NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - SAINT MARY'S VS UCLA

March 19, 2022

Randy Bennett

Logan Johnson

Matthias Tass

Moda Center

Saint Mary's Gaels

Media Conference

UCLA - 72, St. Mary's - 56

THE MODERATOR: All right. Joining us now from Saint Mary's, head coach, Randy Bennett, along with student-athletes, Logan Johnson and Matthias Tass. Coach, congratulations on a great season. Tough game tonight. We'll begin with your opening statement and we'll open it up with questions.

RANDY BENNETT: Yeah, we've had a great season. And nothing but proud of these guys and what they did this year. Did a lot -- they did a lot as a team and they did a lot for our community, our school, our league. So I appreciate the effort and what they did.

We lost to a good team tonight. I wish we would have played better. And I'm sure UCLA probably had something to do with that. But we didn't -- it wasn't one of our better games.

And you want to play well when you get to play against a team like UCLA in the second round of the NCAA tournament. And we did for a while, but not enough to win that game.

But, again, we played against -- credit to UCLA. They're a good program, a good team. Mick does a great job. Yeah, a first-class program. So, questions?

Q. This is for Coach and for Logan. Can you describe what they did defensively? Because it looked like it was really kind of a grind for you guys. Was it part of their defensive game plan?

RANDY BENNETT: Was it part of their defensive game plan? Yeah, I think so. They just ended up switching with their five on our on-balls and they tried to switched it back.

But we just needed to do a better job executing it. I thought -- that was their plan, was they just switched that, take care of the on-ball portion of it. And then they would -- our roll, our post, they would put the guard on that and then try and switch it back with a bigger guy, then get Tyger off of them.

Anyhow, we didn't handle it well enough. But so much -- you know, you got to hit some shots. In the second half, it was a one-point game at one point. And we just missed some good shots. I thought we got some good shots.

But we didn't turn it over. So we did -- sometimes you have to make shots. And they made shots, we didn't make shots. They doubled the post a little bit, bothered us. I guess it bothered us. But like I said, we didn't turn it over that much. We were pretty good there.

But you got to be better about putting the ball in the basket. And then on the defensive end, we didn't do a good enough job. And they shot -- they scored well. Their four biggies, their four best players played well.

LOGAN JOHNSON: Yeah, touching off what Coach said, I felt like we could have -- I felt like we just were a little bit too stagnant offensively. And we let their physicality kind of take us out of what we were doing for the most part. Yeah.

Q. For Randy and then for Matthias and Logan. Randy, what did you tell the players after the game? And Logan and Matthias, what did you guys talk amongst yourselves after the game?

RANDY BENNETT: I told them that I thought this team was different than most teams I've coached. We didn't have an outlier scorer. The start of the year, we were very balanced. I think this team really improved through the year.

And I think the whole was greater than -- some of the parts. And that's hard to do. They did that because they're such good leaders and good teammates. We really had no -- I didn't have an issue this year with any of these guys.

And the guy to my right, both of them, but Logan had a lot to do with it. He just kind of took this team over as a leader. And he gets leadership. He's a good leader. He knows what's right and wrong, and toughen-wise, and team-wise, and leadership-wise.

So we had a good group of guys in our upper class, Matthias, Logan is, Kuhse is, Bowen is excellent, Ducas is good. That group, that's why we were good, is those guys. They ran the team as far as leadership and how we were going to be, the selfishness, all that stuff, it wasn't even -- we didn't even have anything close to that creep in.

Like I said, they did a great job with this team. I don't think anybody saw it coming. I thought we were really tough to start the year. I knew we had a lot of guys back. We won 14 games last year. We were 60 overall net, and this year's team took it to 19. Our overall net was 19. Which is as high as we've ever been. And ended up being a five seed in the NCAA tournament.

So just in -- that's what I told them. It's incredible. And yet, different. Different in a good way. I just -- I haven't seen one quite like that. So really proud of them. And they should be very proud of what they did. And I think they are.

It hurts, it stings to lose. And you want to go out firing your best shots. And we probably don't feel like we played well. I don't think we should think we played well. But we played hard and we were always -- we were always trying to do things right as far as the things I talked about.

Q. Matthias and Logan, the second part of that question about what you guys talked about?

MATTHIAS TASS: Well, firstly, I got to say, I'm just proud of the 16 guys -- or 15 other guys we have on this squad. I mean, it's -- our story should not have ended here. But unfortunately it did.

We didn't play that great of a game. But in these arenas and in these situations, you have to play good to win these games.

But on the positive side, I got to say, we have done some incredible things in terms of what has never been done in St. Mary's history, for example, we were undefeated at home. Never lose two in a row.

I mean, this group is special, I just got to say that. And I'm really proud of our guys.

THE MODERATOR: Do we have any questions from the Zoom room? If we do, raise your hand. What other questions do we have from the in-person floor?

Q. This is for Coach Bennett. When Coach Cronin sat down, he said that he took a step back and realized that he was coaching against a coach that's either going to have a statue in front of the arena or his name on the arena. And I just wonder what those words meant to you?

RANDY BENNETT: Mick and I have a good friendship and tremendous respect. I have tremendous respect for him. So he's a really good coach and they're a really good team. He's a funny guy. (Laughing.)

Q. Logan, I'd like to get your thoughts because I know you've been out there on the court and off the court as a leader. What does today mean? Can you put the season, the day in perspective, your career at St. Mary's in perspective?

LOGAN JOHNSON: Yeah, today hurts. But overall, yeah, exactly what Coach and -- what Coach and Tass said. This is an incredible group. We've done incredible things. I don't think our story ends here. But, you know, I'm sure we'll get back to it really soon. And we'll be back in this position very soon.

You know, we had a really down year last year as a 14 and 10 year. And that's something that's -- we really took hard and we really took to heart. We felt like we left food on our plate last year. We talked about it every day. And I'm sure the same talk's going to be, we left food on our plate this year. And our story shouldn't have ended in the second round.

But like I said, this is a great, incredible group of guys. A super unselfish team. You won't find any team like this in the country.

Guys sacrifice every single day for one another, whether it's getting people to school on time, getting people rides, making sure people have meals. We'll sacrifice the clothes off our back for each other.

So, super proud of our guys. And like I said, our story doesn't end here.

THE MODERATOR: Any other questions?

RANDY BENNETT: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: All right, gentlemen. Thank you so much.

LOGAN JOHNSON: Thanks a lot.