Washington State 90, Chaminade 85
DAVID RILEY: I thought we showed some fight. It was a hectic game, and I think we got a really new team that hasn't really played together in these roles. It's the first time we've been pressed all year. It's the first time we've played a team with that style and there's a learning curve when the lights turn on. So we practiced against it, didn't quite get the same look and the guys found a way to rally around each other and get a win.
That's not an easy team to beat. I was looking at the history of this tournament. The last time they played in this, Anthony Edwards had hit a game winner to go beat them. This is a team that really plays hard. Their coaching staff does a great job, and just happy we got out of there with a win.
Q. From your perspective, what was it like dealing with that pressure early on, and mentally or tactically where did you think it flipped in that game?
ACE GLASS: I feel like it came out the first time-out, just knowing that they were about to do that. So just preparing for that, having different plays to break that press or just being aggressive. I feel like that's when we really started doing good, when we started being aggressive against it. Instead of letting them come to us, we went towards them, make them back up on their heels.
Q. For both players, it looked like first half picking up under pressure, you struggled a little bit from the three. Second half you started to explode. What kind of adjustments did you make or Coach make to get you guys free for those threes?
RIHARDS VAVERS: As Ace said, I think we just played with aggressiveness, took care of the ball, ball fakes, just making passing lanes for each of the players and just making the right read. We just kept running and getting open shots. Just made that adjustment, and the game flow just switched.
Q. There are things that change in terms of tactics and strategy going from the first half to the second half, but also we noticed that there was a little bit of aggression, trash talk, chippiness between the players on each side. Was there something that was said that motivated you, that woke you up? Because after the trash talk, it seemed like you guys played at another level.
ACE GLASS: For sure. I handle a lot, a lot of trash talk, so any little thing gets me going. Once he said one thing, I just kept it going the rest of the game, and we came out with the W.
Q. Do you think you took them too easily because they're in a lower division? What do you think the difference was besides the adjustments? Because they came hard at you in the beginning.
RIHARDS VAVERS: I want to give a shout out to Chaminade. They play really great. I don't think we took them for granted. They just came out with more aggression than us and we just adjusted to it. They're a great team. They pressured the hell out of us, and we just made the adjustments.
But I don't think we came into the game thinking they're a Division II team. They're a really good team, so we just had to make some adjustments, and we did it.
Q. Coach Riley, before the game they did a prayer for Merv Lopes, the Chaminade coach who was the one who beat Virginia back in '82. Just wondering your perspective, your knowledge of that moment in college hoops history and what it means for you to be here and to have witnessed that before the game today.
DAVID RILEY: I thought both the things that happened before the game were really meaningful. Honoring our military was one thing that I think the whole crowd got quiet and it was a great moment. My dad this morning, he sent a text with an article on that Virginia game, and just kind of reading about it, and me personally, I grew up watching this tournament.
I would sneak out of class to go watch the games. It was just a year and a half ago when we got this opportunity to come to it. It was like a no-brainer. Just really grateful to be a part of it and trying to soak it all in.
Q. You talked a little bit about the roles and trying to get a team to find itself and figure out -- you know, what are some of the things that you want to see happen over the next couple days to continue to define some of those roles that you try to get the players to kind of identify?
DAVID RILEY: Yeah, I think every team has their own unique challenges, and these guys are super coachable. They're bought into their roles. It's more just about playing consistently with what they've done in the fall, what they've done throughout different stretches of games.
Y'all are making it sound like we made some crazy adjustments or something like that in the second half. We just kind of stuck with the game plan and did it better. We were second-guessing everything in the first half, and we weren't spacing the floor vertically.
We were trying to beat the press with five guys in the front court, and we got Ri out there able to bank a couple transition threes and space the floor vertically a little bit more, and those guys were able to settle in, think a little bit more, play a little bit more poised, and that's really the big thing.
When you're in something new and doing something for the first time, there's just some nerves or whatever you want to call it that takes some time to get over.
Q. I noticed that in the first half when they were running the screens high, Chaminade would switch. In the second half, it seemed as if you've taken advantage of those switches and ran a high-low game to get your big guys in the post. Was that cognizant adjustment, or was that what you call the guys settling in?
DAVID RILEY: I would call that settling in. That's something that I think we did a terrible job of that our first two games, and we watched the film, we practiced, we got better.
We really punished UW, Southern Utah, and St. Thomas in the post our last three games and got better at it, but now with the pressure turned up a little bit like Chaminade does and the full-court press and everything like that, we kind of lost our minds.
Once we settled in, hey, the dude that's five inches taller and 40 pounds heavier inside the paint was given the ball.
Q. How do you scout the next game? Are you the type that you watch everything and each assistant has one of the teams, or when you're in an MTE or NCAA Tournament style, what is Washington State's way of doing it to get ready for Texas or ASU?
DAVID RILEY: Yeah, we have I think a semi-unique way of doing scouts where we have two guys that run the offense and two guys that run the defense, so they're going to scout their respective sides of the ball.
I think this early in the season, to be able to get a live scout and watch this game right now and really understand what teams are trying to do will help us. But it's 20 percent adjusting to the opponent and 80 percent us trying to find ourselves and get better and get more consistent.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports