NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 29, 1998

Allen Edwards

Nazr Mohammed

Scott Padgett

Jeff Sheppard

Tubby Smith

Wayne Turner

COACH SMITH: What was that? How did we use Scott Padgett? Scott has been -- differently from what? The past? We have used him because of his versatility. He could go inside at six-nine. He could shoot from the outside. We have been able to create matchup problems because of his ability to shoot the 3-point shot as well as bring the ball up the court. Scott's a very skilled player and does a lot of -- he is multitalented and he's been able to create some real problems for people.

COACH SMITH: Matchup problems for Wayne and Allen?

COACH SMITH: Okay. They are very big and got a lot of depth. Whenever you look at a size difference, Andre Miller and Wayne, Wayne is about six-two. He gives up a little bit of weight there to Andre. Andre is having an excellent year and so is Wayne. Both are playing extremely well in post season play. Alex Jensen is a small forward. Allen is only six-five and he has done a good job at overcoming the size disadvantage with his quickness and athleticism. His ability to put the ball in the game creates opposition for small forwards.

COACH SMITH: Jeff is, again, one of our best athletes on the team, if not our best athlete as far as being able to run, jump, handle the ball. He could play the one, two or three position. As can Allen. That's the versatility of this team, because we have so many guys that can play multiple positions. I think Jeff has been playing outstanding over the last month. He has pretty much -- we have a lot of balance on our team but his ability to shoot the ball consistently and for high percentage over the last month and-a-half has been outstanding. We venture to say he has played as well as any shooting guard in the country. And that's the reason we are here. I think Rick Majerus has done a good job on his role, changing his defenses. Last night they pretty much stuck with man-to-man but they did play triangle-and-two. I can see that happening because they did that very effective against Arizona with the triangle-and-two as they were able to shut down (Mike) Bibby and Miles (Simon).

ALLEN EDWARDS: I didn't play the last game, I was injured with my ankle. But the last year, my sophomore year, it was a talented team but we got the better of them. This year is a totally different team. They are without Van Horn and without Anthony and they even improved a lot since last year and we have improved a lot since last year. It's going to be a great game, and I don't think, you know, the past two games is going to dictate what's going to happen tomorrow.

WAYNE TURNER: I didn't play as much in my freshman year, but last year I remember we came out and we just did a good job pressuring them. We did a good job on the boards, too. They had Van Horn, also, and I thought we did a good job rotating and helping out on him.

COACH SMITH: Well, Mike Doleac is a very talented player. He's a very big, physical, strong player. I've been impressed with his ability to go away from the basket and shoot the outside shot. Again, they are very similar in their styles, center style, the way they play the back for the basket as well as facing the basket. I had the good fortune of coaching Mike Doleac in the Junior Olympics two or three years ago out in Denver. He has great hands and he's a very smart player. He plays within himself. He's a total and complete team player, much like Nazr. I think that will be a good matchup from both of these young men.

JEFF SHEPPARD: I had a great time last year sitting out. I learned a lot. It was a neat experience to be with the team during the tournament run. Any time you're involved in a NCAA Tournament, the excitement of a Final Four is awesome. Anybody who has a competitive spirit wants to be involved in that. I was involved as much as I could be, was there supporting my team. I don't have any regrets for sitting out last year. I enjoyed that season, and I'm glad to be back here.

JEFF SHEPPARD: It's a team sport and we will win as a team or lose as a team, and that's the most important thing. We realize that teamwork, positive attitude, and hard work is what's got us here, and that's what we will try to do tomorrow. Everything else is secondary.

COACH SMITH: He had some opportunities going to other places, and I'm very blessed and fortunate to have had an opportunity to coach both my older boys, and now Kentucky. It was his birthday yesterday. I know he was very excited and happy because of the win. He has been around basketball, been on the teams for a long time because I've been coaching for a long time. So this is pretty much all he knows. But he knows, because he is a real team player and we have developed a real family atmosphere within the team. Saul has been a big reason for the cohesiveness, along with the captains on the team.

WAYNE TURNER: I think that Andre Miller -- I will try to play the best defense that I can on him. He is very quick and very good in the open court, and he's very strong. So I think I can't put it me against him. It will be a team effort. I will do whatever I can to stop him from penetrating in the lane.

