NCAA First Round Press Conference
Mar 18, 2026 | Men's Basketball
Texas A&M basketball's Bucky McMillan, Rashaun Agee, Pop Isaacs and Rylan Griffen meet the media at the Aggies' NCAA Tournament first-round press conference inside Oklahoma City's Paycom Center. Click the video below to watch or read the quotes below (transcripts courtesy ASAP Sports).
NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: First Round - Texas A&M vs Saint Mary's
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Oklahoma CIty, Oklahoma, USA
Paycom Center
Coach Bucky McMillan
THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Texas A&M Head Coach Bucky McMillan. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach and then get to questions.
BUCKY McMILLAN: Howdy Ags. I see a lot of you out there. Appreciate you making the trip. Let's get them tomorrow.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. There's a cliche in sports about teams taking on the personality of their coach. Do you feel like your team has taken on some of your personality, and if so, how?
BUCKY McMILLAN: I hope not (smiling). I don't know. I'm competitive, obviously, so hopefully our team is very competitive. I'm confident in our team. Hopefully they're confident in themselves.
I was a high school coach six years ago, so I have an underdog spirit to me. You know, we're a 10 seed in this tournament. Hopefully we take on that underdog spirit and we fight that way.
Q. Coach, as you scout St. Mary's, is there any team that you played this year that kind of they remind you of at all?
BUCKY McMILLAN: Not any Power 4s that we've played. They're different in that regard. I'm not saying they're -- they have size that we've seen. We've played some teams that played a slower pace, but just collectively they're a little bit different than what we're used to seeing.
They're more of a stylistically of a team that we played when I coached at Samford and we played in the Southern Conference. They were kind of that kind of a team. Very a cerebral team, well coached, damn sure not going to beat themselves. Very solid team.
So we haven't seen as much of that in the SEC, but you know, that's what makes this time of year so great is that you get to see different styles and different teams from all over and different conferences, but I know that the SEC -- I mean, it's a tough conference. We know. I think this analytically year it's been the toughest lately. So even though they have unique styles, we've seen a lot, and I think our guys will be ready for the challenge.
Q. What does it mean to have so many of your guys getting to play in their first NCAA Tournament?
BUCKY McMILLAN: It means a lot. It's a great experience. You're playing for a national championship, whether you're there on the last day or the first day. It's obviously very well-run event, but I mean, basketball is a tournament sport, and this is the greatest tournament in the world. It's something that they can always take away.
I've told them, I don't want them to have any regrets. I mean, it's a circus. I don't want them to come just to be part of the circus. I want the circus to last longer than two hours, so we got to have the laser focus you got to have and not just be happy to be here before you get to the first ten minutes of the game and realize this isn't very fun because you're not focused and we're down by 15.
So hopefully we remember that and we try to make this tournament last as long as possible.
Q. It's pretty well-documented you guys had one guy on roster when you took over as head coach. I want to ask you about that one guy and just what Chris has meant to this team and just what you have seen from him this year, even though he's maybe had some limited action.
BUCKY McMILLAN: Yeah, Chris has a lot of heart. He's all about A&M. He could have chose to do other things, but he stayed not knowing who would be on the team. He did that.
I didn't know him great. He did that because he loves A&M. At the end of the day, the players in this tournament that are going to play for something bigger than themselves are usually going to have -- give themselves the chance to have the most success.
I love Chris, and he represents what A&M is about. Hard, blue-collar, tough, has a self-awareness, knows his role and plays it to the fullest.
Q. I'm kind of curious to see what some of the biggest challenges are for preparing for a game like this.
BUCKY McMILLAN: I mean, obviously in this tournament every team that you're going to run into is a good team. You know that.
I'm going to say something that's really crazy. Are you ready for this? We got to get ready for their good players. Everyone wants to talk about this whole, hey, we got to get ready for this unique play or that play or this. Coaches can coach talk it all they want, but at the end of the day, I won't be playing tomorrow. And they're going to run some good plays, and hopefully we can negate their actions, but we have to get ready for their good players that they have, and our guys have to rise to the occasion.
Q. Any time one team plays a certain style and another team plays another, one team plays a fast pace, St. Mary's plays a slow pace, there's the question of which team -- is it easier for which team to impose its will? Is it easier for the fast-paced team to impose its will on the slower-paced team or vice versa?
BUCKY McMILLAN: Well, I think that throughout the course of basketball, you've seen teams that played really fast win national championships, right, whether it was Arkansas or Kentucky, and then you've seen teams like Virginia win national championships.
There's no one way to do it or everyone would do it that way, right? I think that at this time of year, when you look at the Final Four, all those teams are going to have one thing in common. Is it that they play zone, is it that they play man? Is it that they press? Is it that they play half court? They have one thing in common: They have really good players.
So I think that when you look at this game tomorrow, at the end of the day, everybody is going to do their best to execute in every way possible, but you're going to walk away from that game and say probably where that fast stuff really got them or the slow stuff really got them, you'll probably walk away from this game and say either way could have worked; whose players really got it going? And you can do that playing fast or slow.
I think sometimes as coaches -- and I'm saying this because we've won games where we played fast, and we're like, we just got to them because we played fast. Right? Well, really you looked up and we made 14 threes and one of our guys had 23 points, right?
