NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - COL OF CHARLESTON VS SAN DIEGO STATE

March 15, 2023

Pat Kelsey

Dalton Bolon

Ryan Larson

Pat Robinson

Jaylon Scott

Amway Center

Col of Charleston Cougars

Media Conference

Q. For Ryan and Dalton and Pat, guys, shooting the three obviously has been hugely important for you guys. They defend the three. I think they're top 10 in defending the three. What's y'all's strategy without giving away too many secretS on what you're going to do?

RYAN LARSON: I think just try to do what we do best. We don't try to look for the three as much as people might think, but we just try to get the biggest advantage shot that we can every time down. And I think we have good enough players to where if they do try to take away our three, you know, shot fake, drive by, kicks and stuff like that. We know that they're really good three defending team, be we're going to keep playing our offense and try to do what we do.

DALTON BOLON: He nailed it. He did good.

PAT ROBINSON III: Yeah, he nailed it, too.

Q. Dalton, for those of us unfamiliar, can you go through your journey of college basketball and the -- you've been seven years, I think, right?

DALTON BOLON: Yeah, looking for an eighth, so if there's a way I can get an eighth, if you people could tell me how, that would be great.

I'm just blessed to be here, man. The journey I've had this year has been awesome, and I'm just excited to be continuing on with these guys and the guys in the locker room, as well. Just blessed to play. I think a lot of people would love to be in my position playing college basketball for seven years, being in college for seven years, and just being around great dudes, great guys, my team, my coaches, Charleston. I'm just extremely blessed.

The journey is not over, and I'm excited to continue it with these guys.

Q. Ryan and Dalton, have you played a team that switches 1-5 ball screens as much as San Diego State does, and what have you seen on tape from Nathan Mensah who is pretty good at it. Have you ever seen anybody like that?

RYAN LARSON: Yeah, throughout the season we've played a couple teams that switch 1 through 5, and credit to him, he's one heck of a defender. We know just when he does switch, we are going to have to do a few different things within the offense. There might be a few mismatches here and there, but we're not going to stop doing what we do.

We know that he can create problems for offense when he does switch, and to go against a team that does switch 1 through 5, it is hard to do. So credit to them. We think -- I mean, that's what we think they're going to do. That's what they've been doing for a while.

We're just going to keep doing what we do on offense, and Coach always said it'll come out in the wash. Hopefully we can continue to play our offense and just keep doing what we do.

DALTON BOLON: To piggy-back on that, they're a great team, they've got a great system. They're one of the best defensive teams in the country. We're aware of that. They're here for a reason, just like all 64 teams are here for a reason.

We've got things that make us why we're here, and that's what we're planning on doing. Being great at us; we say it all the time. They've got to prepare for us just like we've got to prepare for them. They're really good, but so are we, and we're looking forward to it. It's going to be a good game.

Q. Jaylon, one of the best ways to get a three is offensive rebounding. Just talk about how important that's going to be in tomorrow's game.

JAYLON SCOTT: I would say that's what we do as a team. We're really good at it. We pride ourselves on it, being able to go in, crash the glass and kick it out to the guys that can hit the three. It's a high-percentage shot. Like I said, it's something that we pride ourselves on, and we play a lot of guys. So you've got to go through the glass, and it makes you tired, but like I said, we play a lot of guys.

Q. We've talked about the experience of this group really aiding in you guys' ability to stay calm even when situations really don't add up to that. How do you really keep your emotions just in check being here in Orlando and on a bigger stage?

DALTON BOLON: I think that's a question for them. I'm never calm. I'm always crazy. This is the dude, these guys. He's kind of like me, too. Yeah, that's a question for them.

RYAN LARSON: Yeah, I would just say the maturity of -- we have us four grad transfers, but also the sophomores and juniors that are playing with us played junior and senior minutes last year. So just the experience and maturity they have, they've been here before. And then I think one of the biggest things is just the coaching staff. The ability they have to keep everybody calm, even if things aren't always going our way in the huddles, it's always next thing up.

Just between the 18 of us on the team and the coaching staff, that definitely makes it easier to stay calm in situations like this.

Q. I'm guessing you guys are all pretty big college basketball fans. I'm curious if any of you saw the San Diego State-Creighton game last year in the NCAA Tournament and what your thoughts were on that.

