MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2022

Leon Rice

Naje Smith

Abu Kigab

Mladen Armus

Thomas & Mack Center

Boise State Broncos

Postgame Press Conference

Boise State 68-Wyoming 61

LEON RICE: Well, first of all, I just am so proud of the way our guys came out of the gate. I mean, boy, we came out with some intensity, and that defense that we played was terrific. In the first half we were just flying around and making every shot tough for them, and they made some tough ones, but it was just a multiple effort defense and looked like we had six guys out there, so we had a great approach and a great way to start the game, but I know that's a really, really good team, and certainly an NCAA tournament-worthy team that we just played.

They have no quit in them, and we knew that. We knew it was going to be a battle to the end, but it's hard for me. I told the team this. It's always hard for me to single out guys because we have so many guys that contribute to what we do, and Naj is big off the bench today. He had a look in his eye that was just terrific. He was just locked in, ready to go, and he played that way and made huge plays for us.

Abu, I think he guarded their entire team on one possession in the first half. He plays with such great spirit and enthusiasm and energy that rubs off on the rest of the team, and then, you know, you can't say enough about what Mladen did today. He is guarding one of the best centers in the league. He ends up getting 16 points, 12 rebounds, 4 steals. Just a yeoman's work. I never took him out in the second half, but I've got warriors, and I said that yesterday about how competitive they are and how tough they are, and they showed that today.

Q. You guys will play for the first Mountain West championship tournament in history tomorrow. 26 wins now, a program record. How does it feel to be entering your name in the history books here?

ABU KIGAB: It feels good, but we're not done yet. The job is not finished, and we still have to take it one day at a time, do our thing, continue to stick to who we are in our routines, and everything will take care of itself.

Q. Mladen, there was a play in the first half where it looked like you kind of moved towards the three-point line. Everyone went that way, and you had an open lane right to the hoop, and I have never seen the bench that animated. Can you take me through kind of that play?

MLADEN ARMUS: Well, I don't know what to say, to be honest. (Laughing) I just look at what is open, and it turned out the hoop is open, and I just laid out. That's it. Stay patient with the ball and see the options. That's all.

LEON RICE: Simple game.

MLADEN ARMUS: Yep.

Q. Mladen, I'll start with you, and then if Abu or Naj could comment on it too.

Mladen, you came out, and you seemed so determined to assert your will early in this game. What motivated you to start that way tonight?

MLADEN ARMUS: I mean, it's a competition with one of the best centers in our league. He is a great player, and I wanted to give my all to help my team to win this game and to play for a championship tomorrow. That's the motivation that I was with. That's it.

ABU KIGAB: Like he said, he did a hell of a job on him. He made it very hard for him to catch the ball in his spots. He was very physical with him, which frustrated him slightly. Guys are coming in to dig, and that was helping as well, but overall, he did a heck of a job, and he made every shot tough for him. You know, you can't ask for more than that.

Q. I couldn't help but notice, Abu, that you had special guests at the game the last couple of days. Tell me a little bit who those folks were and why it meant so much for them to be here?

ABU KIGAB: My mom and little brother came to see me. This is my mom's first time really seeing me play in college, and same with my brother. That was really special to me. That was really special to me. Just a blessing to have them here. I couldn't see them for so long because of COVID. Almost two and a half years. Then just to have them there for me just uplifts me so much. Makes me want to even play harder than I already do, so I have to give a big shout out to my mom.

Q. Mladen, it looked like before the game when you were supposed to go to center court and do the hand sakes, that Graham Ike didn't go out to shake your hand. Did you notice that?

MLADEN ARMUS: Yeah, I did.

Q. Did that have anything to do with how you came out tonight?

MLADEN ARMUS: Kind of.

ABU KIGAB: He took it personal. Shout out Michael Jordan.

Q. Abu, I was wondering if you could speak about Mladen's performance tonight?

ABU KIGAB: He did a hell of a job. Did a hell of a job. He was battling all game, and when you got someone like Ike who has a high usage rate, he is going to be going at you. He is going to be going at you. Just to do the job that he did is unbelievable, and when Naj came in too in the game, he did an unbelievable job of playing his role. He was hitting shots, blocking shots, getting steals, making it very hard for guys, and when you got a team doing that, you're going to be very hard to beat, and I'm glad I have these guys on my side right here.

Q. Naj, every time we talk with you, I feel like you deflect it back to the team, doing whatever it takes to help them win, but to have that performance on this stage in a game of this magnitude, where does this rank in your college basketball career?

