NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - WRIGHT ST. VS ARIZONA

March 17, 2022

Scott Nagy

Tanner Holden

Grant Basile

Tim Finke

Viejas Arena

Wright State Raiders

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Wright State.

Q. How much sleep did you all get? How did the trip coming out here go?

TANNER HOLDEN: The trip, it was kind of long especially after playing the game last night. But we all got to rest up this morning, get breakfast, kind of relax a little bit as much as we could before coming here. We're just trying to recover as best we can and get ready to play tomorrow.

Q. Tim, I talked to your former coach TJ Benson. What's your relationship like, and how much do you look forward to playing Arizona tomorrow?

TIM FINKE: It's funny how small the basketball world really is. He recruited me to Grand Canyon when I was in high school. We've had a long relationship and kept in touch actually just throughout my whole career. So it will be fun to play each other.

Q. He talked about you being a glue guy, a guy that could just do everything. Is that something you really take pride in?

TIM FINKE: I do. I do. I think it's something I've just always kind of had a niche for. I try to bring that every game and whatever team I've been on. So yeah, definitely.

Q. Tanner, you've already played a team this year that has some size in Purdue. Did you learn anything from that game that you think will help you against a top team like Arizona? And how do you follow up what's arguably you best all-around game of your career against Bryant?

TANNER HOLDEN: Playing Purdue this year it was definitely a tough matchup for us. I don't think mentally or physically we were very prepared. We kind of went into that game kind of unsure, not very confident in ourselves. So definitely we're coming in with a different mindset. We're going to play confident.

The game against Bryant was a great game, not just by me but by everybody. Tim Finke held the leading scorer in the nation to 28 points on 25 shots. That's incredible. And it says a lot about him. Says a lot about our team. I think it was just a team effort. And I happened to be the leading scorer and things like that. Just kind of followed up. I give a lot of credit to my teammates and my coaches who put me in those positions to be successful.

Q. How weird is it for you guys, last night you were playing, what, seven miles from campus. Now 48 hours later you're about 2,000 miles playing another one?

GRANT BASILE: I think that's just how kind of how this tournament works. People are going all over the place. It was really nice to be able to play in front of our home fans last night. It was cool to have a good atmosphere there, a lot of Wright State.

But it will be a unique adjustment. I'm sure there will be more Arizona fans there tomorrow. Just being a lot closer. But it will still be a good opportunity to go play a good team.

Q. Were you guys on the same flight as Notre Dame? Or did you take separate flights?

GRANT BASILE: We had a separate plane.

Q. What time did you guys get in? Like last night? What was the flight like? Did you sleep? Were you still wired up from the game?

GRANT BASILE: I think most of our team slept. We got in, I think, 12:30 here. So it wasn't terrible. They did a good job. They got us a little charter plane for all the Wright State people. It was nice to be able to fly and we got to stretch out a little bit. It was nice.

Q. Just your thoughts on Arizona. What's the scouting report? And, Tim, considering you guarded Peter, I'm sure you'll be guarding Bennedict Mathurin tomorrow. And do you see any similarities between the way you guys play?

TIM FINKE: They're super good offensively. We'll have to put together a really good defensive game. Watching film as much as we can and just trying to hone in on what we do. And so it will be a tough thing for us. But we're going to give it all we can and hope for the best.

Q. Can you guys all actually touch on how you faced adversity so much this season and keep facing adversity even tomorrow, playing Arizona?

TANNER HOLDEN: This team's been through a lot, as I've said in multiple press conferences, more off the court than on the court. We've had a lot of people in our circle pass away from loved ones. And I feel that's just brought us closer together. We faced a lot of adversity on the court, especially in the Horizon League tournament. We played Oakland, we were down 16 with 12 minutes to go. And the same thing with Northern Kentucky in the championship game.

If we don't go through those things off the court that brought us closer together and the adversity that we faced, and slowly, slowly fight through it, I feel like it's definitely helped us on the court because we're a lot closer. We know what we all want. I feel like that definitely helps us. We're going to play a great team tomorrow and I feel like we're very prepared mentally, emotionally and physically. So it will definitely be a great matchup for us.

Q. I read something that you've never played at Dayton, like the team hasn't played there in like 25 years or something. Is there a rivalry between the two? Do they not want to play each other? Does it feel weird playing in their gym after that?

GRANT BASILE: We'd love to play but it just hasn't worked out. I'm not too sure the logistics of that. I know we all would love to play them. But I'm not sure.

Q. Can you talk about the emotion of going from winning the first NCAA Tournament game in program history, in your hometown to now having to face one of the top teams in the country?

