NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - FURMAN VS SAN DIEGO STATE

March 18, 2023

Bob Richey

Jalen Slawson

Mike Bothwell

Amway Center

Furman Paladins

Media Conference

San Diego State 75, Furman 52.

BOB RICHEY: Well, first of all, a lot of credit to San Diego State. I thought they played a really good game. You know, I thought they were very physical. I thought they were able to do some damage to us inside, and then they started getting comfortable from the perimeter.

You know, unfortunately it wasn't our night, and we wish we would have played better. Wish we would have shot the ball a little bit better. But some of that you have to give credit to them. But there's nothing that can take away what this group has done.

It's an unbelievable story, and I couldn't be more proud of our team, at a time where I'm extremely disappointed that we didn't advance. But it's really hard to not pull the lens back a little bit and still see what that group was able to accomplish.

For that, I'll be forever grateful.

Q. Jalen, Mike, just like Coach said, you made the round of 32. How rewarding was it to come back, put on that Furman jersey, make the NCAA Tournament, win a game, and play on the weekend?

MIKE BOTHWELL: Yeah, it's something no one can take away from this team. Greatest team in the school's history. No one has won more games than us, and we enjoyed it. That's the best part about it. We enjoyed the good times, we enjoyed the bad times, and we're going to have relationships created and bonds created that will last a lifetime.

We put so much pride behind this jersey, with our alumni, with our current students and fan base. And people around the country know who Furman is now, if they didn't already. That's something that we're going to definitely take pride in. And when we get to process all that we accomplished, I'm sure we'll feel really proud about what we have done.

Q. Coach, midway through the first half it was tied. I think you had 10 rebounds apiece. Virtually every stat line was tied. What happened in those last 10 minutes of the first half specifically? It just seemed like that wave could never be stopped.

BOB RICHEY: Well, you know, I've always thought, this is a complementary game, and we look at it a little bit like there's two different ends. When you study really good teams, they're complete. It's not really an offensive team or defensive team. Great championship level teams are complete. The reason they're complete is because the two ends affect one another.

We're up 16-12 playing pretty well and we foul a three-point shooter, and I thought it affected our energy. I wouldn't necessarily say it was panic, but the ball quit moving and we were over-dribbling, and it was a little bit what they were scheming us to do.

And then we had some -- not just turnovers, but we also had what we call shot turnovers, which are bad shots that basically are just like a turnover. I thought they were able to play in transition and they were able to get the game up and down a little bit instead of having to score in the half court. I thought our half court defense initially was good.

You know, once they were able to open up the margin, I thought they settled in, they got a little bit comfortable. And we just could not -- our guys kept trying. I'm really proud of how they kept fighting. To see Garrett Hien dive on that loose ball right there with a couple minutes to go, that's the pride of the jersey.

But we just couldn't -- we could not catch a rhythm. The duck-ins clearly were bothering us. Obviously they started making shots. When they're making shots like that -- the biggest difference in their winning and losing when you look at it analytically is how well they shoot it from three. And when all the sudden Trammell is jumping up there and making those tough shots, and Parrish has 14 at halftime, now you compound that with what they're going in the interior, and then they're limiting your good looks.

Even sometimes when we get did looks, they just didn't go in tonight. But again, just you don't want to beat it up too much. It's been -- to see them continue to fight and to see them continue to compete, it made me a proud coach.

Q. For Jalen and Mike, if you could both answer this. What were they doing to you defensively? Because you're a team that averages 82 points a game and you were late in the shot clock almost every possession there late in the last few minutes of the first half.

JALEN SLAWSON: They did a really good job gapping us. We're a downhill team and we use drives to create for one another. Credit to them; we let the ball stick a little bit. But their gaps, their gap presence and then they pressured us, crawled up into the ball a lot, obviously them picking us up full court bothered us a little bit.

But yeah, they kept us from driving, kept the ball out of the paint, kept a really strong floor and played really hard.

MIKE BOTHWELL: Yeah, I would say, like Coach said, it was complementary. We stopped getting stops. And when we were taking the ball out of the net every time, it's hard to have a good flow, not getting any transition buckets. They made us work for everything we got. We didn't get any easies tonight. That and missing some open threes kind of stuck our rhythm. We kind of got in a rut.

But credit to them; they're known for their defense. They showed why today. They're known for physicality. They showed why today on both ends of the floor. But definitely us not getting stops made it worse. We didn't get out in transition, which is our best layer.

Q. Bob, you talked about in this moment it's difficult to look at the big picture through all this, but what can you take from this experience in the NCAA Tournament maybe into next year and the teams in the future?