So I think that there's not really -- you've seen it work both ways. I just think who is going to step up to the occasion in this time of year.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: First Round - Texas A&M vs Saint Mary's
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Oklahoma CIty, Oklahoma, USA
Paycom Center
Pop Isaacs
Rylan Griffen
Rashaun Agee
THE MODERATOR: We have from Texas A&M junior guard Pop Isaacs, senior guard, Rylan Griffen, and graduate forward Rashaun Agee. We'll open it up to questions.
Q. Rashaun, you being the team leader, how have you seen this team respond the last few days coming off that SEC tournament, and where do you feel like you guys are right now?
RASHAUN AGEE: I feel like we're in a great position. We have picked it up in practice, and I feel like our defense average has picked up. We're just together. At the end of the day, we understand what each game matters to us. We know that it's one game at a time, and we got to come in and do what we got to do.
Q. Rylan, after what y'all have been through this year and recently, why do you think y'all can be confident coming into this confident that you're going to be able to win and advance and have success?
RYLAN GRIFFEN: Because in the conference we played in the No. 1 conference in the country. We finished tied for fourth in there. We know we can compete with anybody. We know even in some of our losses, they were very, very close games, one-possession games. We know we can compete with anybody. In these games, these tournament games, you have to play your best basketball, so being confident is really, really big for us.
Q. Rashaun, what have you noticed about St. Mary's and just the size that they bring in their bigs and what they bring to the table there?
RASHAUN AGEE: I mean, we know St. Mary's is a great team. Obviously we're bringing two 7'1"s, one starting and one coming off the bench. It's going to be a great factor for them. But we just know what we have to do, and we understand the things that we have to do is very important.
But, I mean, they're a big team. 6'8" forward. We just have to take care of what we have to take care of.
Q. I know you played against St. Mary's last season in a game. I'm sure you probably don't want to recollect a lot, but have you told your teammates about that game and what St. Mary's can bring?
RASHAUN AGEE: No, I haven't brought it up. I mean, I'm going to talk about it, but I be trying not to talk about it.
Q. Follow-up then for any of the guys: In basketball there's the thought, when a fast team plays a slower-paced team, which is easier to impose its will? Is it easier for the faster-paced team to impose its will on a slower-paced team or vice versa?
RYLAN GRIFFEN: I think, regardless, it's a tough match-up, whether we was playing fast or slow. It's going to be a tough match-up either way.
We played against different types of teams all year, and they were different match-ups all year. We know that they're a very, very good team and they play a very good style of basketball for them, and it's going to be a tough match-up regardless how they want to play, regardless how we want to play.
Q. I'm curious where y'all kind of think you have an edge in this game.
RYLAN GRIFFEN: I mean, it's going to be a tough match-up. I wouldn't say that we have an edge at all. It's going to be a really tough match-up. We're the lower seed, so we're kind of the underdog, but it's going to be a really, really tough match-up regardless. I wouldn't say we have an edge at all. It's going to be really, really tough.
Q. For Pop Isaacs, Pop, in the year you've been here, have you got an idea of what kind of player Bucky might have been when he was playing? Do you have an idea how he would have approached the game?
POP ISAACS: Yeah, I know he liked to play fast. He liked to press, but yeah, I mean, Coach, we know he played a little bit. He talks about it with us a little bit. He could really shoot the ball. He's actually a really good player. He has some good size on him when he get up close to him, too.
No, he was a thinker of the game. He processed things really fast, and he could really shoot the ball. You could see him now sometimes out there when he is shooting with us, he has a really good stroke, so...
Q. Rylan, you mentioned being the underdog. Does that mentality help you or hurt you guys in any type of way heading into tomorrow?
RYLAN GRIFFEN: I definitely think it helps us. That's how we should be going into any of these games. These are single-elimination games. While we feel like that and we have to come out with a different type of edge, they're going to come out the same way, because it's win or go home right now. Regardless of if we are or aren't, we have to come out like our life is on the line, because it's win or go home right now.
Q. Rylan, you're a guy who has had a good amount of experience playing in the NCAA Tournament and winning. I'm curious what you've maybe encouraged your guys with of how to approach this at varying levels of experience in the postseason and what it takes to win at this level.
RYLAN GRIFFEN: I haven't said too much. I'm gonna say more closer to the game. I'm just trying to learn the opponent and stuff like that. I would just say that every possession matters. They're all really, really close games, and every possession, everybody is going to play like their life is on the line. You got to pay attention to more details, shorter scouts, stuff like that. You just got to be even more locked in than normal.
You can't get too high or too low in any game. You can't. If you are down 15, you can't get too low. If you're up 15, you can't get too high. It's going to be a hard-fought battle until the clock is 0:00. That's all you got to know going into these games. Nothing is going to be easy. You have to earn wins, and that's what we plan to do.
Q. Pop, I was curious, if I'm not mistaken, you had originally signed or committed to Houston. What went into that sort of process, because they announced it, and I believe then you maybe switched to Texas A&M. Can you kind of take us through what the process was there?
POP ISAACS: Yeah, I mean, obviously I did sign with Houston out of the portal originally. Actually, one of my best friends, Milo, was at Houston, ended up coming back to school. Once he came back to school, it was just kind of -- not even necessarily a crowded guard room, but they had their guys.
I pivoted. I mean, it was going on for a few days. I had some conversations with Bucky. I had some conversation with a few other schools. I thought it made perfect sense to come to A&M. I thought it fit me, and I knew we had a chance to win if I would have came to A&M. I'm happy with my decision. I'm glad it worked out for all parties, I believe, so...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
