NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR

March 19, 2024

Matt Logie

UD Arena

Montana State Bobcats

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by head coach Matt Logie.

Q. Coach, your thoughts on this team, what they've been able to accomplish your first season?

MATT LOGIE: Obviously a joy to be here. This is a group that has had a special, special journey to get here. We took over last spring around the end of April and had a ton of work to do. And completing the roster, number one; building a staff; and then redesigning with that roster in mind, how Montana State was going to look moving forward.

And so this team has made me so proud in the way that they've stuck to the process and continued to keep their eyes focused on March as the goal for playing our best basketball. And the way that that's all come together in the last few weeks has just been a joy and a testament to the character of our players and staff.

Q. Can you take us through what the preparation for Grambling has looked like in the past 48 hours or so? Since you learned that that's your opponent, what jumps out about them on film that you know you're going to have to be mindful of?

MATT LOGIE: Yeah, thank goodness for Synergy Sports. The ability to turn that page right away and dive into the film is obviously extremely helpful. They're a team that is also playing really, really good basketball. Won nine of their last 10 games. They have a veteran back court that is very dynamic in Dozier and Moton.

So they know very much who they are, and they're a team that's been executing and running their system throughout the year all the way back to November, December at a very high level.

And they're well tested. Played a lot of high major opponents in the non-conference and you learn a lot about those scenarios. And obviously have had a ton of success in conference play as of late.

So very impressive team. A group that plays extremely hard and knows who they are.

Q. Talking about that final stretch to end the regular season into the Big Sky tournament, John Olmsted jumping into such a huge role off the bench. Can you talk about what he's meant to the team?

MATT LOGIE: John is a great story, a young man that walked on for four years at Arizona State, played the role of a great teammate for four years on the scout team and poured into his own development process, hoping to sometime crack into a rotational player.

Obviously with COVID giving him an extra opportunity, he joined us at Montana State last spring and has just been an outstanding teammate. Had kind of an up and-down year in the opportunities that he was given. But ultimately just needed ability to play through some of those mistakes and things that he didn't have the luxury of doing in his previous situations.

And so couldn't be prouder of him for the example that he set as a teammate. And it's a great story for the rest of our young men in sticking to it and being prepared for your opportunity and never stopping believing in yourself and being prepared. He's completely changed the dynamic of our team in the last couple weeks with his play and given us a boost and a lift. And that's been special to watch.

Q. Just to share this moment with him as he's ending his collegiate career, what has it meant to you as a coach?

MATT LOGIE: It's a beautiful storyline. Going into senior night, he had had pretty much one breakout game at Eastern Washington. And I think, in his own mind even, that was proof of concept that he could do it that all that hard work and effort was worth it.

As he walked off the court, I said the best is still yet to come. When that's your senior night, the last game in your home arena, that may sound a little unique to hear, but it certainly came true last week in Boise, as he continued to play at an extremely high level.

Q. We were talking with the guys about the low point of the season, that four-game losing streak, something you've never experienced as a head coach. And they gave you a lot of credit for keeping that confidence. How were you able to keep the confidence in the locker room and obviously turn it around and go on this amazing run?

MATT LOGIE: Again, I would point the credit towards our players. I try to be consistent in who I am and what they can expect on a daily basis. I think the biggest underlying message of this team has been their ability to not overly focus on results but focus on the process at hand to achieve the results that we desire.

And there were definitely some valleys, the four-game losing streak being one, but when you come back from that and you've got your second largest home crowd of the year waiting for you to pick you up off the deck, that made a huge, huge impact on our young men and on our program.

The community support in Bozeman has just been phenomenal. And they have not allowed us to wallow in the disappointment of short-term results and to stay focused on what can be accomplished long term. And this is for all those folks that helped us in those moments.

Q. What do you think of just this dynamic of playing in the First Four? You guys will be the first game in this whole tournament. All eyes on Montana State and Grambling State. What do you think of that opportunity for your program and the university?

MATT LOGIE: It's an exciting opportunity. Obviously comes with a lot of exposure for our basketball family and for our young men, which is well-deserved. It's also an opportunity to keep the momentum going that we've built here in the last couple of weeks.

I think the more games we can play as soon as possible, the better. The more I can get out of their way and not have to hear my voice is fine with me.

So we're excited about the opportunity to hit the court tomorrow night. And it would be a great opportunity for these guys to show what type of team they are.

Q. I know you've been at the First Four before. One, could you remind us when that was, and what kind of unique challenges go into preparing for this set of games?

MATT LOGIE: My first year in college coaching after graduating from Lehigh in 2003, we run the Patriot Championship in 2004 and came here to play Florida A&M in the play-in game. I believe that was the first year, maybe that second year it had taken place.

I think the biggest challenge I remember from the time is just the pace of the turnaround, all the logistics, not to mention the prep of the team and the game itself. But fortunately for us, when you come in and you're hired, when we were hired as a staff, drinking from a firehose feels like a water fountain to us. It's all good.

We've got a great staff that's been kind of dividing and conquering all the logistical pieces of it.

Q. Third year in a row winning the Big Sky. A lot of special players on this specific team. So what do you hope to show the nation with not only Montana State Bobcats but these guys that you're doing with, especially a guy like Brian Goracke.

MATT LOGIE: I think one of the reasons we were excited to join forces with Montana State were the championship aspirations, the proof of concept that had been established by Coach Sprinkle and the staff before us. The foundation that was there from a cultural standpoint was very strong and fit a lot of the things that I believe as well.

So while our roster is a little bit different, we play a little bit different style, the fabric of Montana State basketball is something that we wanted to hold on to.

And that's what I would hope America would see tomorrow night is kind of the chip-on-your-shoulder, blue-collar mentality that this group has. And I think we are in the middle of a golden era of Montana State athletics and Bobcat basketball in particular. And I still believe the best is yet to come.