TIM FINKE: I think some of us were mixed emotions on if we wanted to play in the First Four game. But personally I think it would kind of help us having a game under our belt. Obviously a really good crowd showing last night. And just being a tournament game as it was, I think it will be really cool and obviously helpful going into this game having a little bit of experience and just kind of feel things.

Q. Does this feel different now being out here? Because playing in Dayton, there wasn't a lot of disruption to your schedule; but does this feel more like the tournament now that you're out here in San Diego?

TANNER HOLDEN: It definitely does feel more like March Madness because when we're in Dayton back, at our facilities, it's definitely awkward. You're thinking about March Madness but you're still at your home facility. So it's definitely a great experience to take part in. We're all excited to be a part of this. A lot of hard work and dedication that was put into this throughout the whole season. And really excited to get out here in San Diego and compete tomorrow, for sure.

Q. Tanner or Grant, you guys get to the line a lot. Wondered has that always been a big part of your game personally as a team and has it developed and what's the secret sauce there or whatever?

TANNER HOLDEN: Coach always wants us to be at the free-throw line. It's definitely a test of how aggressive you are, how physical you are. And my freshman year I was a terrible, terrible free-throw shooter, like 60 percent. I didn't want get to the line but I worked on it a lot. And now I'm a pretty good free-throw shooter.

Definitely more confident, and we have a lot of guys who get to the free-throw line. We're making more as a team. Yesterday I don't know how many we missed, very few. But it's just definitely a physicality standpoint from it. Coach always wants us to be the more physical team. And getting into the free-throw line it's a big testament to that?

THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement.

COACH NAGY: We're obviously very happy to be here. We're probably a little tired from the trip. But we'd rather be tired than not be in it. And we obviously know -- we have a tall task, figuratively and literally, in terms of who we play. But we're just proud of the way our guys played last night. Great night for us in our hometown. It was a lot of fun.

And we know we just know we're just, in terms of who we're getting ready to play, it will be the best team we've played this year, for sure.

Q. I know that you're not out there scoring any of the points or getting any of the rebounds, but you do have 500 more wins as head coach than Tommy, who is obviously a great coach. What sort of advantage if any does your experience as a coach give you in March?

COACH NAGY: That's a good question, because I think always the best advantage is the players. And just like you said, and I say it all the time, 500-whatever wins, I don't know, I don't keep track of them anymore. I haven't made one basket. But I've coached a heck of a lot of good players.

Obviously he's coaching great players over there. And great players make a great coach. And I know that. And in terms of being in the tournament for my fifth time, I think that that helps a little bit. I even think the fact we got to play last night helps a little bit just to get rid of some of the edge. And so I hope we'll be a little more calm tomorrow. But being it in five times, I think, helps.

I told them that so many people think going to the tournament is the experience. And I don't want that to be the experience for our players. I want it to be winning basketball games. And even though it was a 16 versus a 16 last night, being able to win a game in the NCAA Tournament was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I know it will be a lifetime memory for them. But we want to keep going. And we know every team you play in this tournament is going to be good. Doesn't matter who it is.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about how this team has faced adversity this season, how you guys are going to continue facing adversity even in your game tomorrow?

COACH NAGY: From a personal standpoint for many of us it's been a tough year. And I think it's been well-documented at this point, starting with losing my dad in the fall, just before the season started. We got off -- and then just right after the season started, a family that I grew up with in high school, and then I lived with them my last two years, one of the brothers died. And so I lost my dad and really one of my brothers in about a month's period.

And we got off to a terrible start. And I wasn't in a very good spot emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And so I wasn't much help when we got out to that bad start. And then we had, in our program, we had two other fathers pass away unexpectedly. And we lost four grandparents.

Sometimes grandparents aren't necessarily involved in the young men's lives. These grandparents were all very involved. So it's one of those things that it brings guys together. You need your teammates to hold you up in those instances. And our guys did a great job of doing that.

I said several times now, it's easy when you're winning to sit up here and say, oh, I love my teammates and they're all great, and we've been through so much adversity. You hear it all the time. It's so cliché. It's after every big championship. But our guys have.

And when we were 2-7 our guys were loving on each other. It's the reason why we were able to turn our season around. Because even when things weren't very good, we held each other up. And so it's been one of the most rewarding seasons of my 27 years of being a head coach because of that.

Q. Can you tell about the players who dealt with personal loss? Do you know which ones, who dealt with that?

COACH NAGY: AJ Braun, his dad, I believe it was in January, late January, his dad -- we just came in, we were getting ready to go on a road trip. We came in in the morning, getting ready to go. And we got a phone call that his dad passed away the night before. He just collapsed. And the story was out there that he died of COVID. That wasn't the case. We think he probably died of a heart attack. But obviously very devastating.