DALTON BOLON: I didn't watch that game. I was on vacation.

RYAN LARSON: Yeah, I think it's just part of why the NCAA Tournament is so special. Not discrediting either team, but it's hard to win in the NCAA Tournament. Winning time is when your true character of the team comes out. Anything can happen in a game.

I did watch it. It's a completely different team than last year. We haven't even thought about that game at all coming into this year because we know how good San Diego State is this year. I've watched it. I've watched pretty much every NCAA game last year, wishing I was in it. Just to be here this year, it's a true blessing.

Q. Pat, San Diego State is a very long, athletic team. Talk about what team they remind you of and how when you're going to the lane or driving to the basket, what problems do they present for you?

PAT ROBINSON III: I mean, they're lengthy. Obviously they're long. But in terms of how I play, I'm still going to play my same game. Obviously be controlled, try not to drive through traffic. The things we always base our offense off is playing off two. Two on you, kick it out to someone. So me playing poised and being calm is something I've tried to do all year and will continue to do in this game and won't switch for a longer, lengthier opponent.

Q. Jaylon and Ryan can answer this, you've been on both sides of this, but Ryan, obviously you've played in the NCAA Tournament. How much does the NCAA Tournament experience matter, or doesn't it matter? San Diego State had a whole team last year of guys who played the year before in the NCAA Tournament and they crumbled at the end of the game. Does it make a difference, or what are your thoughts?

RYAN LARSON: I mean, me personally, when I came here my freshman year, everything was just so overwhelming, if I'm being honest. Super, super fun, a dream come true. But just walking out the tunnel, seeing that many fans, the whole social media around it, it's the NCAA Tournament. I think coming into this year, I'm still enjoying it just as much but realizing that we still have to go out and play a game, and there's 40 minutes to be played for both teams. Just have fun with it.

I think my freshman year I was a little bit worried about making a mistake. It's national TV. But just this year, go out and play. I get to play with my best friends.

I think it's just having fun this year and realizing and emphasizing to the other guys to enjoy the moment as much as you can.

JAYLON SCOTT: This is all new for me and Dalton and Pat. We're kind of just going with the flow, taking it how it is. It's a lot of media, like Ryan says. But with our success this year, we've had media in and out of our practices, locker rooms, et cetera. Just continue to be us, be calm, have fun, enjoy the moment, go out there like Ryan said. We love each other, just continue to do that, trust each other, and we'll be all right.

Q. Ryan and Dalton, you don't get this far without a certain amount of belief in the guys you're sitting with and the guys back in the locker room. Somebody has a chance to go out this next couple weeks and be this year's version of Saint Peter's. Do you let yourself think that far?

DALTON BOLON: I mean, no, we don't really think about that in a sense. We just focus on -- I think what makes us good and what makes us where we're at right now is we focus on the next thing. And we treat every game like it's -- as cliche as it sounds, treat it like a National Championship, whether we're playing the D-II team in December or we're playing San Diego State in the national tournament.

I think us worrying about the next game, preparing the best we can do, winning games, going 1-0 each game, that takes care of itself. And then you can look back in kind of retrospective about being the next Saint Peter's and this and that. We're just worried about the next thing, and that's San Diego State. That's what we're worried about.

RYAN LARSON: Yeah, what he does.

Q. What does it mean to you to represent the conference and also where you guys live in Charleston, knowing this might be a big game for both the conference and your city?

PAT ROBINSON III: First, to speak about our city, the support that they showed us throughout the season was incredible. It was almost a sold-out crowd every game. You know, they really just gave us a boost. We were already really confident in ourselves, but just the support they had. They were backing us through thick and thin. So just us playing hard, we play for them, and for the CAA, we play in a really good conference, so for us to be able to make it out there and represent how much talent is in that conference, it's important. So we'll take it as far as we can.

Q. Some people that I talked to said you like to talk a lot during games. Is that true, and is that your nature or is that --

DALTON BOLON: Me? I don't like to talk, man.

Q. Your team.

DALTON BOLON: Yeah, you've got to watch Jaylon, man. He's got a lot to say on the court.

No, we just like having fun. I think that's important. We're a bunch of older guys that -- basketball has been consuming our lives for a long time, just like everybody, every team in here. I think one thing that we have that is really special is just enjoying the moment. That's just everything that goes into it, just having fun out on the court. That's what we do.

