MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2024

Brian Dutcher

Jaedon LeDee

Darrion Trammell

Thomas & Mack Center

San Diego State Aztecs

Postgame Press Conference

San Diego State 74, UNLV 71

THE MODERATOR: We have student-athletes Darrion Trammell, Jaedon LeDee. Coach, let's start with you with thoughts on today's game?

BRIAN DUTCHER: Just another night in the Mountain West. Every game is like this. Every one.

It's not a surprise that this one went down to the wire. Kevin has done an incredible job with this year's UNLV team. They are really good. The key to the game was rebounding.

We took a major step forward on that when the Boone brother didn't play because he is a sensational rebounder. When I look at the stats at the end of the day we outrebounded them 50-31. We had 25 offensive rebounds. That was the key to the game. That was the key we put up in the locker room, and I thought that was the key to the game.

Both teams played good defense. Two sensational performances. One by Dedan Thomas and one by Jaedon LeDee. Sometimes coaching is easy. I ran the last play, give it to your best player and let him make a player, and that's what Jaedon did at the elbow sweep.

Made a big basket at the end. We found a way to hang on for a victory. So proud of our guys. Proud that we're playing in another semifinal game in the Mountain West Tournament.

THE MODERATOR: Let's take questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Jaedon, take me through that last play and what's going through your mind especially also with the free-throws given the way they've been falling for you all day?

JAEDON LeDEE: Just staying the course. With free-throws it says I went 11 for 18, so I knew I was going to make more than I miss.

Just that play we hadn't ran in a minute so, my teammates had ultimate confidence in me. Coach had ultimate confidence in me. I just got to my spot and tried to shoot a shot I shot a million times.

Q. What goes through your mind when Dedan gets that shot off and the relief that you had when it didn't go in?

DARRION TRAMMELL: We're excited. It's March, so wins are going to be ugly, but it's all that matters that we get the win and now we get to focus on the next game.

Q. You had that buzzer beater shot at halftime. What are the emotions going into the locker room? Did that bring any kind of momentum swing?

JAEDON LeDEE: Finally. I couldn't buy a basket. I missed a lot of layups. As a team we missed a lot of layups. I missed a lot of shots.

That was just great momentum. We talked about it going into half. We were kind of down, and we talked about as a team. That was something positive. We just highlighted that, and we went out in the second half with great energy. I mean, it showed.

Q. Darrion, your game has propelled lately in the last couple of weeks. You had five assists again today, five steals. What has worked for you so well?

DARRION TRAMMELL: I'm just being myself and having confidence in it. Coach has put me in the right spots to be successful, whether that's offensively or defensively. Putting me in ball screens. Me and Jaedon working the pick and roll and being more active and recognizing that, I mean, it's March. I've got to leave it out on the floor every game.

Q. Jaedon, what needs to change offensively to start the game?

JAEDON LeDEE: I didn't think we did too bad starting the game. We put emphasis on it. We got to start a little faster. Just maybe having our blood and body going and just getting ready to go.

But, I mean, I like how we finished, so that's all that mattered today.

Q. Jaedon, Utah State coming up in the semifinal. Great Osobor is going to be the physical force from Utah State, at least main focus-wise. What would be your game plan offensively going into this?

JAEDON LeDEE: I don't know. We have to go over it as a team. We haven't made it back to the hotel, so I don't know yet.

Q. Jaedon, just following up on that, obviously you and Great Osobor had two really big matchups in the regular season. Obviously he was announced player of the year. Are you looking forward to that matchup going up against him again?

JAEDON LeDEE: It's going to be a good game. I know they'll try to game plan for me, game plan for the whole team, but yeah, we're going to come with it tomorrow.

Q. Jaedon, you got fouled 17 times tonight. How much of an emphasis did you have on getting to the free-throw line, taking fouls, and how big was it that you got to get them in foul trouble late?

JAEDON LeDEE: It was good. I mean, I feel like I probably -- I get fouled probably every time I touch the ball, but those 17 times they called it. I'm just glad we capitalized on the free-throws and capitalized on the opportunity when we get fouled.

THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time. Thank you, men. Questions for Coach.

Q. What makes Dedan so special?

BRIAN DUTCHER: He just plays with great pace. I mean, there's coaching where you can get a guy better, and there's just a kid that plays with great instincts. Whether it was his dad teaching him as he came up, he just has great instincts. He plays with pace. He knows when to go fast and when he goes slow, he hits the runner. He hasn't even tapped into the three-point shot, which he can make.

When he starts shooting that with confidence behind ball screens, I mean, he was unstoppable tonight, and we doubled him, we switched on him, switched sides on him, and he just got to his spot, and he missed two shots at the end.

I don't know if we kept him from making them, but he missed a couple of shots that he made all game, and we were fortunate that happened.

Q. I know one or two plays don't define this game, but you guys are down eight, two seconds left to go in the first half. They're trying to get a double-digit lead. How big was that, get a steal, make a three, and going into the locker room with energy and something positive?

BRIAN DUTCHER: I think we were 1 for 9 from three in the first half, and that was the only make from three. It was nice to see one go in. I heard the coaches joking with the team that we finally got the lid off the basket.

I mean, we shot 28% or something like that the first half again. That's what we shot last time we played here, but we made 11 threes. We couldn't get a three to go in with any regularity today, but that was a huge momentum-changer.