BOB RICHEY: Well, that's what we just talked about in the locker room. Now you've tasted it. Like we've experienced it. Let's call it what it is. We're not using any excuses whatsoever. San Diego State played great today. But we experienced a day Thursday that the program has never seen. We haven't experienced anything like that. The fashion that it happened, the emotions behind that, everything is new. From how we had to handle yesterday, the media sessions were a little bit extended, just we tried our best to normalize things as best we could, but at the same time enjoy it. But I had no worries about our prep. I thought our team was ready to play.

But now that we've been here, like it's a different taste. That's what I just told our team. It changes the sight lines a little bit. It changes a little bit what you're aiming for.

When you deal with success, failure is something that forces you to respond. What we went through last year, we knew we were going to respond to that. We worked all off-season with that. Sometimes what success can do is make you complacent, and I think the challenge going forward for us is to understand this has to make us hungrier. This has to push us every day to want to get back here and continue to show that we belong in the NCAA Tournament.

Look, you look at this, one eighth of the games were won by mid majors in the first round. Like mid majors are showing they belong in this thing. I don't want to get into an analytical spill of how this thing is harder to get in because you don't get rewarded for winning and you get just absolutely pummeled for losing. We lost at Western Carolina and fell 20 spots. We won eight games in a row and we only gained 20 spots. But what the mid majors are showing right now is we do belong.

I'm hoping that the country can continue to see that. And I know our program, we're going to walk out chest up, chin up, chest out, and we're going to look back on this and understand this was an incredible story. Not just the weekend, the whole year.

And just like last year, we counted all joy. We're going to count this all joy, and we're all going to find different things that we learn from this. But look, there's nobody walking out of here with their head down. I couldn't be more proud to be a part of it and to see how much this program has grown and how much the people inside this program have grown.

Q. Coach Richey, could you talk a little bit about Jalen and Mike and what they mean to this university as a whole as their career comes to a close today? I know you've been with them the entirety of their career and how they've submitted themselves as program legends this year.

BOB RICHEY: Well, he said we only have ten minutes and I think we've used about eight. That's going to be too short of an answer.

I just love it, about what it stands for. I love the fact that they had the conviction to do what they thought was right for themselves individually. But I think that care was due to their teammates and their program and their institution. I think it was a decision that it wasn't so much -- the question has always been why didn't they leave. Well, the better question would be, what did they stay for.

I think as you look inside our program, like you've got to ask yourself that. Like come to Greenville, come to Furman University, come to practice, come see how our players operate, come see how close they are, how connected they are.

Listen, it's hard to leave, because they love -- look how they just kept playing. They care about one another.

I think that's what the world doesn't quite understand. Like oh, they were supposed to leave. No, they weren't. They stayed for a reason, and they knew what they were coming back to do. And what I love about the story is everything that they've been rewarded with has been based off of that decision. And they delayed not only gratification, but they had to work through adversity.

For that, I just think it's an incredible deal. It wasn't our night tonight, but again, I think that's why we can walk out of here knowing that -- listen, the last time we lost, we were in Charleston and we lost to Citadel. And we basically had to win three in a row to win the league in the regular season and we had to win three in a row to get here.

And not only did they win six games in a row but then they won a game in the NCAA Tournament. I think for them, it's going to be something that resonates the rest of their life. I think when they go through hard, this will be something that will be ironed in their heart that now they know, hey, this is what you have to do.

Hard is hard, but it's necessary, and it's necessary to produce the growth, and I think that's what they were able to experience.

Q. You just mentioned mid majors. This was a mid-major versus mid-major battle, but now San Diego State could be stepping up a huge level to Alabama. Is this a team that could challenge Alabama, or is that just a huge level, a huge jump?

BOB RICHEY: I love what Coach Bennett said the other day in his press conference, that great basketball has no level and has no limit, and I'm a big subscriber to that. I wish the college basketball world would subscribe to that.

I don't think San Diego State is a mid-major team. I really don't. They've got high-major length and size. They play extremely hard. When you look at the league, when you look at the Mountain West and how they schedule, the resources they put in, most of them by six games, when you look at their model, it really is pretty close to a high-major model, what they're doing TV wise and things like that.

I don't know anybody in their program. I don't know how they operate. But I'm telling you this, like they don't look at themselves as a mid-major. Watching them on film, they're very well-coached, they're very disciplined. They play extremely hard. They know who they are and they know what they're about. They could advance as far as they want in this thing because of how physical they are, how they defend and how they rebound.