Like Ryan said before, we get to play with our best friends, and that's what it's all about. We're just going out here and having fun, and that's what it's going to be.

Q. Give us your best Pat Kelsey story.

DALTON BOLON: He's got a lot.

JAYLON SCOTT: I don't know, my favorite thing that he does, though, is when he climbs on the rim and like swings on it like a madman. That's my favorite one.

DALTON BOLON: Coach Kelsey thinks he's seven-foot. He be walking around with his chest out and stuff like that. He's dumb swole, but he be climbing on the rim, hanging on that thing. He's got the most energy I've ever seen on every day. He's got like a 60-inch vertical, bro. He's got hops, I'm telling you.

PAT KELSEY: I don't know exactly how many this is for me as a player and coach. I've been very fortunate to go to quite a few national tournaments, but it never, ever, ever gets old. Count your blessings. The Lord has blessed me in an unbelievable way to work at a world-class institution for unbelievable people that care, care about student-athletes, that care about basketball, in one of the most magnificent cities in the country.

The opportunity to bring a team representing that school and that city here is something that I'm very, very proud of and very fortunate to be here.

Q. Pat, without giving away too many secrets and not having to kill me after the press conference, you guys like to take a lot of threes. They're a very good three-point defending team. What are you guys going to try to do out there tomorrow?

PAT KELSEY: You remember the old commercial, the Holiday Inn Express when they asked them I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? That's what I start thinking when I watching them on tape. They are one of the elite defenses in the United States. They're big. They're physical. They're a veteran group that knows their system very well.

Brian is an extraordinary coach. The architect of the Fab Five, which is really, really cool. I'm looking forward to meeting him because it's one of the greatest recruiting classes in the history of the school.

Yeah, it's interesting that one of their major strengths counterbalances kind of what one of our strengths are. We don't go into any game saying, we're shooting a lot of threes. It's just because of our style of play and our pace, we generate those type of shots.

I think we've proven throughout the course of the season that we can play different ways and different styles, and we've proven that we can win games against teams that have this strength and this weakness.

I know one thing, it's not going to be easy. They're very good. Been a couple really good days of preparation. Again, I can't tell you all the little things we're working on to try to counteract that, but yeah, we've got our work cut out for us. We're excited about the challenge and the opportunity.

Q. One of the strengths of your team has been really the depth all season long. Any guy can go off on any given night, also kind of a strength for the Aztecs. How do you go about game planning or preparing for a team where any certain player can have a night?

PAT KELSEY: Yeah, very interesting that we're similar in a lot of ways. I mentioned that they're a veteran team. So are we. You mentioned they're a deep team. So are we. They played 10 guys, we played 10 guys.

I don't know this because I haven't talked to Brian about this, but when you just watch tape and you just squint your eyes, it jumps off of the tape that physicality and toughness and how hard they play is a hallmark of their system. And I have a lot of respect and appreciation for that because guess what, that's something that we pride ourselves on. We have a tough group that's tenacious, that plays very, very hard, that prides themselves on a lot of the things that they pride themselves on.

It's going to be two veteran teams that are tough and that are deep going head to head, and I think it'll be a great matchup for a national television audience to enjoy.

I'll be a nervous wreck for that entire 40 minutes, but you guys can go ahead and have a good time and enjoy it.

Q. We were just talking to the players, will you hang on the rim today in the open practice?

PAT KELSEY: If my players ask me to, I'll do anything. If they want me to go hang on the rim, I'll hang on it. The little secret is it's carefully manipulated video. People think I go up with my vertical leap. I actually pull myself up on the net and grab that bad boy. I'm 47, so if you can excuse me for that little bit of a crutch there that I use, but heck, I'll go up and do it, why not.

Q. On a more serious note, they switch 5 a lot because they have Nathan Mensah. How often do you see that, and have you seen anybody this year that does it like they do and to the level they do it, and how do you counteract that?

PAT KELSEY: Well, I don't know if many people do it to the level they do it. That's why they're one of the elite defenses in the country. You mentioned Mensah. I think he's two-time back-to-back defensive Player of the Year in the conference. He's long, he's athletic. He's one of those very, very interesting bigs that can switch on to a 1 through 5 and guard them because he can move his feet, he deflects.