So these guys all committed to being a part of that next chapter.

And you mentioned Brian Goracke who came with me from Point Loma, to see a young man not only turn down Division I opportunities out of high school but then on the back end be able to accomplish those childhood dreams and being a part of March Madness is a real joy for me and really special.

Q. How do you look to continue this success in this unique NCAA landscape of the transfer portal and NIL?

MATT LOGIE: I mean, certainly we had to navigate that last spring, bringing in eight new scholarship players. The transfer portal is one of those areas that giveth and taketh. And so we had a lot to replace, and we were also able to find six young men that came here from other Division I situations that had yet to play their best basketball, that had a chip on their shoulder and were more concerned with who they were playing for than who they were playing with and trying to join forces or collaborate with super teams and whatnot.

Obviously the NIL piece is new and changing rapidly, but there's still two things that are tried and true. And number one is player development. And the second part is team building. That's not just roster building. It's team building.

And I think we've always taken great pride in the basketball family that I'm a part of in player development and team building. So once that process started in earnest in June, nothing was really different about our journey.

Q. We did a golf segment back when you first got hired, and just to look back from that moment to all the way now being in the First Four, has there been like a pinch-me moment, or, wow, this amazing run, how amazing has it been for you?

MATT LOGIE: It's been incredible, If I remember correctly, we fought a little bit of weather that day. I'm not sure if you noticed, but I did stick a water bottle up and catch lightning on one of the holes.

I just try to tuck that away for March and make sure we could release it here at the right time.

Q. A guy who does a lot of the little things, Eddie Turner, could you just talk about his play to end that stretch, especially in Boise, the way he distributes the ball with John? What he's meant to you being one of those players that came in this offseason?

MATT LOGIE: Eddie has been phenomenal, especially as of late. Talk about a young man who played 19 games, I believe, over four years at Columbia due to a combination of injuries and illness and family circumstance.

It really, for him, was about getting through an entire season and learning the lessons that come with that and getting comfortable out there on the floor. He's got tremendous speed with the basketball. He's really allowed us to play a fast-flowing style, along with Rob.

Those two guys have provided the veteran leadership in the back court that we had hoped to attain when we built the roster. So for him, he's just continue to go get better and better with the more game experience that he gets. And he's such a coachable, bright young man. Again, his best basketball is in front of him, too.

Q. You mentioned playing as many times in a row as you can to harness this momentum. How do you continue to do that? Does that make this short turnaround a little bit easier?

MATT LOGIE: I think once we got to the last week of the regular season, we've been in game prep, game mode almost for 20 days in a row now. We had three games in five days to finish the regular season and then went to Boise to play three games in three days.

And, so, again, that creates a process that we're comfortable in. Our guys have done a really good job as the year's gone on at learning how to prepare quickly. And early in the year we were a team that would play really well on Thursdays when we had two to three days to prepare. And then on Saturday, with a quick turn, we left some things to be desired a little bit. And those lessons have really helped our team grow and learn how to get prepared in short order.

Q. Grambling's coach, Donte' Jackson, was in here not too long ago. He joked that his team's difficult schedule this year was borne out of nobody wanting to play them after the success they had two seasons ago. I'm curious if in your position you experienced any of that coming in. And maybe how much you expect to experience it this summer. And also if you had any interaction with Coach Jackson, what that's been like over these two days that you've been here?

MATT LOGIE: I had a chance to meet Coach Jackson yesterday kind of in between practice times. He's obviously had a great run these last seven years at Grambling and building the program that is highly respectable. And as we all know, at the mid-major level, the more success you have, the harder it is to schedule.

We had a lot of the schedule in place when I got there, and then we had a number of folks that wanted to take advantage of that coaching transition and signed up rather quickly. We'll see how that goes moving forward.

But ultimately you're trying to put a schedule together that's going to prepare you to win your conference tournament, your conference championship. And that can take on a lot of forms throughout the season.

Q. You talked about your influences a lot, particularly your grandfather. I'm sure you thought about him a lot since you cut down the nets in Boise. Could you talk about that and his influence on you getting to this point in your career?

MATT LOGIE: My grandpa, Ed Pepple, was a high school basketball coach in the Seattle area for 49 years, and he spent 42 of those years in one community. I grew up in that basketball family, watching his teams like my son and daughter are these days, and going on those journeys with him. And then ultimately had a chance to play for him in high school.

And that's why I coach, to pay that forward. The lessons that I learned, the relationships that were borne from those experiences are what make me who I am today. And it's been our guiding light as a basketball family for, our vision for this program and for what can be accomplished when you're part of something that's bigger than yourself.

And so while he's not with us today in person, I know that he's with me. Definitely felt his heart and spirit in Boise last week. And it's been really special to be able to pay a lot of those lessons forward.

Q. Being from a basketball family, your son sits at the end of the bench for all the games. He is such a character. I think we all like interacting with him. But what was it like sharing last week with him, especially because like you said you've been on the flipside of that, what's it like sharing that moment?

MATT LOGIE: It's full circle. The life lessons you learn from this game and being a part of a team, I don't know that you can have a better platform as a father than that. And so that's what I've been familiar with and what I've seen work well and been able to again pay that forward and try to pass that torch on to Luke and Addy.

So being able to share those moments is very joyous. I'll never forget, turning around on Wednesday night and seeing Addison just waiting to hug me with tears running down her eyes. Those are really special memories because you can't do this job without your family supporting you. It just takes too much of yourself from a leadership perspective and putting yourself out there. Time management, obviously, is a huge component of that and the schedules we keep.

And so they're a part of this journey. They're a part of this story just as much as any one of these players.