COACH SMITH: Not to me, seeing him beat up on us at Georgia. But in talking with their coaching staff, the sacrifice, the dedication he made to get himself in shape. He's just remarkable and that shows you what can happen when you focus and you believe in yourself and you are committed to following the program that was set up by the coaching staff and a strict coach. But he had to do it himself. And to maintain that and develop the muscle definition that he needs for his stamina. Obviously that's a tough, probably the toughest thing to improve on as you develop, that endurance. But Nazr has worked extremely hard in the weight room, in watching what he eats. I've been very impressed with him. I know we pretty much, when I got here, Nazr -- I can't say a finished product because he's never finished. He's pretty much to being a polished player and one of the best centers in the country, no doubt.

JEFF SHEPPARD: The most important thing Coach Smith did for us this year was making himself available and being there for us to grow close to him as soon as he got to Kentucky. Whenever you go through a coaching change, you really don't know what to expect, and there is a short time to get to know people. And Coach Smith was there for us. We went over to his house and had get-togethers. He was there during the summer for basketball camp. As far as little things on the court, there is great coaching things that he has done this year. But the most important thing is just being our leader and being there for us off the court and every day. He really does a good job of teaching us the game of basketball, but even a better job of teaching us how to be men.

NAZR MOHAMMED: The best thing you can do is just go out and play defense. Like the coach has taught us, play honest defense, contest, move your feet, things like that. I feel he is a real good player. He can go down low. He has a nice touch. He runs the floor well. I respect his game but you have to go out and play honest defense.

COACH SMITH: Similarities? (Laughter) We had the same name, from what I read this morning. Somebody named him Tubby and named me Tubby. I read that in the paper, Tubby versus Tubby. I don't know who wrote that. Similarities? I think he has been in a longer time than I have as far as coaching teams. He has had an outstanding career in developing players and building programs. I think those are some of the areas that I feel that I've been strong, and also at Tulsa and Georgia. Rick has done the same thing at Ball State, Utah and Marquette. So he has been around. He understands the business. I'm sure he's a guy that's available to many people. He and I met a few times. I don't know him as well as I'd like to know him, but I've always been a fan of Rick Majerus in the way he has coached, the way he has held himself. He is a much funnier guy than I am. I wish I could be a little more humorous, but he's very good at that. I don't know that there is any more similarities other than that. He got a great program. I'd like to think -- Utah, their program has been very successful in the '90s, and that's the case with the Kentucky program as well.

COACH SMITH: It is hard to appreciate it when you are in the midst of it because you are so involved in preparing your team and watching tapes. You don't have a chance to really enjoy it until probably it's over. But with the games the way they've been, the competitiveness, the closeness of the games and the parity of the teams, I don't think there has been a team that's been a prohibitive favorite going in other than Arizona in the beginning of the year. That's helped, I think, to generate some of the excitement more than anybody could witness, this tournament.

COACH SMITH: Kentucky was number one defensive team in the NCAA last year and number one in the league this year from a field goal defensive standpoint. I thought their half-court defense was outstanding last year and I think it is outstanding this year. It helps when you have players that understand the game and play together and are willing to sacrifice. The thing that we had to work more on was more of a ball line where you had a help position and, whereas, I think it was more denial position, defensive oriented. I think that's a big key to helping us be an outstanding rebounding team, because we do work hard on boxing out and keep us in a good rebounding position because of our defensive philosophy. I think it took a while for our guys to really understand our defensive principle, but now that we have them intact, they understand that we can adjust within our principle and defensive philosophy.

COACH SMITH: You know J.D.? J.D. Had a voice, too. I played for J.D. Barnett, also, at High Point. Certainly the ball line principles that he learned from his college coach, Ron Ecker, and probably he learned from somebody else. But I had a lot of outstanding coaches that I played for. Again, more ingrained because of the Barnett system, because I worked for him for six years and played for him for a year. The preparation, I thought J.D. Barnett was the best coach I had ever been around as far as preparing his team in practice for games. And those were the things that I learned a lot. And from Rick Pitino, tempo, pressing, 3-point shooting style. It has been contemporary, so far, and has come in in the '90s. I think that's been a big -- and the late '80s -- been a big help in helping me mold and reshape my coaching philosophy.

SCOTT PADGETT: Well, I think that a lot of people know that I flunked out of school after my freshman year. I had to go home and work several jobs and come back and pay for school. Basically I had to just work my way back on to the team. I wasn't given the position. Coach Pitino told me he would give me an opportunity to get back on the team, but he told me I had to get above a 3.0, and I had to work my way back on the team as well. It took a lot of hard work, but I think, you know, it ended up maybe being a blessing in disguise because I think I have grown up a lot, matured because of the experience. And I have definitely become a better student. So I think it just took a lot of maturing for me to grow up, things like that. But I can't say I could be any happier than the situation I am in now.

