NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - GRAND CANYON VS GONZAGA

March 17, 2023

Mark Few

Drew Timme

Julian Strawther

Anton Watson

Ball Arena

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Media Conference

Gonzaga 82, Grand Canyon University 70

MARK FEW: Well, hey, definitely the tale of two halves as far as we were concerned. I thought Grand Canyon really did a great job of dictating kind of the game in the first half. As I walked into the locker room, Drew was talking to the guys about hey, now the jitters are out of the way, now we've got to play. We just kind of reinforced that at halftime. And certainly for that first 15 minutes of the second half, we got back to playing the way we've been playing here in this last probably month or so.

That was the difference in the game.

Q. Drew, I wanted to ask, you ended up finishing the game with 21 points and six rebounds. Can you speak a little bit about that intensity GCU gave you guys in the first half, specifically some of the defensive looks you were seeing from them?

DREW TIMME: I mean, they obviously play hard, but I think that was more on us being, like Coach said, just had some jitters. It's a big, high pressure event, and I felt like on the whole we were a little nervous, which is human nature. And then the second half we calmed down, recollected ourselves. We're Gonzaga, got back to what they did. They played their tails off and they're here for a reason. There's no easy path, everything is hard, and it was certainly a hard war today.

Q. You three get up there and you're kind of going back and forth who had the most blocks. Julian, this 260 pound, forward is going to the rim and you climb up there and swat him. What's going through your head.

JULIAN STRAWTHER: This guy right here makes sure to let me know every day that I'm 6'7". I've got to start acting like it. Yeah, that's what's going through my head. I'm 6'7" and I've got to go up and contest these guys. And it was a big point of emphasis all week. I mean, I know that I was going to hear it if I didn't do it.

Q. What was that that's getting on you about it?

JULIAN STRAWTHER: Boss man.

Q. How is it to have these three when things are going a little turbulent they can calm the waters? How much do you rely on that?

MARK FEW: Tremendously. I think what gets lost even in a game like this is just the absolute calming influence that Anton Watson has on our team. He's the glue that holds our whole defense together. And then he again is always in there on offensive rebounds, getting us extra possessions. When we needed a basket, he had a big floater today and he goes for a double-double in an NCAA Tournament game.

So I think sometimes he gets lost even though he's kind of quiet and unassuming. But I mean, down the stretch of this run, I think these two would agree with you, he's been our MVP.

Q. Drew, Anton and Julian, I know you've been in this opening round environment so many times. Did it feel any different in that first half with GCU's student section and the crowd providing that energy for GCU?

ANTON WATSON: To be honest, once you get on the court and start playing, you don't really tend to notice it. But their fans did show out, and major respect to them. Kind of reminds me of our fans, traveling, showing up to our games. Once you get on the court and start playing, you don't really tend to notice that too much.

MARK FEW: I would agree. Their fan base, watching film on them and then walking out in that arena, very, very impressive.

Q. First-round jitters, is there any -- how do you coach to get ready for that, or is there anything you can even do?

MARK FEW: I mean, you can ask these guys. We just try to stay in attack mode. We try to be the aggressor. We try to -- again, I think especially with this group, with all that we've been through or whatever, we haven't been No. 1 all year, so we've kind of been having to dig our way out of some things. And I think we're still just taking that approach in this NCAA Tournament.

I think if you watch, the luxury of playing on Friday later in the afternoon, you get to see how all these games are going. So these guys understand, these are almost like pick 'em games. No matter what the number says as far as your seed, we just talk about that. We talk about being aggressive and playing our game, and I thought we did a much better job of that in the second half.

Q. Mark, you guys had eight blocks today. I think that was a season high. I know it's more of a collective effort this year without Chet. Can you talk about the rim protection?

MARK FEW: Yeah, it's one of those areas that has gotten better as we've improved here in February and into March. We're rotating around better and these guys are making plays. I think they were a little tentative earlier in the year and now we're rotating over. I have been on this guy. He's a terrific athlete, and when he plays like it, it's something.

I think in the NCAA Tournament they let you make plays like that, and I think it's important that we understand that, so we've got to rotate over and make plays.

Q. For the players, we've seen you guys have games like this a decent amount this season. The first half kind of feeling-out process, second half you guys explode. What goes into that? Is it a feeling-out process for you guys?

JULIAN STRAWTHER: I would just say kind of what Coach was touching on earlier. Just how we kind of get away from playing like ourselves is when we get in those grudge matches and things get frustrating for us. Like early in the first half, I feel like our offense wasn't flowing like it normally does.

