“They were just playing with much more spirit, much more passion and they were off-the-charts tougher than we were,” Gonzaga head coach Mark Few said. “We got out-toughed in every phase. If you’re not the toughest team, you’re putting yourselves in position to drop a game.”

“They out-toughed us for sure, and it showed at the end of the game. They made shots and it’s easy like that when you play hard, shots fall in automatically,” Tillie said. “Everybody, including me, didn’t do a good job of being physical and communicating. Nobody had the fight in their eyes, everybody had blank faces. “That’s what we did (against BYU) in our gym. They did it back to us here.”

“We’ve had some really physical games. In the past, we’ve responded,” Few said. “We couldn’t match their intensity, their toughness, and sure as heck didn’t match their execution. They were sharing it, moving and passing. Both our teams have done a great job with that this year. That was not us tonight.”

“The tougher team won,” Kispert said. “The basketball gods reward aggression and toughness. Those guys had it and we didn’t. Definitely a lot of lessons learned for the next time we see them.”