NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP - FINAL FOUR: FLORIDA ATLANTIC VS SAN DIEGO STATE

March 30, 2023

Brian Dutcher

NRG Stadium

San Diego State Aztecs

Semi-Finals Pregame Media Conference

COACH DUTCHER: Just spent some quality time with Dusty May, and it's no surprise that he has the team he has. They're well-coached. They reflect their head coach. And we're excited for the opportunity to play them, and I'm expecting a really, really good game.

Q. We just talked with your guys, and Nathan Mensah said, his practice as a freshman he said, look, we did ten minutes of defense before the seniors even arrived, then we did 90 minutes more defense. He was thinking, okay, when is this going to change. How would you reflect on how you kind of introduce your players to everything that this program is about and what that process entails to get them bought in?

COACH DUTCHER: It starts when you recruit them. It can't start when they show up on campus. When we recruit them, we tell them, we defend at a high level here. If you don't want to play defense, then we're not the place for you. But if you do defend, we'll let you play with great freedom offensively. And that's kind of what we are.

So when they get there, they're not having success, even though they're scoring, it's like, hey, we told you, we're defense first. And you have to defend in order to earn an opportunity to play offense. And so it's a culture. It's something we've always preached. And I think we're pretty good at it.

Q. I remember meeting with you your first year on the job, 2018 or so, and even then you were talking about let's get old, let's stay old. And when did that become the San Diego State thing? And obviously you guys have been able to take it to an extreme with the COVID waiver. Has it been a convincing process to get all these guys to use this extra year? Do they want to be there? Because like I said, it seems it's been your mantra for this program really from the beginning.

COACH DUTCHER: I mean, our culture is set by our four-year guys and five-year guys, guys that come in as a freshman. We have guys that invest a lot. And they spend their four and five years in our program. But then we also take transfers.

So in the early transfer years, when they had to sit a year, that would automatically make you older because now they've sat a full year and they're getting their fifth year.

Now that the culture has changed a little bit with the portal and instant eligibility, we found a way to maintain our age and our experience level. And that's not to say if you're a really good freshman you can't play for us. Nathan Mensah is a four-year starter. Matt Mitchell, we had him. Four-year starters. We get four-year starters, but be a freshman and play at our place, you have to be very good.

Q. For 2020 when you built this incredible team, a great run, the tournament's canceled. How did you process that? You have been at the university for so long, you get them to this point, and maybe reassuring yourself that it's going to happen down the line, how did you process that mentally?

COACH DUTCHER: From the day we stepped on campus Coach Fisher and I all those years ago, we thought it was a possibility. We sold it recruiting. We didn't just say it, and it wasn't empty words just to get a kid to come. We believed if we did what we were supposed to do, we could make a Final Four, we could win a national championship.

So that's what the message is. We believed it could happen. That's our culture. Some people might say it was a fantasy, but obviously we're sitting here today.

Q. Jaedon LeDee shows up in Houston, a kid out of The Kinkaid School. A lot has been made about University of Texas being here, maybe University of Houston being here. But he's here. Tell me about Jaedon. And he took a circuitous route to get to San Diego State and get to the Final Four, but give me insight on Jaedon.

COACH DUTCHER: Before the season started, anybody asked me how you're going to be this year, I said we're going to be really good. And I said that because of Jaedon LeDee. I watched him. He wanted to sit a year. He wanted a sit-out year. I watched him in practice every day how dominant he was.

I just felt he was the missing piece to us being really, really good. Now, we had experienced players coming back, but Jaedon, at the start, I always said, and I said it to Jaedon, he sat a year so he was so anxious, and the more you want something, you squeeze it so hard, it slips through your fingers. Now he's starting to settle in. He's starting to get comfortable.

And I will say this. Jaedon has another level to go. Of all our guys, Jaedon has another level to go. So hopefully that level happens here this next two days. But he's a magnificent player that knows how to play, and he's only scratching what he's able to do on the basketball court right now.