Once we just start playing our brand of basketball and how we know how, that's when everything opened up. You see smiles on the court, you see us celebrating each other and that's when Gonzaga basketball is at its best.

Q. Mark, what was the intent in that second half? Were you just trying to knock them off their spots on the three-point line, because they'd been hitting a lot of threes and they seemed to struggle a little bit there?

MARK FEW: Well, that was actually the intent in the first half also, but we didn't do a great job of executing that.

Yeah, obviously we felt like the threes, that hurt us. But I just thought we weren't dictating anything on our defensive end. Like I said, I thought GCU came out and played with great pace and purpose, got the ball where they wanted to, stepped up, made shots. And we just wanted to make sure we were being a little more assertive and started dictating what they were doing on that end. And then offensively we just wanted to get our inside game going. We were pretty passive first half.

Q. Mark, the defensive effort on Harrison and McGlothan, satisfied with that? And then maybe a thought, I know you don't know who you're going to play, but those two teams are pretty athletic and tough.

MARK FEW: Yeah, hey, we won, so I'm extremely satisfied. That's what you do in this tournament and then you just forget about it and you move on.

Yes, the teams we're going to play are going to be extremely athletic, extremely explosive. I've watched TCU a lot this year. I think they're as good a team as there is in this tournament, especially when they're at their high end. And just talking to other coaches in the Big 12, I think they would say the same thing. You just don't see teams going into Phog Allen Fieldhouse and win by 30 or whatever they did. And so they play with great pace, and they'll be a handful.

But we'll rest these guys up, and we've seen everything this year, and these guys have always responded. They have championship pedigree. Then who knows.

Arizona State looked like the Warriors the other night, so we'll just have to see what happens here.

Q. This is a little random, but during the second half Purdue lost as a No. 1 seed. They were showing that on the video board, the crowd was reacting. Were you distracted by that or were you even aware?

DREW TIMME: No. That's what it's been like the whole time. They always put a game on the TV, and we did come out of a time-out and we heard people screaming and we were like, all right, something probably happened.

But biggest focus, I just got the eyes -- I was like, eyes on the court. We don't need another circus show going on, we've already got one going on right now. Coach can attest to our focus being a little spacey at times, just a bit, so just trying to stay as focused as we can in the moment was important to us.

Q. Coach Few, this upcoming game on Sunday will be your program's 13th straight appearance in the round of 32. Why do you think you've been able to have success in early round games when a good amount of high-seeded teams tend to get upset in March Madness?

MARK FEW: Thanks for asking that. I think that's something we take a lot of pride in. We take a ton of pride in just making this tournament, and I think our streak with that is probably the greatest thing we've done during this run at GU.

But yeah, these games are hard to win. I think it's the hardest thing to do in our sport is win an NCAA Tournament game. It's the players, man. They deserve all the credit. They're prepared. They're ready. They're not succumbing to maybe the pressures that come when you're not the pesky little underdog that everybody is rooting for. They don't give into that narrative, and they fight and assert themselves and end up playing the way we should play.

I think these guys, many of them have been involved in those games, but all the ones before them have done the same thing. They deserve all the credit.

Q. Drew, I guess to echo off that question, can you savor these at all? Do you savor these or do you just -- head down and -- how do you savor this knowing this might be the last time, this whole experience?

DREW TIMME: It doesn't matter to me. I mean, it's so hard to get a win in this tournament. You can celebrate it for a couple hours then you've got -- we've got to watch this game and see who we're going to play, then hurry around and scout the team, whether it's TCU or Arizona State. Everything is so high paced. The moment you get content and relax is the moment you get upset.

Just maybe an hour or two we'll celebrate, laugh, but it's straight to business after that, because it doesn't get any easier from here.

Q. Coach, going from, like you said, looking at the underdog side of things. Gonzaga, it's been a long time since you've been an underdog. What you can say about the evolution of this program and the consistency of this program.

MARK FEW: I mean, again, I think it's the thing, at least that I'm the most proud of, just to be able to make this tournament. It's so hard to make this tournament. There's so many great players out there. These guys will tell you, in our league and stuff that nobody knows, or doesn't know much about, so many great coaches out there.

So to make this tournament and then obviously when you get into this thing, like I said, I think it's the hardest thing to do is earn wins in it.

It just comes down to having great players, and they buy into what we're doing. They do a great job preparing, and they usually -- for the most part, I think we've played our best basketball in this time of year and during this tournament, because if you don't, you're going to get beat.