NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR

March 16, 2022

Scott Nagy

Tanner Holden

Grant Basile

UD Arena

Wright State Raiders

Media Conference

Wright State - 93, Bryant - 82

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Wright State.

COACH NAGY: Well, I mean, it was frantic. It was frantic. It was a frantic-paced game. We haven't had many teams come at us like that after every make, every miss, every turnover. We didn't take care of the ball. I told the players, emotionally it was an unbelievable crowd. I didn't want them to be too high, burn themselves out.

And then I didn't do a very good job of getting myself under control either. And so I wasn't a very good example.

But they really test you defensively. I thought we rebounded the ball really well. I think, I don't have a stat sheet but I think we beat them by 10 on the glass. And I always tell our players, in my coaching career, which is a lot of years now -- yeah, we beat them by 10 -- in my coaching career, I probably coached teams that have lost games that have outrebounded their opponents by 10 less than five times.

So it's a good indicator of how hard we're playing, how good your defense is, those kind much things. And they really come at you. They go after the offensive rebounding and we had 13. We did a nice job.

I thought offensively we were good. The guys off the bench gave us a great lift. Keaton and Andrew gave us a great lift, I thought. Played well. And obviously we got to the free-throw line a lot. That's part of our deal. That's what we like to do. We like to get to the free-throw line and we scored a lot of points from there.

Q. Tanner, talk about seizing the moment tonight and stepping up and playing your best?

TANNER HOLDEN: I thought we did a great job just game planning this team. We knew they were going to come out and attack us in the zone. I thought we played Northern Kentucky in the Horizon, it was a really good test for us. And coming out against Bryant tonight, I thought we did a great job staying moving, moving the ball and not getting stagnant. We were hitting shots. It's definitely a plus in the zone.

Q. Historically, the first NCAA victory and you do it in the city, right around the city you play for. And what are the emotions, what's this mean to hear, "let's go Raiders" chant when that delay was happening? Take us how you feel.

GRANT BASILE: Obviously that was a pretty cool feeling. We had a really good turnout. Our fans have been fantastic all year. Obviously it wasn't a crazy far trip for them to make today. But they were fantastic. It was pretty neat to get the first one for our school in our backyard. That makes it pretty special.

TANNER HOLDEN: I think it was definitely a good booster for us (indiscernible). Emotionally I thought the crowd did a great job being energetic, getting into it. Great turnout.

It's awesome to be able to do this, like Grant said, in your backyard and experience it with all the fans who come to the games and at the Nutter Center, and it was just a great game tonight.

Q. What did you guys think of at halftime, felt like you really played well in the first half, yet you're only up two? What did you do to survive that, the halftime speech or whatever it was, and then turn it on in the second half and take control?

TANNER HOLDEN: It was definitely -- halftime, felt like we were playing great, but we were only up two. So it was definitely kind of a shocking thing. You feel like you're just on high. But you're only up one possession.

I thought we did a great job coming out, getting a few stops, getting momentum swinging our way. And especially in a tournament like this, the magic of March, anyone can come out and get hot. I thought we did a great job defensively staying down.

At the end it kind of got away from us. Like I said before, you get excited, you get frantic. You celebrate the win and I felt like towards the end we were too excited to kind of get to the win. We didn't stick to our principles like Coach and all them have talked to us throughout the week and the season.

COACH NAGY: I was thankful that we had more time at the halftime, because it gave me time to just calm myself down because I was not happy. I was not happy at all that we were only up two points. We should have been up 10. There were several plays we didn't finish.

So, yeah I didn't think, defensively, we didn't get back like we should have. And so I was thankful we had a little more time there so I could get myself calmed down so I didn't just go in explode on the players. I rarely do that anyway. But I was fairly turned up tonight anyway.

Q. Coach talked about yesterday Tim Finke guarding Peter Kiss. He didn't have a very efficient game. Talk about the job that Tim Finke did stopping the nation's best scorer?

GRANT BASILE: 11-on-25 and Timmy forced him to four turnovers. Tim made his job pretty tough. He's a good offensive player; leads the nation in scoring. Tim made him work for everyone. There were a couple that weren't on Tim, just bad miscues defensively for us. But Tim's a fantastic defender. We've known that all year. He showed that tonight. He made him work for it.

Q. You guys get to enjoy this for a little while, but gotta turn the page pretty quickly. Just your thoughts on Arizona? I imagine they're probably a Purdue-caliber opponent.

