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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 27, 2018

Bill Self

Lawrence, Kansas

COACH SELF: All right. Fire away.

Q. I don't remember the exact quote but I think you said, "How cool it would be able to coach this team in the Final Four, especially with Devonte'." How cool is it?
COACH SELF: It is cool. It's cool from everybody that support us. It's not cool for other people that don't probably. But getting a chance to coach him another week, he and Svi and certainly, you know, having them have a chance to play in something that we came up short in the last two years, yeah, it's pretty cool. And plus this year's team, even though it's a good team and all those things, the vast majority of the season, we weren't a Final Four-type team. We certainly played to it here of late.

Q. I went back and looked at the tapes of you that we shot after 2008, and after 2012, and you were excited, but it seemed like you were a little more emotional. Am I crazy?
COACH SELF: You're probably crazy (laughing). You guys have more access now than what you did back then. But maybe so. Maybe so. 2008 was relief as much as anything. That was like a gorilla that was on our back that we couldn't get off there for awhile, and then 2012 was, you know, it's just -- we really didn't expect to be there in 2012 but we played to a pretty high level and won it.

With this team it's been a little bit different. Plus the chance to play -- in 2012, we had a chance to play Carolina, go to the Final Four. This year we had a chance to play Duke to go to the Final Four. I think when you win games against those type of blue bloods, maybe makes even an Elite 8, which is always special, makes it even a little more special.

Q. Are talked yesterday about some personal characteristic that is people had to turn around and that they did 100 percent and that was one of the keys to your team turning it around. Talking to Malik, and he pretty much said that he thought it was specifically directed at him; that he was one of the prime people maybe that you were talking about. But anyway, what were those characteristics?
COACH SELF: That's not true. That's not true. He was one of three, okay (laughter) because there was two other guys, too.

But the reality of it is, in maturity, you need to be more mature. Being coachable, not being thin-skinned. Taking it in a way that it's presented, as opposed to taking it as a way that you want to perceive it.

I think playing cool, I don't think that we are near as cool as what I think that maybe some of the guys thought they were, any opinion. And then the mindset that you're not going to win big, ever, unless you make your opponent play bad. And I don't think we had that mindset at all.

So those were some things that I felt like that had to be changed, and it wasn't just with Malik. But Malik was a primary one, I felt like, because I thought he was content on just being out there, as opposed to being a guy that really put himself out there. So he's really improved on that.

Q. As you looked at the tape, and you've had a chance to digest a little bit, what jumps out at you, especially the rebounding, how do you explain that?
COACH SELF: Well, you know, we watched it on the way back. I haven't watched it since we've been back, so we just watched it on the bus, and it was choppy a little bit because of the way we had to watch it through our computer.

So you know, it wasn't really studied. But I can tell you that it's nothing different that we haven't been stressing all year long. It's just I just think we were just more committed to do it.

I think Svi totally gave himself up. I'm going to buck-front Bagley as much as I can, and we have practiced that about this much (indicating 0) and because we've always -- when the 4-man catches it, we always trap with Dok. When you do that, that creates a mindset, let my man catch it.

So we totally tried to do away with that, even though he knew a trap was coming. Then, you know, just hit -- actually maybe go the when ball is shot, turn, hit your man and then go try to attack the ball with two hands. It's pretty complicated stuff, which we have not done consistently well all year long, and we did. You know, whenever -- whenever -- I could be off on this a little bit, so forgive me if I am.

But even if you take Dok and Silvio out of the game, our guards, which that would be the only other people that play, if I'm not mistaken, out-rebounded Duke even, if I'm not mistaken. I think Dok had eight and Silvio had six, is that right?

So Silvio had 11 rebounds, or ten? He had ten, so Dok had eight, I think, so 18.

And the other thing that was cool about that rebounding stat, what was it, 47-32? They got eight, I believe, that were deflected out-of-bounds. They didn't rebound them. We didn't rebound them. They were deflections out of bound. We got one. So when balls that were actually possessed, it was 41-24.

So you stop and think about it like that. Even though the ones that go out-of-bounds count, but Duke, it's kind of like live ball turnovers.

You play West Virginia, it's okay to turn it over. Just make sure you throw it out-of-bounds when you do. Because if you throw it to them while it's a live ball play, it's two-on-one back on the other end, and even if the balls went out-of-bounds, at least it didn't give them an opportunity to tip it in. I thought we did a great job, great job on glass, just fabulous.