Q. NCAA said they're going to tighten up the rules regarding transferring and not give out waivers for the second transfer so readily. How are you guys -- I know you're occupied with these games here -- but just how are you approaching that when you're looking at guys that it would be a second transfer, what are those conversations like?

COACH DUTCHER: The only second-year transfers we're looking at are the ones who graduate and are eligible next year. And I was on the phone, I'm getting ready for the game, but I made a recruiting call on the way over from the bus because, while we're sitting here getting ready for the greatest event in the world, there are coaches doing home visits and recruiting for next year's team.

So as focused as I am now, I've also got one eye on the future. If you don't do that, you shouldn't be coaching.

Q. Over the last six years, this program has gone 107 wins to just 22 losses. You've been so consistently strong. And you've talked about why that is. Can you reflect on what the process is to all of us and maybe to the national people that cover the sport of what it means when you're winning a lot of games, but now you're winning a lot of games and you're doing it in college basketball's biggest stage and you're standing in a Final Four?

COACH DUTCHER: We've had good teams. But it's hard to win in March. We all know that. I mean, if we were to say all the best teams with the best season should be here, they're not here right now. The teams that are playing the best are here.

So even though we lost a first-round game to Houston, with Kelvin Sampson, my first NCAA tournament game, we had a good team, one-possession game. And we lost last year to Creighton in overtime. We had a good team.

But it's hard to win in March. So sometimes matchups, playing your best basketball. So I don't want to lose sight that this team is more special than the others. This team has won games in March, but these other teams we've had are really good, too. It's just hard to win games in March.

Q. You didn't wake up and drink something different for breakfast or change your lifestyle for that to happen, right? It's just a matter of continuing to be in the tournament?

COACH DUTCHER: Well, I think the one thing, anybody that's followed Aztec basketball knows this, and no matter what kind of team we've had and where we finish, we get better as the year goes on. That's just our culture. If you think you're good enough now and you can't get any better, don't get off the bus. We have another level to go. And even today the message was, if you don't think we can get better at practice today, then don't practice.

We can get better every time we step on the floor. If you deliver that message and they believe in it, they'll get better as the season goes on. So as good as we play or as bad as we play, we're going to get better as the season goes on. That's part of our culture.

I learned from Coach Fisher a long time ago. Everyone asks, you were really patient as an assistant coach waiting for your opportunity. It's because I always felt like I was contributing.

If you get good people, you let them work; you delegate. So as much as Coach Fisher was winning, because they were his teams, I felt like they're not winning unless I'm doing what I do.

My assistant coach is the same way, David Velasquez, Chris Acker, JayDee Luster, JD Pollock, Sam Scholl, they all feel like they're contributing to the success. They all feel like "I'm the reason we're winning." I want them to feel that way. You don't win unless you have good coaches and good players that believe they can get better.

People talk about culture. They're in their third year into a head coach in a program. Culture is 24 years in one place. That's where I've been. That's culture.

Q. You've talked about getting old, staying old. I think this is the fourth Final Four with no McDonald's All-Americans. I don't think there's really any one-and-dones here, unless Donovan Clingan from UConn goes. What's that say about the state of college basketball and have we moved past the point when one-and-dones and McDonald's All-Americans can kind of shine on this stage, or is it just a year-to-year thing?

COACH DUTCHER: I think the McDonald's All-Americans are usually in college one year anyway. You're only talking about X number of guys every year because most of them are gone after one year.

And those coaches that coach them do an incredible job if they get to this stage because you're basically taking a freshman and knowing it's going to be hard early to try to get them integrated, anybody, any freshman. McDonald's All-American or not McDonald's All-American. It's hard to get a freshman ready.

Those that get those freshmen ready at this stage by the end of the year do an incredible job coaching. I think if you were to ask them, they'd all like to have four- and five-year guys in their program. But the reality is, if you can get great talent you take it. But then it's hard to win with them because it takes a while for them to make the adjustment to the college game. It's just a fact of what we're doing.