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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 11, 2018Bill SelfLawrence, Kansas Q. So what have you learned about Penn in the last hour? BILL SELF: I know the record, and I know their coach, and I've known Steve a long time. But I've been doing media stuff. When I get finished with you guys, I'll study them a lot harder. Yeah, we'll be up here. We'll be up here all night tonight working on that. Certainly, you know Steve was the coach at Cornell -- I don't know if you guys remember -- when it was a one-possession game here at Allen Fieldhouse. So I've known Steve a while. They had a huge, huge, great win today. I didn't see the finish, but I heard it was terrific. We know that -- I told our guys, the thing about it is, from an academic standpoint, thank God we're not competing against them in all those areas, but certainly we'll have great respect for them. But we'll know more after we watch film in the next couple of hours. Q. Being in the Midwest and driving distance and all that stuff, is there an advantage just being able to stay in your own gym, in your own beds, as long as possible? BILL SELF: First of all, the way it's set up now is nobody stays in their beds any longer if you play next door. You're required to be at the site two days before and all that stuff. Regardless if you were playing in California or in Wichita, we'd be leaving on Tuesday at the same time getting there. So there's absolutely no advantage to me in that. The advantage is obviously your fans, the more fans get an opportunity to come see you play. The disadvantage, I guess, is, if there is one, is the fact that you don't get a chance to -- you've got to win two weekends before you can get on a plane. Sometimes I think that's something that's very rewarding to the players is to go someplace they haven't been and that kind of stuff. We've never been to Wichita and certainly look forward to doing that, but if we're fortunate enough to win two games, Omaha, that's kind of home away from home here for us during the NCAA Tournament. I don't know how many times we've been up there, but it's got to be at least four, I would think. So we should be familiar with a city in our state, and we should be familiar with playing somewhere else if we're fortunate enough to advance that far. Q. Did you feel like that was on the table this weekend? Had you given any thought to moving from 4 to 3? BILL SELF: I really thought, after we won last night, I thought we'd be in Omaha. I thought we'd be in the Midwest -- not in Omaha. I thought we'd be in the Midwest. And the way it's set up now, when you say be in Omaha, that's the way you look at it because you look at the regional sites because the first round sites is strictly geographical for many of the teams. So we anticipated last night that we would go to Wichita and then be in the Midwest. Q. Do you feel like you're playing your best ball right now? BILL SELF: I think that we played our best game. I don't think, if you look at our body of work, we weren't worth a flip in Stillwater. We were much better against OSU in Kansas City. We weren't worth a flip against K-State. And then we were really good against West Virginia. I think we played our best game. I think we should be on an uptick. But our body of work playing at that level certainly isn't extended by any stretch because I don't think we played very well at all on Friday. Q. How is Udoka coming along? BILL SELF: He's doing good. He did a workout on the court today. It was a one-on-zero, very, very light. It was not anything that would tell us that he's going to practice tomorrow or anything like that, but his recovery that he's made so far has been even more than what the doctors and the trainers originally thought it would be. So we're very, very optimistic that we can have him this weekend. We're very -- now, whether or not we do on Thursday with this type of injury, 48 hours makes a big difference. But we're hopeful that he can play some on Thursday, and if we're fortunate enough to advance, we're more confident that he could be used on Saturday. Q. Does the play of Silvio this weekend, particularly in the game yesterday, weigh into your decisions? BILL SELF: No, I don't think so. I think it could weigh into our decision is we're not going to -- we wouldn't put him out there before he was ready anyway, but it could weigh into our decision with the mindset thinking that we have to have him in a certain situation. I mean, I thought Silvio played well enough that we should have confidence using Silvio in pressure situations, like we would think that we needed Doke to be in all the time. Q. Does he have to be 100 percent? BILL SELF: That's up to the trainers and doctors. I don't know that he can be 100 percent. But there's a lot of guys that sprain an ankle and they're not 100 percent, but obviously you still play because there's no further risk of hurting it more. It's just sore. So that would be a doctor's call and a trainer's call, certainly not mine. Q. You started Silvio the second half. Would that be something, if Doke isn't ready to go, that you could do? BILL SELF: I don't know. I'll probably reserve that for practice to see. Silvio, obviously, was much more effective than Mitch because it was at least strength versus strength when he and Konate were guarding each other. I think that was a bad matchup for Mitch. So I want to wait to see how that plays out. Silvio does not deserve the start ahead of Mitch based on what Mitch has contributed to us all year long, but it may be better for our team if he does. But I've got to watch tape and see how practice goes on Monday and Tuesday first. Q. I know you haven't looked past this weekend, but in general, Duke, Michigan State is like three-fourths of the Champions Classic. What do you think about that? BILL SELF: It's hard. We've got three teams that people were talking about being a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in our bracket. But Virginia's got Arizona is a 4 seed in theirs -- I think it's Virginia -- and people say they're playing as good as anybody in the country. I think, if you're fortunate enough to play in that game, the Elite Eight game, then you're going to play against a great team regardless. But the eye test, it pops out pretty good at you when you have those two programs in the same region because I think, obviously, everybody thinks -- and I actually agree with what everybody thinks -- if Michigan State and Duke both play well, they would be two of the heaviest favorites to win the National Championship. Q. Last year with Villanova being the year before and knocking on that door, it seems like guys in here on this day were talking about revenge or getting back to that point and getting farther. Does it double now that it's two years in a row? BILL SELF: It probably would if we're fortunate enough to get to that moment again. People talk like that. Yeah, it can be motivation. But each team is so different. I mean, this team is nothing like last year's team. The