Q. Nice to have a program in place for Svi's family to come to the game and Silvio, to come from overseas?
COACH SELF: That's a great thing that the NCAA has done. Silvio's dad will make it, from what I've been told. Svi's mother and father will make it. And we're trying to get Udoka's mother come here but we're having some visa complications.

You know, the thing about it is everybody is working hard. Our staff is talking with all the proper political people to try to make something like that happen because we know how much that would mean to Udoka and his mother to be able to witness -- can you imagine a parent coming over here and has never seen a basketball game, a real basketball game like this, and that's the first time you see your son play? That would be just an unbelievable experience. We're hoping that case.

But it is a great rule change, and it's going to take so much pressure off of so many families, because I never knew that San Antonio was the most expensive place in America to fly into, but it is right now. I mean, it is. So I mean, tickets, you know, you can't get down there round trip for less than a thousand or 1,200 here from Kansas City. Can you imagine what it will be like coming from Lagos or the Ukraine or from some of these other places or from Angola.

It's pretty cool that they are helping with that.

Q. How many relatives do they get? Is there a number?
COACH SELF: Don't quote me on the rules, since I know that you guys won't (laughter). I don't think they get a number. I think get an amount, and then you can try to squeeze whatever you can within that, if I'm not mistaken.

Q. Do those guys know how their life is going to change? Have you talked to them about how playing in the Final Four changes your life forever?
COACH SELF: I don't think it does. My opinion, I think it definitely enhances it. I think it changes your life and your popularity on a really short scale. I mean, hell, Gurly (ph) played in a Final Four, so obviously there's -- but the reality of it is, I think winning it is something that changes it forever.

So we've got a ton of work. Even though you say you're so close, we're still light years away from doing what we want to do, and you know, who we got to go through to do is what makes it most difficult.

But I do think it enhances it. There's no question about that. But life-changing, I think for the short term it might, but long term, I think you've got to cut down Nets.

Q. You mentioned yesterday in the teleconference, one of your favorite memories of 2008 was walking off the court with Tyler with the net around his neck. What were some of your other favorite memories from the aftermath of that game?
COACH SELF: From the aftermath, I would say, having Coach Brown there, and when we got back to the hotel, we had every family take a picture with the Championship trophy with myself and Coach Brown, and anybody else that wanted to be in it. That to me was cool. Really cool.

And then after that, I had a lot of buddies, had family, obviously, but had a lot of buddies, high school, college, guys that were there, and the fact that we hung out and they ragged on me for five hours and I ragged on them, and it wasn't about us winning; it was about us just being together. To me, that was as good as it gets.

Q. The styles of the two teams, Duke and Villanova, are so divergent; is that difficult?
COACH SELF: I don't think so. I don't know that it's good. A lot of times, I've heard this, and don't -- doesn't mean it's true. But a lot of people look at Duke and us as seeing they have a huge advantage here, or they have a huge advantage there. But Kansas has an advantage in this area or Kansas has an advantage in that area. Whoever can kind of play to their advantages the best would win.

With Villanova, it's different. Their advantages they have over us are the same advantages we over others, or our advantages, whatever they are, we have over them, are basically their strengths, also.

So we're different. They can stretch it from five spots; we can only stretch it from four. You know, we play through a big with his back to the basket; they don't. But you talk about, they are going to guard man-to-man; they are going to play four guards the vast majority of the time.

The differences I don't think are that great. I don't know if that's an advantage for being in this game or that game. I don't know. You can make a case probably for both of them.

Q. Right after the game, you made a point to say, "these guys aren't soft," on national television. Is that because maybe you used the S-word publically more than you ever have this season?
COACH SELF: Probably. I do think that -- and I think people that have covered us, know that one thing that our program over time has taken great pride in is that we play hard and we play unselfish, and regardless how talented we are, we're pretty -- not physically tough but we enjoy the toughest moments, and I don't think this team did.

So when I said that, somebody asked the other day, did I mean it, or was it frustration. It was frustration. But I meant it 100 percent.

But it's just different now. There's something different about us. We may not rebound the ball worth a crap but we'll find some other way to make a play. There's just something about us right now that hasn't been there consistently all year long. We've shown flashes.

Like when we beat Kentucky to start the season, we shot 35 percent for the game and they are so much bigger than us, and yet we still won the game. To me, that was a tough, grinded-out win. We haven't had very many of those until we got to the second half of Big 12 play and that's when I think we started getting better.

Q. What happened?
COACH SELF: I don't know. I don't know. Maybe losing three at home. Maybe that last Oklahoma State game at home with, you know, with 120 year-reunion people here, and basically they heard the same thing I've been telling them for months. I told them all along.

