MAUI JIM'S MAUI INVITATIONAL

November 24, 2021

Eric Bovaird

Tredyn Christensen

Kevin Kremer

Chaminade Silverswords

Postgame Press Conference

Butler - 84, Chaminade - 51

ERIC BOVAIRD: I felt we, this whole Maui Jim Maui Invitational was a, I thought half the time we played well and half the time we did not, whether it be the first half, second half, or stretches of games. So we, it was a great experience coming to Las Vegas. It was really neat, but we will be looking forward to going back to Maui in the future. But that's all I got.

Q. First few games was the tale of two halves. You came out and competed. You had a stretch there where you kept it to single digits. Overall, if you just look at this entire stretch, what was the main thing that you learned?

TREDYN CHRISTENSEN: I think we had a lot of games, or all of our games pretty much, we had a lot of like slow starts in our second halves and just not enough energy. But I think we fought, I think, a lot of a lot of times and I think there's a lot we can take from this. If we watch film I think we'll continue to get better from it.

KEVIN KREMER: Yeah, I think the biggest thing moving forward is just looking to put 40 minutes together instead of just 20 and going from there.

Q. (Question about the atmosphere.)

TREDYN CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, it's awesome to see the support, see them come out all the way from Hawaii in the crowd. We can hear them chanting so we appreciate it.

KEVIN KREMER: I mean, yeah, it was great. We had a lot more fans than I was thinking we were going to have, so it was good to hear the chants out there.

Q. Moving forward how is the team doing right now? Are you guys defeated or are you kind of in the middle somewhere, like where is the confidence that, what are you guys going to kind of do to make sure that by the time conference play comes that you guys are going to be okay?

KEVIN KREMER: I think we're frustrated with how we played with our like slow starts and just our energy overall. But we got a big game coming up this weekend, so I think we're just going to take what we can from these last games and move forward.

TREDYN CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, a little frustrated, but we got a big game Saturday, so go back, watch the film, move on, get ready for that.

Q. Your team did some good things, they played very hard at times. What are some of the things that you are happy about that they did or learned specifically in this tournament?

ERIC BOVAIRD: Well, learning how to compete, because the minutes you relax or you're not trying as hard as you can teams like this will take advantage of, for sure. If you have a little lapse of focus then next thing you know they either got a wide-open three or a dunk on you. So that's definitely one thing we need to get better at is constant focus for 40 minutes whenever -- guys don't play 40 minutes, but some of them play 25 to 30, 35, but the time that they're out there on the court they, if they can learn to just focus as hard as they can and try as hard as they can.

Q. Positive things?

ERIC BOVAIRD: Positive things? Boy, it's hard. We did have some great stretches. We did. After communicating those things, we would go out and show really good focus and communication with each other and making the right decisions with the ball at the right time and so forth. We showed stretches that we could be really good. So, but honestly, they're frustrated, we're frustrated, because we don't come here with the expectation of getting beat by 30 each game. We plan on winning at least one game and competing in the other ones. So you'll have to excuse me if we're just a little frustrated.

Q. Butler came into this game kind of sputtering. What were your impressions of them compared to say Oregon and Notre Dame that you played and maybe some other teams that you played in this tournament?

ERIC BOVAIRD: Yeah, first off, I give them a lot of respect because that, I've played in several third day, last-place games, and we've won some, but sometimes teams come in after getting beat twice in a row and they don't bring it. They kind of are disappointed that they're playing in the last-place game and so forth but I give them credit, they did not. They came out fired up, hungry, you could tell right from the start that they were here to play tonight and so I give the coach the credit and the players that they didn't just coast into this game, they took us very seriously and played really, really hard. But, no, I thought that they're figuring out things. The turnovers have plagued them throughout their losses and they have figured out how to take care of the ball, because we wanted to force turnovers too, but they figured out how to take care of the ball and run their stuff without turning the ball over, and getting good stuff. So I think they got a chance to be good.

Q. (Question about the freshmen on Butler.)

ERIC BOVAIRD: Yeah, I think they both have a chance to be really good and Groce for one caught us off guard a little bit. We thought he was more of just a shooter and next thing I know he was shot faking, driving all the way and then caught us in the post a couple times. So he's much more versatile than I thought and I think he's got a chance to be -- his size was impressive in person, he didn't look that big on film, but he was pretty big in person and moved really well. So I think both of them have a chance to be really good at that level.

Q. Overall assessment of the week? Big game on Saturday. Pretty quick turnaround. How confident are you that anything that went wrong in this tournament are going to be able to be solved by Saturday?

ERIC BOVAIRD: Yeah, I'm confident. I think they're going to be ready. They understand how important -- these games are really, really important, there's no doubt about it, but we're going to play the No. 1 team in the country on our home court at our level on Saturday. So they know if we want to be an NCAA Elite 8 type of team that it starts with Saturday showing up and showing that you can beat a team like that.

But, no, I feel confident that we're going to turn around, we're going to, we'll probably have a couple tough film sessions, but they have responded well in the past, so I'm expecting them to rebound from this and take the things that we didn't do well and the things we did do well and make it a positive.

Q. Looking back on this whole tournament, being in Vegas, I imagine you are really excited to get back to Maui. What would it mean to be playing on the islands again instead of here in Las Vegas?

ERIC BOVAIRD: Las Vegas was great it really was. Mandalay Bay is great. This arena is amazing. But for us in particular we kind of lose, even though it's not our home court, it kind of feels like our home court advantage, you know. Not having to travel very far and the people from Hawaii rooting for us and so forth. So we'll be excited when it is our time to go back playing in Maui, the small atmosphere is really unique and the setting in Lahaina, it's pretty special. So Vegas has been great, but we'll be excited to go back to Maui.