motivation, obviously, for Svi and Devonte' and Lagerald may be different for what it may be for all the rest of our guys who have never been through that. Q. What do you think of the Big 12, what they got? BILL SELF: I really felt like seven was what we'd get, especially after Davidson won, especially after San Diego State won the Mountain West, because there's obviously teams in there that were going to get automatic bids. At least the theory was that they stole a bid. I can't say this because it's hard for me, without being in the room and knowing what goes into it, can say, well, this team definitely deserved to be in and this team didn't. I can't go there because those people in that room have studied it to the point where they know everything that's going on. So how can we say their decision was wrong? Because I don't think it was a wrong decision. I think I am disappointed for our league, though, knowing that nine teams could have got in and we got in seven. But I'm happy for the ones that got in. They deserved it. But I still think a couple more teams could have easily been in if things had fallen a little bit differently. Q. Considering they were an 8-9, were you looking to see if they would put Missouri in your -- BILL SELF: I actually went through and looked at what the bracketology and what Jerry Palm said. Basically, teams that were on the 8-9 line were basically the teams they had on the 8-9 line too. So obviously, if we were a 1, it would be a 1-in-4 chance that we could be playing Missouri. And also, I felt like it would be a 1-in-4 chance we'd be playing Wichita State, I mean, if we were able to advance because I felt like they'd be on the 4 line. But those are things all coaches do try to guess. So certainly, I thought that was a possibility. Q. I know it was a long time ago, but is there anything specifically about that Cornell game that you remember or anything that stuck with you? BILL SELF: Not as far as the actions they run and everything, but they had the kid Wittman that was a great, great player. Unbelievable college player. Sherron got an and one when we were down by one with 20 seconds left. I can remember those two things. I can actually remember what we ran when Sherron scored. It worked that time, and we ran it many more times after that. It was a great game. It was a great game. I think they went on and played Kentucky in a 1 versus 8-9 game that year. I think they played Kentucky pretty tough before Kentucky knocked them out. I could be wrong, but I think that's right. Q. Penn is second nationally in three-point defense. Does that tell you anything about Thursday? BILL SELF: Not yet, but I'm glad you brought that up because that was certainly one of our biggest offensive weapons. You're going to make me look really foolish by asking me questions about stuff I haven't studied yet. I do think that anybody that defends the three well is going to be something that, obviously, we've got to combat because we're going to play to shooting the three. Q. You look at coach's perspective on this thing. Fans love the tournament. It's such a big deal. Is it fun? Is it stressful? How would you describe the tournament from a coach's perspective? BILL SELF: I think my best times in the tournament have been where we had the most fun. I mean, the most productive my teams have been is when we've had the most fun, and the most pressure, it seems like to me, is when we've been dealing with crap or distractions. And everybody deals with them. Everybody -- it could be agents. It could be runners. It could be family members. It could be whatever. It could be injuries. It could be a lot of things. So I think, when you can go into it with fresh minds and fresh bodies, and certainly you're in it for the right things, to go out and take it rather than go out and protect it, I think those teams usually do the best and the teams that have the most fun playing in it. That's why I was so encouraged by last night's performance. I don't think we've had a team that in recent memory has enjoyed playing the game more than what those kids did last night. I think there's been a lot of games where we've enjoyed playing the game, but I think last night was about as good as I've seen it. And that's been something, as you guys know, that's been a pet peeve of mine all year long because we haven't shown that visibly when we're out there playing. I hope we're in the right mindset that we can go out and have fun and enjoy it. A lot of times I think -- like this could happen a lot. So you win the league by two games. When you want to go to the Big 12 tournament, instead of having the mindset let's just go have fun, whatever, no, we need to go validate what we did. Sometimes, now we've got a 1 seed, we've got to play to that seed. I've thought that at times. I'm not going to do that this year. This team's shown that we can play as a 1 seed or play as a 12 seed. We've showed -- or a team that doesn't make the postseason tournament. We've shown that. Who knows what we'll bring? But one thing I do think we'll do much better at is if we're enjoying playing rather than thinking we have to do something. We should not wish to get through a game. We should look forward to playing every minute of it. Q. Do you think Graham's leadership then will truly help you in that part of it because he seems to have so much fun? BILL SELF: I think so, but Devonte' was Devonte' last year too in that regard. I do think Devonte', that's where he's probably as valuable to us as any player is in the country to their respective team because he gives us so many intangibles. Q. With how well Malik played in Kansas City, is there any reason why you don't think he should be able to continue that the rest of the way? BILL SELF: I don't think -- yeah, I'm all for it, and I hope that he makes every shot moving forward too, but the reality of it is he played better even if he didn't make shots. That's what I liked about it. The making shots obviously gave him a lot of confidence and those sorts of things. We're a team that's going to shoot threes. So we need to make shots. He played ball the right way and wasn't worried about scoring, so we scored more. I think that was a very positive sign for us. Q. You guys tip at like 1:00 p.m.? BILL SELF: 1:00. So I'll look at it strictly from a positive standpoint. I'll look at it from a positive standpoint. If we're successful, then we can go to bed earlier. But if you look at our games this year when we played, the 11:00 to 1:00 starting times haven't been the times when we've been at our very best. So I really am surprised that we'd be playing early because it seems like most tournaments we play last game a lot. But our guys -- I really don't think the starting time makes much difference. But we will be playing one of the very first games in the tournament. So there will not be time for us to sit around and watch anybody else play before we play, which is going to be a little bit different. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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