MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2022

Jeff Linder

Drake Jeffries

Hunter Maldonado

Thomas & Mack Center

Wyoming Cowboys

Postgame Press Conference

WYOMING 61-BOISE STATE 68

JEFF LINDER: Well, a tough loss, I mean, against a very seasoned, very good Boise State team. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Rice, the coaching staff, and their players. I think for our guys being that we're such a young team, when you really look at the roster and the guys that play, you've got four COVID freshmen, a true freshman, and they're in the top seven to go along with Maldo and Drake, sometimes with Thompson, those three fifth year seniors.

They saw and felt a championship level team in terms of just the intensity early on, and I think that's what probably took us back a little bit. I mean, Boise had been in those games. They've been in those fights, and they've been in this situation before, and I thought that that experience kind of got us on our heels a little bit, and you can't spot a team like them 17 points and then try to figure out a way to come back.

Credit to my guys and the reason why we're 25-8 in the position that we've put ourselves in, which I do believe we're an NCAA tournament team. They stayed together. They didn't waiver, and they gave themselves an opportunity to win that game when it didn't look like we had much of a chance. They stuck together, and they found ways to make some plays, but it's a 40-minute game, and you can't spot a team like Boise the lead that we did. But give them credit for putting themselves in that position, but also credit to my team and their resiliency and their fight and character, which they've shown all year.

Q. For both of you guys. Can you just talk about how proud you are of that effort? I know that it is a 40-minute game, and I know that it hurts right now, but the way you guys came back in that and the way you fought when they played the defense they played, how proud are you of this whole locker room's effort?

DRAKE JEFFRIES: It's just been -- we talk about resiliency and grit and effort. Super proud of the guys. Obviously, it's hard to win games in any setting. It was a tough one, and I'm just glad that we didn't give up. We had no quit in us. We fought until the end. That's what Coach has talked to us about all year. We just don't give up, so obviously, it's a tough pill to swallow, but just super proud of the guys.

HUNTER MALDONADO: Basically the same thing. Super proud of everybody. The team stuck together really well. Came out on a run to start the second half, like 17 within a minute of starting that second half, and for us to be able to battle back, get within three, and put ourselves in a position to still win the basketball game. Like you said, just shows our resiliency and how we can battle through any type of adversity and stay together, so super proud of them.

Q. For both of you guys. Obviously, Boise State is a very good defensive team, and they probably know you guys inside and out and vice versa. Are you guys looking forward to playing non-Mountain West teams now and maybe teams that don't know the scouting report on you, Drake, or you, Maldo, and just kind of start over here in the postseason?

HUNTER MALDONADO: I think no matter who we play now at this point in the season, they're going to know what we do. They're going to do film on us because now we're getting to the point where every team is going to be good. Obviously, you've got to get good to be in the NCAA tournament, and so for us I think we'll play a different style of basketball. Mountain West plays a little different than some of the Power Five or other conferences, but at the end of the day, it's still going to be the same message: Go out and stick to our habits and basically put ourselves in a position to win the game.

DRAKE JEFFRIES: I'm excited to switch it up and get out of league play. Obviously, never been to the NCAA tournament, so I'm excited about that. Obviously, hopefully we can get in. It's going to be different for sure. Obviously, Mountain West is physical, big basketball, so it's been fun while it's lasted, but it's going to be a little different playing somebody else.

Q. I guess for both of you guys. Finally got it down there those final minutes to within a possession or two. Did you guys feel like if you guys could have got that steal or maybe just one more break in those final minutes that would have put you guys over the hump?

DRAKE JEFFRIES: Yeah, I think so. I feel like if we would have just maybe got one steal in the gaps a little bit more, just try to come up with the ball and maybe even get a jump ball and then maybe just put them in a position to where they were out of time-outs, so I felt like if we put them in a position, we would have a good chance, and Coach would draw something up, and obviously, tough one.

HUNTER MALDONADO: Like he said, we could sit here and play the what-if game, but at the end of the day we can't spot them 17 points. It shouldn't come down to the very end, but like we said before, proud of all the guys for sticking together and putting us in a position to still win that game, and, obviously, if we can just get one more, two more at the very end, it helps our chances, but like we've said all day, you just can't spot a team like Boise 17.

Q. Hunter, quite simply, what makes Kigab so hard to guard?

HUNTER MALDONADO: He is just experienced. He is tough. He knows what it's like to go through five years of college, and so for him he stepped up, hit some shots early on, which kind of had to change and go -- it was mostly on me, to be honest, and I've got to be a little more on edge to start out the game, make sure he doesn't hit the first two or three, but at the end of the day he is just an experienced player, and he knows championship basketball, so ...

Q. Drake, obviously, they had suffocating defense, no space for 30 minutes. How did it change? How did you guys kind of flip the script there and come back so late? Obviously, there was some tough threes you were making, but how do you change the momentum like that when you don't have any space?

DRAKE JEFFRIES: It was definitely suffocating. I'm used to it by now. Guys are just tugging on my jersey, no space, but Coach has just drawn up some good plays, so I was just running off screens. Graham sets really good screens for me, so if I'm able to get off those and get in some space and let it fly, then I feel good.

Q. Jeff, what do you think sparked it from being 17 and it looks like it's just going to be one of those nights to having a chance to win it there at the end?

