Mike Boynton Jr. press conference after UConn

I mean, you know, there's a human nature element of Silas Demary's performance tonight. He's a great player. I'm not sure there's anybody probably more motivated coming into today's game considering the outcome, but also his individual performance in the national championship game. And so I've got a lot of respect for a guy who just puts his head down.

I didn't hear him talking about it all summer. Obviously, he just went to work. And I'm sure when this game showed up on the schedule, it was one he had circled in whatever bright color motivates him. So respect for him for coming out and performing and giving his team a great chance to have success.

And same with Brandon. He's a great player. Obviously, they run a lot of stuff for him. We try to make it as difficult as possible for him, and he still found a way to be impactful. And that's what great players do. Kudos to him.

Yeah, I'll be honest, I think our team knows that. I just think that they're going to keep hearing it everywhere else that they're the defending national champions. And as I've said for, you know, 2 months now, like, this team isn't defending a national championship. They're trying to establish their own legacy.

I think today was a great step forward. We played a game similar to this level of competition about 10 days ago against Houston and Grand Rapids, and we're significantly better tonight in this similar competition, in my opinion. Others may disagree, but I thought our rebounding in particular was much, much improved. I thought our ability to withstand our defensive focus, even when we weren't scoring, we maintained that a lot better.

And I actually think we got better as the game went on. They were just a little bit better than we were for most of the game.

I guess I know it's only 2 regular seasons. You're always concerned about foul trouble, um, but there's not a whole lot you can do about it. I mean, so, and again, like, games are officiated differently every night, and different officials work different leagues, and so you see different things. It's one of the things, if I were, you know, commissioner for a day, I'd make the officiating nationalized so that everybody's feel like the game is being called the same way every night, so there's not these big sways in how the game's called.

But the officials have a hard job to do. The game was really, really physical, and I certainly don't want their job. So I'll tell you that.