NAJE SMITH: It's definitely up there. Just being able to step up and knock down some shots. I struggled a little bit, kind of had a cold stretch, so it felt really good to watch that first ball go in, and once my confidence came up, just keep being aggressive and keep trying to be Naje.

Q. Naj, when you get it going like that, it seems like you get all the rest of your teammates going. What is the energy you bring to this team and especially when you start hitting those shots and start going?

NAJE SMITH: I just try to bring the energy in any way that I can whether that be off the court, on the bench, hyping the guys up, on the court. I know it's a big part of our team, and just watching guys kind of get tired and just try to pick everyone up with my own energy.

Q. Any of you three can answer, whoever feels most comfortable. Probably the final couple of minutes I saw that Wyoming's huddle, they were kind of yelling at each other a little bit, but you guys kind of came together. You were smiling. How much of that camaraderie changed the way that you guys were able to play together and finish down the stretch?

ABU KIGAB: Just being who we are. We've been doing it the whole year, and we trust it. The coaching staff does a great job of putting us in positions to be successful, and all we have to do is just execute, so it really comes down to just trusting each other and making those simple plays and over the course of the 40-minute game, you're going to have something special out there.

Q. Abu, I know you always say what's next and you always go to the next game and you don't really talk about this game. As a senior here, as I said, to get to 26 wins, have your team playing for a championship tomorrow, what does this mean to you? Are you able to realize what you are doing right now and how historic this is?

ABU KIGAB: Yeah, definitely. I enjoy the moment. I enjoy the moment. I stay in the moment, but like I said, our job is not finished. We didn't come to the championship just to be in the championship, so we're not done yet, and we're going to continue to do what we do and fight tomorrow.

Q. Abu, I know you touched on the fact that your mom was here. When did you know that she was going to come down and watch you play this week, and how hard is it for her to travel out here, whether it be finances or just the sheer travel itself? It's not easy to get here, obviously. When did you find out?

ABU KIGAB: My girlfriend and I actually set it up. I called my mom. I told her, "You need to come watch me play." My girl pretty much made me do it. I was, like, "I love you for that. Thank you." We took care of everything. When she got here, it was just unbelievable. It was a surreal feeling. I can't even -- it was euphoria. That's how I describe it.

She means so much to me growing up just watching her struggle every day, and she always puts that smile on her face. I've never seen anyone work harder than her. She's up at 4:30 working every single day, and that's who I get it from. It's my mom. It's my mom. Like I said, she just means the world to me, and I don't want to start talking about her too much because I'm going to cry, but I really love her. That's my rock, man. That's my rock.

Q. Coach, playing tomorrow afternoon for a title for the first time.

LEON RICE: First time in the Mountain West.

Q. 26 wins, a program record. Just the history you continue to make every game. What's it like to be a part of this?

LEON RICE: These guys don't talk much about it, but they wanted to leave a legacy. When you talk about Abu, he leaves a trail like that everywhere he goes. He is one of the greatest competitors I've ever coached, and it rubs off on all of them, and they all are, but he is the most vocal and probably the -- they all lead in their own ways, but he is really loud with it and emotional with it, and they've all blended together, and they all understand each other of what they bring, and that's what he brings to this table, and they all appreciate it.

You know, he is an impressive guy with the way he turns the heat up every single day for this team. You can be having a bad day. You've heard me say it before: You get to go work with Abu. It just flips your day like that for everybody. Not just me or not just the assistant coaches or -- for everybody involved in the program, and it's just a joy to get to coach guys like that because, like I said, he is not the only one. They all do that, but he is just the most vocal. Like I said, with Canada Basketball, first team to ever beat the U.S., he was on it. He was a big, big part of it and a big leader. So that's what you are getting when you get Abu, and these guys as a group, they want to leave a legacy. They're a driven group.

Back in November when we flipped it, they knew they could, and they believed in it, and they believed in themselves and when a lot of people probably didn't think that we would be here or that we would be cutting down the nets back in Boise like we did. Credit to these guys' toughness. I keep talking about it, but you can't probably talk about it enough

Q. Leon, your defense tonight was just swarming, especially in the first half. How proud were you of kind of what they were able to do on the defensive end, and why were you so successful there?

LEON RICE: It takes so much energy especially on the second days. They were tired, but they didn't give into it. I mean, wow. There was long stretches where there was no media time-outs, and they just gutted it out. That's impressive against a good team that's really, really hard to guard. I mean, that's no easy team to guard. They've won a lot of games. 25.

Like I said before, they're certainly an NCAA tournament-worthy team, and they were contending for a title the whole way and in the best that this league has been, so to be able to play that well against that team is a credit.