And so then we were going through COVID at the same time. We went on that road trip and played with five scholarship players and two walk-ons. We played with seven guys. Won the first game, lost the second game by three. And so that was an interesting deal all in itself.

We have a recruit from Columbus, over Thanksgiving, his dad suddenly passed away. And then Tanner, his grandpa, who was kind of the patriarch of the family, and they all lived together there in Wheelersburg, near each other, his grandpa ran a business that they all worked at, passed away from cancer. And it was very difficult for the family to get through that.

It was interesting, even after the championship game, you go around some of the parents, and just see the crying. And it's like none of us had any time to ever grieve any of this stuff because we're going through this basketball season. I didn't have time to grieve it. Bawled like a baby after. Just hugged my wife, just not being able to grieve my dad's death because of everything else that was going on.

It was hard for me. It was hard on Tanner's family. James Manns lost his grandmother. My son, TJ, lost his grandpa.

And I'm trying -- I'm trying to think of the other one, there was one other grandfather. Grant, Grant's grandfather passed away just a little bit after my dad did.

So I mean, it was just one after the other. And very hard on our team. But it really brought us closer together. And it was fun to watch in terms of that. But the losses were hard. And to watch them here of late and have a chance to grieve and to get to talk about it more has been, I think it's been healing for all of us.

Q. With that being said, when you couple that with the success your team's had this year, how does the season stand out amongst the rest?

COACH NAGY: It's hard. 27 of them, it's easy -- this is the one I remember the best, this is the most unbelievable -- but it's tremendous. It's one I'll never forget, for sure.

And mostly just proud of our guys. Again, you sit up here and go, every coach, ah, great group of guys. I don't have one guy -- and that's very rare in 27 years -- I don't have a guy on this team that just eats up all my energy in terms of his attitude, have to worry about him every day when he comes to practice. And they just have been a very giving group.

It's not easy in this day and age, it just isn't. I don't care what anybody say. In 27 years, I've seen this change. It's a very self-serving sport. And it has become more so. And the entitlement has grown for sure. And we just haven't seen a bunch of it on our team. And it's been a joy for me to coach this team because of that.

Q. It's been an emotional season for you, but just the emotions of last night, getting that first-ever tournament win in the hometown, and now you've got 48 hours later focus on facing the No. 1 seed in the regional one of the top teams in the country.

COACH NAGY: All of that stuff, like the ups and downs and even last night, playing in Dayton was such a great experience for us. Many of the fans were Dayton Flyer fans, not Wright State fans but they pulled for us. For the hometown. It's a great experience. I want to be careful not to overstate things, but even my athletic director, Bob Grant, said probably, one of the greatest nights in the history of Wright State history, not just sports program.

But it was such good exposure for us. And so that was tremendous. And just little things, like Stephen Bardo calling it on the radio. Stephen played at Illinois where my dad was assistant coach for Lou Henson. My last two years, I was a GA at Illinois when we went to the Final Four and Stephen was on that team. So, I got to see Stephen that night.

We had another graduate assistant that I was with who, his name is Jim Phillips. He's the commissioner of the ACC now. And Jim was at the game because Notre Dame was playing and I got to see Jim.

So I got to reminisce about my dad with those of those guys. It was a neat experience for me, neat experience for the players because we won and it was a lot of fun. And then you fly here, you get in at 2:00 in the morning. It's 5:00 in the morning our time. Big time change. Like I say, a little tired.

Trey's not here today. He was sick yesterday. He got up yesterday morning throwing up. Sick all day. Played the game. Played tremendous. Throwing up after the game. Still struggling today. He didn't even come with us today. And I expect it will be one of those bugs, he'll get over it and he'll play great tomorrow. I'm not overly concerned about it. He's spent so much time in the gym, I said you don't need to come. We're not worried about it. Just take care of yourself and you'll be okay.

So it's like a whirlwind, it really is. And hopefully the emotion can carry us tomorrow. That's what we'll need a little bit. We'll be tired but so what. Like I said I'd rather be here and be tired than not be here.

Q. You mentioned some Dayton fans were rooting for you. You don't play Dayton. Why is that? And is there a rivalry between the two schools?

COACH NAGY: There should be. There should be. It's not -- really, I think if it were up to Anthony Grant and me we would probably play. I think it's hard for the administrations to get together. I don't want to say they won't play us or we won't play them.

It's one of those in-town things that probably should happen. The fans would love to see it. Everywhere I go and speak that's what they want to talk about -- why don't you guys play each other. But we don't.

I think it's something that we would like to do and it would be great for the town. But yeah, that's the only time really that Dayton fans get to see us.