NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - COLGATE VS BAYLOR

March 22, 2024

Matt Langel

Keegan Records

Ryan Moffatt

FedExForum

Colgate Raiders

Media Conference

Baylor - 92, Colgate - 67

MATT LANGEL: Hard game, obviously. I think Baylor is a talented team. Jon Rothstein from CBS said at our shoot-around yesterday, asked me how we were going to stop them. And then he put me on air before the game, asking me how we're going to stop them. Clearly we had no way of stopping them the way they shot the ball this afternoon.

I thought they were terrific, not just in making shots but their spacing, their execution put us in a number of dilemmas. Tip your cap to Baylor for their efforts getting the lead that they did and then managing the game the rest of the way.

I don't want to take anything away from them, but, again, when your season and the journey that we've been on over the course of the last eight or nine months abruptly comes to an end, you just start to think about your guys.

We had another incredible season, but it was really unique, the number of guys we played over the course of the season, the number of guys that stepped up. And led by these two guys. And five years is a long time. Everything that they've poured into our program, never asking for anything in return. Again, it puts me in a situation that I'll be forever grateful for, for all that they've done and all that they mean to me personally, to my family, to our basketball program.

So an incredible experience being here. Part of March Madness, obviously not the way that we wanted it to go in any way, shape or form.

Q. The 3-point shooting was not to y'all's benefit today. Was that their defense, or just an off night?

KEEGAN RECORDS: I'd say both. We have a lot of guys who are good shooters on our team, like you said. We just couldn't get them to fall tonight. But just credit to both.

Q. Keegan, what was working for you early? You got several buckets early and then you went out for a little bit. What were you getting in the lane and were you just finding space? Why weren't you able to get back to that, do you feel like?

KEEGAN RECORDS: Early on just my teammates were finding me in the right spot. Just comes down to putting the ball in the hoop. I was able to do that.

Then they switched it up and went zone. They changed their defense. They weren't playing straight up man-to-man. So I didn't have the same opportunity. But still I just didn't end up making shots in the zone when it came down to it.

Q. The 3-point shooting, anything in particular that caused y'all to miss tonight versus is it their defense?

MATT LANGEL: I mean, I think we got a number of open looks. The zone, they changed defenses from man to zone. It's not a zone -- we don't get zoned very often in the season because we're a good 3-point shooting team.

I thought we got a lot of looks. Shooting is one of those things that when you look at their losses, they haven't shot well either. They shot great today.

I thought we got a number of good looks, Chandler Baker is as good of a shooter as I've coached. 1-for-6, we won a number of games because of his shooting this season. One of those nights for us on the offensive end.

And the other thing when you're down the way we were that puts more pressure on every shot that you're shooting. When you have a big lead, maybe a little less pressure. Obviously a big shooting discrepancy was a big factor of the game.

Q. Do you feel like you had a foothold in the game when you got it to 29-21, felt like you had taken on that huge surge at the start? Did you feel like, okay, now we're in it and maybe have something to build on?

MATT LANGEL: I think the guys felt that a little bit, that we had kind of like weathered the storm, so to speak, and got it down to single digits and needed to finish well.

We play a lot of guys, and we needed to kind of try and win one possession at a time, as cliché as it sounds. Divide the game up into those four-minute stretches and try to continue to win a couple of those.

Same thing to start the second half. If we could just kind of win a little bit at a time.

But, again, credit to Baylor. They didn't let their foot off the gas at all and kept making shots. And sometimes when it does go like down to that, the other team can get tight a little bit and make some uncharacteristic plays or start missing some shots. And they didn't. They played with great confidence and freedom and made us pay for every mistake that we made.