Q. Leon, you touched on it there at the end. You may have your best team that you had, but you had to be to win this league. How good has the competition been night in and night out?

LEON RICE: If you haven't watched many of these games, it's just been -- this was a microcosm of the season really, but usually without such a big lead. We were fortunate to get enough of a lead that we were able to hold them off at the end even through some missed free-throws, but every night -- not just with us. When you flip on a game and watch, and you saw them all last night. They were all like that. It really is.

From top to bottom, the best with so many good players on every single team that -- and I've been in this league a long time, so I have a lot of reference points. To be able to come out on top in the regular season is quite an accomplishment by these guys.

Q. Jeff Linder likes to talk about how you guys are an old team, San Diego State is an old team. Wyoming is a very young team, obviously. Looking back on your career, do you see in Wyoming some of your younger Boise or earlier Boise teams? Do you see them on that trajectory?

LEON RICE: Oh, yeah, absolutely. The thing that Jeff does so good, and he has always done this. He did this when we were together. Whatever pieces he has, he finds a way to win, and there was no quit in that team. We had them in a deep hole, and they did not quit. We had to make enough free-throws down the stretch to finish it, and it's a credit to him and his staff.

He has great staff, and they do a terrific job. Yeah, he is doing an awesome job, and we're pretty good friends, and so if we weren't in the same league, I would get to probably enjoy it more, the job he is doing, but I do. I'm really proud of him.

Q. Leon, you said you know your team so well like with E-man, you saw he had a bounce in his step that he didn't have in a while. With Abu, what did you see in him the fact this his mom came out here, and how cool was that to kind of experience it? Did you notice that -- it's crazy to say, but did he played even tougher than normal?

LEON RICE: Yeah, but I think that -- sure, the energy he gets from that and wanting to, but he wants to for his team, and like I said, he is one of the greatest competitors. He is coming to compete regardless of what the outside situation is, and usually, you know -- and this is where we've gotten better at knowing what Abu needs is usually it requires some breathing exercises to calm, and now he is just a master of that. He has been able to keep that at the right level because sometimes he used to get too high and too fired up where he would go foul and do that. He was just about the perfect, optimal level today.

Q. Gonzaga won a title here earlier this week. Dan Monson will coach for a title tomorrow. Tommy Lloyd will coach for a final tomorrow.

LEON RICE: Nice. Let's go.

Q. What does that all mean from where you guys all came from?

LEON RICE: It means a ton because those guys -- our friendship goes back to 1986. That's pretty long. Most of you guys weren't born, and we're still as close as you can be. There is a huge sense of pride, and we talk a lot, text a lot with each other, and share a lot of the stuff, and so, yeah, that's awesome. I didn't know they won. I was kind of busy, but that's great to hear, so, yeah, we take so much pride in that, and that really makes me happy. That's neat.

Q. You mentioned a couple of times you think Wyoming is an NCAA tournament-worthy team.

LEON RICE: I do.

Q. How confident are you? I know you're not a bracketologist, but that Mountain West will get four in, and how important is it for the Mountain West to start winning NCAA tournament games and not just getting multiple teams in?

LEON RICE: Yeah, absolutely, it is, but a lot of that -- I have been fortunate to be in the NCAA tournament a lot, and so sometimes it's beyond your control as far as match-ups and as long as you don't have to go to Dayton and play Dayton, that would be nice for us to get that out of the way, but it is.

We've got teams that are capable of it, but it takes -- there's nobody in that tournament that's not really, really good, so you've got to be playing your best on those days, and they are. I would say they're squarely in because I think this would have been a quad one for both of us, and so a loss shouldn't move them any way down, and I think they were squarely in.

Just because people get all into the tournaments right now, and so a team outside wins a couple of games in a tournament, and they haven't done anything for four months, so they're, like, oh, we're all excited about that, but that's not really how it works. Those games in January mean as much as the games now. It's just being biassed to the games that are recent, and so people get excited about, oh, this team beat this team and this team. They've got a body of work that stands up, and their numbers are right. They're going to be in no doubt about it.

Q. With Mladen tonight, you know, 16-13, even goes 4 of 5 from the foul line and I think, what, four steals, a block. The effort he gave to you and was playing with Ivan on the floor. How important is he, and it seemed like everybody fed off him tonight?

LEON RICE: He is so important because that's one of the best centers in the country, and he is hard to guard, and they do a great job of isolating him with shooters all around him, so you can't give him much help. He is on an island, and that's tough duty, and so, no, like you said, I couldn't be more proud of him and all these guys, but that effort that he gave was, wow, big work.