I said: Guys, you think you're so tough, so let's just talk about history. You think this team right now is tough enough to rebound the ball at a high level six games in a row when we've shown we haven't done it for two games in a row all year; so you think you can just turn it on and do that. Hopefully some of those things finally set in to the point where maybe they think, yeah, we've got to improve in some areas. It wasn't that they weren't trying. It's just none of them were willing to get out of their own comfort zone.

Q. What are the dynamics of guarding a team where one person dominates the ball maybe as much as anybody in the country?
COACH SELF: You know what, Danny, I'm not sure that that's 100 percent the case. I would say that Devonte' probably dominate the ball every bit as much as Jalen does. To me when I watch them play, it is ball and body movement. It is -- it is, hey, Spellman, their 5-man is going to shoot threes, he's going to handle it. He's a passer. They use bigs in and out.

I'm not saying the majority of the time, but as far as just dominate, I think Jay wants balance. I think he wants different guys to handle, and certainly with Booth and DiVincenzo, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, you know, you've got real guards in there that they can play without him in there.

So I think they have about as much balance when it comes to sharing. Usually guys that dominate the ball have an unbelievable, high number of assists, like Devonte' or Trey. I don't know what Jalen's assist numbers are, but they are not quite as much, in large part because other people have equal number assists, too.

Q. Some people are calling this the National Championship game. Do you wish they would recede the teams and how do you look at what they are saying about that?
COACH SELF: Well, since they are not going to, I'm going to say: No, I love it exactly the way it is.

Yeah, if we were going to re-seed them, yeah, that would be great, too. I think whoever is saying that, obviously is probably getting a little bit ahead of themselves. It looks like it's maybe marquee game of Saturday, just because it's one versus one, but trust me, the other game is just as marquee as this one.

Q. A team that had three guys improve so much, not from November, but late February, Malik, Lagerald and Silvio have.
COACH SELF: Yeah, you know, you could almost -- if Dok hadn't got hurt, you could put Dok in that category, too. Dok was so much better the second half of conference play.

But probably not. You know, Lagerald, Lagerald is a different guy than he was in mid-February; and Malik is a different guy than he was; and certainly, you know, Dok was on a good roll then he got hurt.

And Silvio, you don't even even recognize him to where he was mid February. And even though Silvio is not a point producer, not one of those guys, he's just such a presence if there from strength and rebounding and has got great hands.

It's been fun to watch. You know, they always talk about teams peeking at the right time. And with us, I don't know that I could ever say a team peeks at the right time because we've been fairly consistently good over the last several years.

So even if we got a little bit better late, it wasn't a substantial jump. This is like, night and day. I mean, this is like, hey, we went from a pretty good team to a really good team in a short amount of time.

So I guess when fans talk about, we want their teams peeking at the right time, this would be the one example since I've been here that we can actually show that.

Q. Devonte' said earlier that he thinks that the Dok injury really helped this team specifically with Silvio. What did that Dok injury maybe cause some other guys to do?
COACH SELF: Maybe it's coincidentally, but I told our guys when Dok was hurt: They say, guards win in postseason, and they have certainly taken that to the extreme and given us a chance.

Also, it's allowed Silvio to get minutes. You can say whatever the reasons are, and I won't justify it because maybe I just didn't trust enough to play him, but when Dok's out and you've got Mitch and Silvio, that's it, Silvio's going to play; whether he plays good, bad or what, he's going to be out there. Happened to put him out there and he was great in the Big 12 tournament. I think he got 30 and 29 in the Big 12 tournament.

To me I think that gave our guys confidence that we don't have to have the big fella to have good possessions and to win. If you look at it, I could be wrong. Didn't Dok foul out against Seton Hall? Or did we just sub for him late? I can't remember. He fouled out -- and he fouled out against Duke and still we've had some of our best possessions with him not in the game.

So I think that that certainly gives guys confidence in Silvio, but it also tells them they have got to go be ready to make plays.

Q. One of the guys said after the tournament, I think it was -- he said, "Coach didn't let us get too caught up in the Final Four. He brought us down to earth in practice." Is that something you constantly do, or you just coach?
COACH SELF: I probably consciously do it a little bit. This team is a little different, though. Hey, we're so soft.

This team's so different. We're giving them two days off, you know, where that team in 2008, we had enough depth, we didn't care if anybody got tired. You know, we had seven pros on that team.

So this team, you know, we'll practice really hard tomorrow, and yeah, I'll find some reason to get on to them today, you know, during a walk-flew. But for the most part, this team's probably done the best job of handling the distractions, knock-on-wood, in large part, because they haven't been presented with as many.