TANNER HOLDEN: You don't have much time to celebrate. We're probably going to celebrate on the flight but right after that you've got to turn it around. If you sit on this too long, you just live on the high. I feel like Arizona is predicted to win in a lot of brackets, os it will definitely be a fun matchup for us.

And I feel like stick to our principles that we've done all year that got us the wins on the defensive end. Offense will come and go. But if our defense is solid, we'll definitely make it a game.

I think we're all confident. We're going there to win. Like I said before, we're not just coming in just for the experience of March Madness. We really want to win, really want to make a name for our schools, ourselves and this program.

GRANT BASILE: I think obviously they'll be a tough matchup, but we're not here just to enjoy this one. We'll look ahead and we'll get ready to go tonight and we'll be ready to go.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach. Go back to the question about the atmosphere.

COACH NAGY: Great. I mean, I don't think since I've been here we've played in front of an atmosphere like that with that many people cheering for us. And so it was a tremendous experience for all of us, but I know for our players something they'll never forget. Obviously we were fortunate to get to play in Dayton. And at some point it feels a little unfair, but it's the way it worked out. I was thankful if we were going to be a 16 seed we would get that chance.

And so I know it was great for our fans. I know they had a great experience, too. I'm thankful we played okay.

Q. Talk a little bit about Tanner Holden, the way he carried you tonight. And just you had a lot of stars, but he was --

COACH NAGY: And obviously Grant struggled. He just did. He just had one of those nights where he struggled. And they really made him a focus. And Tanner picked him up. Tanner was, he was super active all night. He just was -- it's like the last eight minutes of the Northern Kentucky game, Tanner was that way the entire night. He was aggressive, cutting, he rebounded the ball tremendously.

Defensively he was on Hurtado. I'm sure the coaches would tell you that he's the guy who runs their team but he's not a big scorer. Tanner helped as much as he could. Just really, really played a good game, had a couple of steals, played well.

And I think really -- just looking at Trey's stats, 21 points. Trey has been sick all day. After the game he was in there throwing up. He's not felt well. He got up this morning, he was that way. And he just was low energy. But played tremendous, played unbelievable defense on Pride, who was getting 18 a game. He got eight. He got in some foul trouble. But Trey is our guy. I'm proud of him.

Q. Getting back to the historic victory. Doesn't matter if it's in Dayton or where it was, Wright State is now an NCAA-tournament winning team. The significance of that to you and this program?

COACH NAGY: It's the first thing I said to the players, it's not happened in the Division I era. This is the first one and it's always going to be the first one. It's going to be something, where we did it, how we did it, all those things, it's a lifetime moment for these guys. And it is for me, too.

But I get a lot more opportunities to have those than they do. And so mostly I'm just happy for them.

Q. Just talk about the job that Tim Finke did on Peter Kiss tonight defensively.

COACH NAGY: I've been saying it all year everybody knows Tim's our MVP. I never worry about how many points a guy scores. I always tell our players, it's how many shots are we going to make him take.

And Tim did a great job of keeping him off the free-throw line, because he is a handful. He's an absolute handful. And he has complete freedom. And it's a tough guard. And he obviously got help from people, but it was primarily his responsibility. And everybody on our team would tell you that Tim is our guy. If we could ever get everybody to Tim's level we would be phenomenal defensively.

Q. In your history, you played like a 3 and 4 and 5 seeds but never a 1 seed or even a 2 seed, what do you expect from Arizona and that caliber of an opponent?

COACH NAGY: I appreciate you reminding me. Tanner says it will be fun. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know a lot about them because I don't look ahead. I heard on the TV the other day, even before we were going to play them, somebody said they're the second biggest team in the country. That's obviously going to be a problem. The question can we get shots around the basket. Can we rebound the ball? All those kind of things. And can we guard them in the post.

And so Coach Brey has that scout, and he's already sent ahead to me in my e-mail the offense and defense parts. I haven't looked at it yet. I'll have a chance to look at it here on the bus and on the plane a little bit.

Q. How does it feel to have your top-scoring duo take down Bryant's top-scoring duo when they were leading the nation in scoring?

COACH NAGY: Honestly, I didn't even know that until I saw it on the TV yesterday. I don't care about that. I don't look at stats. I don't care. It doesn't feel any way to me. I'm proud of our players.

It's not just those two guys for them either. I can tell you that. Those guys, their duo would tell you that their other players are the ones that help them do that. There was no focus on any of that. I don't pay attention to that stuff. We're just happy to beat a good basketball team. That's how I feel.