JEFF LINDER: I'm not sure what the spark was. The fact that we found a way to get a few stops and then made some shots, but you just can't put yourself in that position. I said Boise did a really good job of coming out and they were just -- as I told the guys at halftime, they just had -- they were just a little bit quicker in terms of their close-outs. They were quicker in their rotations. They were a little quicker in terms of getting to the ball. Those are some of the things that we knew coming in that we couldn't let that happen.

Unfortunately, it took us about 30 minutes to kind of get over the shock and then kind of got settled in. When you are in Boise's position like that, sometimes it's hard when you get up 17 and hold that lead. Going into halftime we weren't in a bad spot. We had some possessions, and give them credit from a defensive standpoint. Guys were running shots and running at them, and some of our guys knew they needed to bounce it and get them in another rotation, but give Boise credit. That's the reason why they're one of the elite teams defensively. It's the reason why they won the regular season from a consistency standpoint on the defensive end. They've been the best team in the league, and so you've got to give them a lot of credit.

Credit to our guys. We always talk about response, and what's our response going to be whether that's success or failure or adversity, and those guys never wavered, and that's what allowed us to really give ourselves a chance. It wasn't one play. It's just more the character of our team.

Q. Jeff, you talk about it often. You're young. They're old.

JEFF LINDER: Really old.

Q. Is that what you want the Wyoming Cowboys to look like?

JEFF LINDER: Well, I mean, it's -- yeah, in time, but that's also the hard thing in college basketball is to get old because if you can get old, for the most part you give yourself a chance, and you have to have the right old. Those guys -- Kigab, Armus, Shaver, Naje Smith -- those guys have been through adversity. They've been through a lot of things. They've been in school for a long time, and sometimes it takes some time to get past all the BS that they hear and some of the things that are put on them, and you just get to a point where you just want to win. They don't care about anything else but to try to find a way to win, and you can see that with that group. I think that's what separated them this year is just -- I think Kigab especially. He is just -- I have so much respect for him as a player. It's funny because he is a great basketball player, but he is not very skilled, but, man, his heart and his tenacity and his will is what I think is a separator with those guys.

Q. Jeff, obviously got off to a little bit of a slow start on the offensive end. Were you happy with the quality of shots you guys were getting, and what would you say was the source of those struggles early on?

JEFF LINDER: Well, they did a good job. Now, we got some open looks. Now, guys had to step up. We had to make those shots. Maldo goes 1 for 7. As I mentioned to Maldo in a timeout, you're not a 0% three-point shooter. You are a guy that for your career has been a 33 to 35 guy. Step up and make a shot. Kind of got some fright there.

J.O. had some looks. It was the deal with -- the other team is going to try to force guys to take shots, and we did that as well, and give credit to Kigab for stepping up and making shots, Naje Smith for stepping up and making shots in the first half, and that was the difference. Those guys, their scouting report, they want to make shots and were taking shots. They made them. And those guys, probably on their scouting report, they wanted to take shots. We didn't make them.

Ultimately, it comes down to a make or miss game, and as you can see from the stats, I mean, in the second half we did a better job, and we knew with them being such a good defensive team and we're also not -- we're built very uniquely in terms of what our skill set is and who we have, and we knew that you don't beat them -- the reason why we beat them the first time and the reason why they've been close games is you have to attack them differently. Especially with their size and length. They're really good ball screen coverages. We're not necessarily great in terms of ball screen on some of this stuff just because of the way that we're built. We knew we had to screen them, and we created some advantages, but then we couldn't really keep the advantages, so credit to them for doing that.

Q. You guys are having a selection show party. I assume that means you're pretty confident you're going to get in. I've been to Tad's house before, and it didn't go well. You guys feel pretty secure obviously if you're going to do that?

JEFF LINDER: Hopefully, based off of the body of work. When you look at what we've done over the course of the season, I know Coach Rice mentioned sometimes you see these teams that maybe win a couple of games here late. Well, I mean, they also lost a lot of games during the course of the season, and it's the body of work. I think our body of work stands for itself.

The quality of the league, I mean, it's -- it's one of the top six leagues in the country night in and night out, and not just from a talent standpoint, but it's such a smart league. I mean, the teams don't make mistakes, and you have to go beat them and so I think based off of what the league was and how it was in the league in 2013 when we got five, and it's just as good as it was then, and I really think you have teams that are built to go win games in the NCAA tournament, and that's what as a conference we need to do is go in and win some games in the NCAA tournament.

I'll sleep pretty well, but at the same time too crazier things have happened, so we're looking forward to hopefully hearing our name and see what happens.

Q. Jeff, what did you think of Armus on the glass and defensively, and he was 16-13 on the interior.

JEFF LINDER: He had his struggles the first two games that we had played. I mean, Graham had gotten the best of him. You could tell that he was up for the challenge tonight. I mean, he was probably moving as well as he has moved all year, for whatever reason. He was playing at a high level just in terms of just the effort to try to keep the ball out of the post. We've seen every post coverage that you could possibly imagine. I mean, we lead the country in terms of playing through the post by about 400 possessions, and so we've seen anything and everything, and it's hard when he is playing with that much effort, and you have their size and length. When they're fronting, it's hard to throw those top-down passes, and it's hard to attack those fronts when you have guys at their length, and he didn't waiver.

Usually sometimes through the course of the game and probably the first two games we played his energy level really kind of waivered off and we were able to take advantage of that knowing that he is a really big piece defensively. He is kind of the anchor of their whole deal, but his will tonight and his effort was as good as I have seen all year.

Thank you, guys.