When you've got guys that are potential lottery picks and things like that, trust me, there's more distractions that go into that kind of stuff. We've got guys that have been flying under the radar for the most part. I'm sure they will pick up, the distractions, but so far, so good.

Q. Coach, Coach Howard's son did a scouting report on Duke. Did you see it, and how accurate was it?
COACH SELF: I actually saw a little bit. I couldn't blow it up on my phone, so I couldn't really read all of it, even with my glasses on.

He was right on point. I think that we should have JJ actually doing more of the scout than his dad after reading it. I said, he's better -- (laughter). But I thought it was pretty cute. But it was done I guess three months ago, so I guess he had a little foresight into what was getting ready to happen.

Q. Aside from the obvious, are there certain things a team has to do to emerge as the last team standing Monday night?
COACH SELF: I'd say eliminate distractions. You know, if you could somehow -- you know why they put blinders on horses in races, so they can't look left and right. If you could do that with athletes, you know, where their minds couldn't go left and right, that would be a lot easier to do. It's hard to do.

And you can say, how hard is that? No, it's hard to do. There's a lot of things that come into play, and certainly, I bet the team that wins on Monday, will be the team that probably does the best job of managing those.

Doesn't mean that -- you don't have to make every shot or whatever. Look at our Memphis game. We were down nine with two left or whatever, and still made enough plays to get it in overtime. You know, the game's never over. You've got it make plays the whole game, and if anything, you may have to have -- usually in games like this, offense is at a premium, so you're going to run average offense because the defenses are better, and you need to have one guy step up and make some plays that you can't coach.

Q. Two years ago, the Villanova guys at the Final Four, they said their earlier loss to Oklahoma motivated them. I know it's been two years, but the regional final, for the guys who were here, the guys who played in that game, are they going to remember that and remember that you probably should have won that game?
COACH SELF: I don't know about should have won. It was a one-possession game when they called the foul on Devonte' for diving for the loose ball, but that was a tough game. We were the 1-seed. We were the favorite. Roles are reversed a little bit this time around obviously.

But shoulda is probably too strong, but that was a game that we felt like going into that game, if you remember, we had played so good in the tournament. We were great the first round Graham. We were great against Connecticut. We were great against Maryland and things just didn't fall right for us in that game. Hopefully, hopefully we'll have a reversal of those things, and maybe we'll get some good fortune this game.

Q. Each of your Final Four wins here, you've had a Teahan on the team. Will you call on the Teahan family for luck maybe?
COACH SELF: Yeah, I better, since the mother of the two children have told me that she would kill me if I treated their son poorly. Yeah, I'd say that they are definitely good luck.

Q. Did you ever see the two kids at Loyola at blue valley northwest?
COACH SELF: Yeah, they came it camp every year. Ed would bring them to camp. They have done so good. And the thing about it is, like Clay, I don't know exactly how he put it, but he was good enough to play at Kansas. But the timing wasn't right. You know, so much of recruiting is timing, and he ends up signing with Iowa State.

But you know, we were loaded at the guard spot. I mean, you've got Frank and Devonte', and so that would have been a tough one probably for him to come in and do what he's doing right now if he had this role. So it's great to see.

I text Ed right after the game and congratulated him because I watched those teams play over at northwest quite a bit, and they know how to play, and that's certainly a tribute to him.

Q. Steve was pretty straight-faced when he hit the three to tie the game but just now Malik and Devonte' said they had specific celebrations they would use if they hit the three. What do you think of guys when they celebrate or don't celebrate?
COACH SELF: Did they say what the specific celebrations were?

Q. I don't want to repeat Malik's.
COACH SELF: Well, you know, you guys should figure this out by now that, they say a lot of stuff that doesn't actually happen. So I don't know. I don't think -- I don't think there's too much celebrating when there's 25 seconds left in an Elite 8 game and the score's tied and you're on defense. Maybe after the shot missed by Grayson, maybe they celebrated a little bit but I don't remember seeing any of that.

Q. One question about Bob Newton. This will be his last go-around. Was he here the first time you were here?
COACH SELF: Yeah, Bob's old. (Laughter) Bob's been around a long time. Next to max, Bob's been around probably next-longest. No, I'm joking.

Yeah, Bob, not too often do you get a chance to have a Bob Davis and Max Falkenstien, two legends, and then, you know, obviously they look much better than what they actually wore in large part because of Bob Newton.

Yeah, this will be -- we didn't allow Bob Davis to go out on top last year like would have been a perfect ending to his story. Hopefully we can do a little bit better job for Bob Newton.

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