We scored a basket, and then we scored the last basket of the half, so we went on a little 5-0 run to end the half. We tried to get our team uplifted by that. They seemed a little down at halftime, but we tried to say, come on, that's such a huge momentum change.

We tried to get them fired up a little bit more. It came from the coaches, to be honest with you, some of that. We tried to get their energy up that that was such an important shot and that can turn the tide of a game, and maybe it did.

Q. I'm sure you knew that this game was going to turn out something like this. Just what do you tell your team going in to deal with a team that's trying to get their get-back from a couple of weeks ago?

BRIAN DUTCHER: Rebound was the key. When the other Boone didn't play, that was a huge momentum change. He tried to warm up, but he is their offensive rebounder. He is the rebounding problem.

They had a short man bench, and they had to play different line-ups and different combinations. I thought Kevin did a great job of not having a main cog in his offense, his best rebounder, in my opinion, for the whole game. I thought he did a great job managing his team and overcoming that and having a chance to beat us on his home floor.

That's hats off to UNLV missing a really important player, and it's hats off for us for finding a way to finally get a close win. We've lost so many close games. We finally got a close win, and it's a good time to do it heading into this tournament and heading into the NCAA Tournament.

Q. Micah had a rough game out there offensively. 0 for 8 from the field. Despite that, at one point he was a + 21 point differential. What are the ways he helps a team win despite not flooring?

BRIAN DUTCHER: He guards at a high level, rebounds. I felt bad for Micah. He missed two free-throws. We were up two at the end of the game and he missed them both. I just said to be a really good basketball player you have to have a short memory.

Anything that happened today, it's in the rearview mirror. Come out and make every shot you take next game, and shoot like you think you're going to. It's important for a coach to give his team confidence even when it doesn't seem like they deserve any.

But Reese and Micah are going to make shots tomorrow. I'm convinced of it. They're too good of players and shooters, and I think the ocean will open up tomorrow, and it will look like the size of the ocean, the rim. We're making shots tomorrow.

Q. You guys have a lot more playoff experience than Utah State. You've been to the semifinals 19 times compared to their five. How are you going to use that playoff experience going into a game against the 1 seed?

BRIAN DUTCHER: It's not really Utah State. It's Osobor and Brown who have played in the NCAA Tournament two years in a row. They've been to the conference championship of their league. There's Utah State playoff experience, and there's the playoff experience their players have.

They've got guys that have played in important games in March, and I think they'll be ready for their opportunity and so will we.

Q. Can you take me through what you told the team after Dedan Thomas hit that spin move layup at the end of regulation to tie the game?

BRIAN DUTCHER: Just what every coach would tell his team, we got this. We're going to win the game. Be positive. Don't let that distract you. Come out with great energy, and let's win the game.

Every coach in the country is going to give a pep talk. You're not going to sit there and go, wow, we made a mistake doing this or we screwed this up. You're just going to turn to a positive energy. That's all you can do because if you have negative energy you're never going to win. We had to believe we were going to win and sell that to the kids, and they had to believe it or we had no chance to win.

Q. Dutch, you called timeout with 2.7 seconds left. I'm assuming you were going to foul, and you didn't get it done.

BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, I just told them 2.7, we have to be real careful because with that amount of time they're probably going to catch two a shot. We were real cautious about fouling at that point. If there's 8 seconds they had to dribble up the floor and we would have fouled for sure. At 2.7 I didn't want to have a guy catching a balance into a shot and we grabbed him.

So we want to put two guys on Dedan, and that worked out really well. He got a wide-open shot to end the game. Coaching sometimes is overrated. We had a guy in front of him and behind him, and I looked up and both guys were behind him. We were fortunate he missed the shot.

We were guarding the right guy, but we didn't do what we needed to do to prevent a shot by him.

Q. Coming back to win this after losing so many of these types of games all season, what does it do for your team?

BRIAN DUTCHER: I just told them, this is a good time to start this. Its March. It's tournament time. This is a good time to start winning close games. Everything in the past is in the past. All we control is the future.

Now we've got one. We've won a close game. Let's go get another one and another one and let's keep this going.

Q. UNLV went to a zone late in the game similar to Boise on Friday. Even though you guys missed some shots in the beginning of it, it looked like there were good shots. Were you happy with the offense against the zone?

BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, I thought they played good against the zone. There was a set play I was trying to run late that we didn't get into, and I kind of talked to Lamont and Darrion that they have to be the voice on the floor and get us into the set.

But it's a set we got a layup on. A double ball screen where we get downhill, and I tried to run it again, and good things happened when we ran that play. We didn't get into it, and it ended up Lamont hit a tough jump shot. That was the only thing I was mad about that we didn't get into a play I wanted to run late.

Q. Mentioning meeting Utah State in the playoffs. It's happened four times in the last five or six years. Fifth time in the last six years. What's it like playing Utah State so many times in the Mountain West tournament, especially three or four different coaches in that time as well you've faced with Utah State?

BRIAN DUTCHER: I don't remember one game other than Sam Merrill banging a three on us to win it. That's the thing I remember. That's the curse of coaching. You always remember the ones you lose.

I remember that shot and what an epic game that was. Well, against our 30-2 team.