events and try to grow into your best self as you go to get ready for conference play later on.

So I thought our guys learned some lessons for sure and we get a good break here to come out and continue to make improvements.

Q. Coach said that he was happy with some of the things you did that went way better than the last couple days. What couple things can you share with us that you did better or the way coach wanted it to give you guys more success today?

BRYCE GOLDEN: I definitely feel like the energy was way better. I feel like we really competed today to a better level. The past two days I feel like we weren't playing at our best level. So I thought today we just came out and played hard and kept everything under control.

JAIR BOLDEN: I would say that there was just more focus from before the game, the walk-throughs, whatever leading up to it and then that carried over into execution, energy. I think first day we came out we got punched in the mouth and we didn't really have any energy responding to that.

The next day got a little bit better, but I think that's what's great about this tournament is three games in three days, you can grow fast in games like this and that's what we did, and I'm looking forward to getting back home and continuing learning on the lessons that we took from here.

Q. Heading into this game it seemed like you weren't involved as much as you wanted to be in the offense. Maybe it's as you described it. There was more energy all over everything and you played off that. Anything you can point to that led to that?

JAIR BOLDEN: No. I mean, we got to practice every day. Coach puts a lot of trust in all of us. I hadn't really thought about that, honestly. I trust all my teammates to find me when I'm open, to take their shots when they're open, and I got to trust them to knock it down when their time comes.

And I think that's the best thing about our team is as we're growing together, we're learning each other strengths. We're playing with new guys and we're not even at full strength yet.

So it's a constant process. It's early because it's the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh game of the season. These are times to get these things out, obviously, and we're going to still be adding new pieces too.

So it's a learning experience for everyone and we're growing. You can see from day to day. We're going to carry these lessons that we took from Maui back home and keep executing on what we need to execute and learning each other and growing.

Q. All these November tournaments are supposed to be used to grow your teams and of course people have flipped out about the lopsided losses, but it sounds like a game like this does a world of good, a confidence boost. What do you gain from a game like this?

JAIR BOLDEN: I think, just the things like this. Like coach said, they're a well-coached team. They're in this tournament every year. They play good competition year after year. So coming into it I think we gave up 22 offensive rebounds and they're coming nonstop to seal us on the boards. And that's a lesson we need to take, carrying into Big East play and the rest of our non-conference score.

Regardless of the score, regardless of the time of the game, you need to focus on doing your job and I think a game like this people are going to test you no matter what. Everyone's good across the country no matter who or where they play, what division they play in. Everyone's good and everyone's got good players and they're going to make good choices day-in and day-out, so...

BRYCE GOLDEN: Just what he said. Like, this team is really good. Everybody hasn't played to their full potential yet at the same time. We're always confident no matter what. We're just going to keep getting better every game.

Q. You seemed a lot more aggressive early on. Was that a point of emphasis for you guys today?

BRYCE GOLDEN: We knew we wanted a paint presence so I guess you could say it was a point of emphasis, but we're always going to try to get points in the paint, go through our bigs and we see like a mismatch like that we take advantage of it.

JAIR BOLDEN: I think like first couple games we came out, we had a young team, a new team. Early in the season we're still trying to figure it out and I think we all were a little timid, not where we need to be at, by any means.

But today was a good start coming out, being aggressive, trusting the ball, moving it, driving it when you had to close out on the ball, throwing the ball on the side, knocking down the shot when you're open. We took the lessons from the first two games and executed better today.

Q. Any update on the wounded on your team?

LAVALL JORDAN: Our manager has a number of guys that he started the day with. Obviously it's part of it. You just hang on and you go the next man up mindset and I thought it was great for Simas to get back in there from having a little illness. So it was good to see him play some minutes, be able to suck it up and go, and guys got a little bit of time here over the break to recover. So no diagnosis yet, but yeah, maybe a couple stitches when we get back.

Q. (No microphone.)

LAVALL JORDAN: Yeah, I think Aaron is fine. He took a pretty good hit, had a small cut, but I think that overall he'll be fine.

D.J. and Simas ran into each other. Simas will have a few stitches, I believe, but he should be okay. Chucky's foot is more inflammation to be able to calm it down and it's good we have a break to be able to do so.

Q. People look at this game and think Butler should have beat Chaminade. But everyone in this tournament is looking to grow their team. In what ways do you think you got growth in an outcome like this?

LAVALL JORDAN: A ton of ways. You name it. Great competition with us going against Houston, Texas A&M, great competition, so obviously some humility involved trying to do things that we have practiced against really good teams, you still have to be able to execute against pressure. We got to do a better job against pressure, taking care of the basketball, still with 14 turnovers today is too many and so things to clearly go back and double down on the fundamentals to be better at. Having our guys grow in the area of preparation. I thought Bryce said it, I think that was a big deal when you see how to prepare. Everybody wants it, there's a desire, no question, but being prepared to win so you can execute against the best of the best. So those lessons are, you can't put a price on them and each team's different. Obviously this team's growing into themselves and thankfully there's a whole lot more season left to use the lessons. It's no good if you don't apply it.