And they seem like they've got a team full of guys that can do that, like size guys with a lot of length that can guard a bunch of different positions. Throughout our however many games it is, 34 games or whatever it is, we've played some teams that have had that type of scheme where they did a little bit more switching.

Brian, like I said, does an unbelievable job with their strategy in terms of what they do on pick-and-rolls because they'll do different things. They keep you off balance. They keep you guessing.

Yeah, we're going to have to be really good in our system. We're going to have to be on it in our offensive principles and to be able to generate open shots. They make it difficult, and we've been working on it. We'll be ready.

Q. Bob was saying in the last press conference for Furman he wants his team to play hard, play with urgency but enjoy and take in every moment of this experience. Do you want that, or do you want this to feel like a road trip in January to Towson and Delaware where it's just a normal road trip?

PAT KELSEY: A little of both because, one, we pride ourselves on consistency. You've been in many, many press conferences and I've said, this is as buttoned-up, professional, mature of a team as I've ever coached, and I don't think I'll ever coach a team like this again with this type of special, special makeup. It doesn't matter if it's a film session in November or a film session getting ready for a national tournament game against a top-25 team in San Diego State. Our guys have the same leaning-forward attention to detail mentality.

We talk about road excellence. That's a big thing for us. When we go on the road, we have road excellence. That starts with how you pack your bags, you put two pair of defense in it. Whether it's your mentality on the bus, when you get to the hotel, just having a professionalism about you, and we're going to stay consistent with that.

But heck yes, smell the roses. Heck yes, get above the trees and realize how lucky we are to -- this dais, to be sitting up here right now, I tell recruits -- I'll sit there and I'm in a meeting with them in my office and I go, pretend this is a dais with a bunch of microphones and a name tag right there with a bunch of microphones out there.

And I thought the players would be sitting next to me because I thought we're all out here at the same time, and I told them, I said, I'm going to nudge you. I'm going to lean over to you and I'm going to go, I told you. I told you this is where we'd be.

Heck yeah, man, I want them to enjoy the fact that they're here right now. The open practice, that's one of the cool things. My dad took me in 1987, Indiana was playing in the Regional Finals, Riverfront Coliseum, got me out of school to go down and watch the open practice. He actually got me out of school to go watch Pete Rose go for his 4000th when he was playing for the Montreal Expos, and Sister Rosemary Carmen asked him, "You're going to take him out of school to go down and watch the Reds game?"

And he said, "Sister, he can either sit here and learn history or he can go down to the ballpark and see it in person."

So just cool that we get to take part in this open practice and all this stuff. Heck, yes. Is there going to be butterflies? Heck, yeah. That's going to be butterflies for San Diego State, too. But as you get into the flow of the game, into that second war, third war, you settle in, it's just any other game.

Q. You just mentioned butterflies; San Diego State is a roster full of guys who have played in, many of them, two NCAA Tournament games; you have one guy who has. Does experience matter in this tournament, and if it does matter, how do you overcome not having it?

PAT KELSEY: I just think the fact that we have older guys really, really helps. Dalton Bolon, All-American at the D-II level played at the national tournament in D-II. Is it exactly the same, no, but those are pretty darned high stakes. Same with Pat Robinson.

The core guys that came in with us when we got the job here last year, they're no longer sophomores, they're juniors. They've been through so many wars, they've started so many games.

This team has proven to me that no moment is too big for them. Yeah, experience always matters. But you met those guys. You saw them up here, Ryan Larson has played in the national tournament, won a game in the national tournament. Dalton is not scared of anything. He's not scared of anything. That kid is one of the most unique characters that I've ever been around. Extraordinary young men with unbelievable character, but he's wired a little different now. Like he might have started talking crap to you guys before he got off the dais. I don't know.

No, those guys will be ready for the moment. We're excited about the challenge and the opportunity.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Aguek Arop, a guy who doesn't have big numbers on San Diego State. I don't know if you noticed him when you were watching film, kind of a do it all player. Is he kind of your type of player?

PAT KELSEY: Brian recruits my type of players. They're tough as crap. I don't know if I can say that. Can I say that? Tough as nails.

I've enjoyed watching them. They're not fun to prepare for because they're really, really good, but they've got guys that eat gravel for breakfast, man. Those are the type of players that can wear a Charleston jersey, as well.