MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONAL

November 22, 2022

Brian Dutcher

Darrion Trammell

Lahaina Civic Center

San Diego State Aztecs

Postgame Press Conference

Arizona - 87, San Diego State - 70

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

BRIAN DUTCHER: I would have said we would have a chance to win. But they did a great job in the half court against us. It just shows how versatile they are. They ran everybody early in the season. I thought we did a good job of getting back and taking away some of their fastbreak opportunities. But they executed in the half court, so they're more than one dimensional. They're not just a running team. They did a great job executing the half court with their balls screens, moving the ball back cutting, and they're well-coached and they played well.

Obviously we fought to stay in the game, coming back in the first half and then early the second half, but I didn't do a good enough job getting us into any kind of offensive rhythm. They're half court defense was good too. They did a good job staying extended, top locking our corner guys. They were well-prepared, well-coached, and played really well, and that's a credit to Arizona and the team they have this year.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Darrion?

Q. Take us through, you come back, you guys actually get the lead, and then three minutes later it's back to double figures. What happened in that stretch there?

DARRION TRAMMELL: I think Arizona did a good job keeping their composure. We brought it back. Were up one. We were feeling great. We thought, the crowd was into it. They were giving us a lot of energy. But at the end of the day, they just made good plays at the end of the day. So that's a good job on their part, keeping their composure.

Q. You guys had only four assists tonight, none for the first half. What did you see happening out there?

BRIAN DUTCHER: I think they just made it a two-man game between the big and the guard. They were denying our, a lot of our stuff. It was kind of hard to really read where the help was coming from. I think they were just trying to force us as guards to make plays, scoring plays and they were kind of taking away our passing angles.

Q. Darrion, how do you think you guys will match up with Arkansas in that third place game?

DARRION TRAMMELL: I think after this game, I feel like we have a lot to prove. I think we, it's going to be a good matchup for us as well to prove ourselves that we're better than what we are. It's going to be, it's definitely going to be a battle after this game, but I think we're going to be ready for it.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you for your time. We'll keep Coach around for a few more questions.

Q. Same things I asked Darrion. First about what happened there when with the comeback and then all of a sudden just in the blink of an eye they were back ahead again and then the assists?

BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, obviously they decided to just play the ball screen with two players, the post and the guard, and they didn't want to help in very much, and so that made kicking out very difficult.

They top locked the corners, which we hadn't had happen to us all year. We'll have to make some adjustments to that. That's typical basketball.

Some of these experiences, it's early in the year, are first time things. So they did some things and, like I tell the team, I give 'em tremendous freedom, but that comes with the responsibility. They have to make smarter plays, and there was a stretch where we turnover, turnover, turnover, and I don't want to take that freedom away from 'em, but we have to teach 'em. There are teachable moments in every game you play.

It's early in the year. We're going to get better. I said, Come on, this is college basketball, how much fun is this. We can't get too down on ourselves. We're playing college basketball in Maui. We have to put this behind us or we'll have no chance to play tomorrow.

So there will be time to teach, but it's not going to be a lot of teaching right now. It's going to be prepping for the next game, small learnable moments, and put all our energy into Arkansas.

Q. Can you talk about dealing with the size inside. Your bigs were battling and just the challenges of playing that front line?

BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, I thought we did a good job. They're good. So they scored inside on some high/low stuff. But that's what they do. So we took some of that away. We tried to pressure the high post so they couldn't throw post to post. They threw a lot in off the guard ball screens, ducking in, they rolled the post across and ducked in. But these are big strong guys.

So we fought hard we battled. So on a one-day prep I thought we did an okay job with that. It was just the multiple ball screens. They were setting three, four, five ball screens in a possession. Back cutting the corners, we got caught on some back cuts. Which we told 'em they were going to do. But it's hard if you don't get time to practice against something, as much as you can talk about it, there's that experience of when it's happening at game speed. Without the prep time -- if we had more time to prep we would be better. Does that mean we would win? No. But we would have been better. But they did a good job in a short amount of time, better than we did, prepping.

Q. Your thoughts on, you lose a semifinal and now you're in a third-place game. Playing the number-10 ranked team in the country. Thoughts on having to do that in less than 24 hours?

BRIAN DUTCHER: That's what we came here for. We came here to play big games against good opponents. So I don't want to sit here and say, Boy, I wish we were playing a bad team. No, this is what we are here for. We're not in a Power 5 conference, we have to embrace these moments.

We'll come out -- I know my team will fight. Now whether we play great and perfect basketball I don't know if that will happen or not. But I know they will bring the fight. They're too good a kids and they're too tough a group not to. So we'll look forward to the fight tomorrow.