COACH SMITH: You are speaking about the Kentucky-Western Texas, which is UTEP, and I grew up watching the Maryland Terrapins play. And Maryland, at the time, had the first black player in the NCAA, which is Billy Johnson -- Billy Jones, sorry. So I followed them very closely because of that reason, being black, and being a minority. He was kind -- Maryland was kind of a model for us and gave us the feeling that we could make it and get into schools. Then coming out of high school, I signed with Maryland. So I had a lot of ties to the University of Maryland because of that reason. But it could have been any other school that was playing, but seeing an all-black team -- it wasn't all black, but starting all black team players, and win that game, not so much that they were black but seeing the underdog win the way they did gives all underdogs some hope. That's what it did for me.

SCOTT PADGETT: I don't think it is a psychological edge. This is really two totally different teams. In the years past they have relied a lot on Van Horn and they are a lot like us because they rely on so many people to do so many things. They are a great team. I think that's how we are this year. We don't rely on certain individuals even though we have guys come up, and Shep came up big last game. But we have the ability for anybody on this team to come up big like that. So I don't think it will be a psychological edge at all.

NAZR MOHAMMED: I agree with Scott. I don't think it is a psychological edge because it is two different teams, and it's a new year. A lot of us are new players and we have bigger roles than we had last year. So we still have to go out and play the game.

COACH SMITH: Well, I think championship teams are built on great defense and rebounding the ball and those are the areas that we really stress from day one. In order for us to be competitive, I think we have the largest rebounding margin in the country, number one, that's outstanding. They do a great job of boxing out. That's a big key. We really teach and work on technique. I can tell that Utah does the same. Defensively, I think both teams will get in transition, and we believe that defense can create some offensive opportunities for us. So I'm sure that's what -- with so many skilled offensive players now, you really have to mix up your defenses and do different things. I think Rick Majerus has taught his team to do that as well as anybody in the country.

COACH SMITH: I don't think it was overlooked at all. You don't win 30 games and win the WAC and do what they have done with the consistency that they have had and not have good athletes. I told you before, I coached Mike Doleac. I knew he was one of the best centers in the country. Certainly, looking at Andre Miller, he was one of the top guards coming out of high school in the country. As a freshman, Britton Johnsen, he has talent throughout. Their size, sometimes people look at it and say they're not as quick. And with us, the same case here. We have a lot of size and one reason we adjusted our defense was because we felt our strength was in our front court this year. But we really developed a good balance throughout our lineup. That's what you see in Utah, balance in every position throughout their lineup and throughout their team.

COACH SMITH: Well, we never look at favorites or -- that's something for the fans, the media to print. I think when we go in games, we look at it as it is, trying to measure ourselves and test ourselves, once again, to bring out the best in ourselves. That's the attitude I have taken all year long in every game we played, whether we played Morehead State or whether we play Utah in the championship game. I think you have to have that type of -- I think you have to approach games that way. When you start looking at whether you are an underdog or whether you are the favorite, if that comes into your mind you will have a real problem. But I can understand and I can appreciate it, and certainly we certainly want to embrace that role and do all we can to play our best game. We know we have to play our best game tomorrow night to beat a very good Utah team.

COACH SMITH: Man-to-man. We are basically a man-to-man pressure defensive team. We like to mix up our press, our full court press defense as much as possible. We try to play a multiple scheme of defenses. I think these guys can tell you, we have quite a few defenses in our arsenal, and we do zone people as well. So we do it in a containment type system, where we want to challenge and contest passing lanes and being in a position to steal or deflect passes as best as possible. We don't gamble a whole lot once the ball gets into the half court, front court.

COACH SMITH: I thought they grasped it at the beginning. It took a while for it to sink in. Really, we played in a system that was different. We had six players that didn't play at all and guys that have to learn. Take a guy like Heshimu Evans and he had 3 different systems in 3 years and he learned the system from Rick Pitino, and he transferred from Manhattan College. Everybody has teaching styles and methods. I'm sure most of these guys will tell you that it's not easy to -- then they have to learn multiple positions sometimes that maybe they work, maybe they will be groomed to play one position and now they have to learn a couple of others. But with that, that's why I believe we have got a very intelligent team, a team that's a very smart group of guys that understand the game and understand what teamwork is all about.

COACH SMITH: Well, we stay with what we have. We will not change much. We look at a set series of offenses, set plays that we feel we will be able to capitalize or utilize in our opposition. We work on those set of plays, and then look at the defensive schemes and see how we can take certain things away from our opponents. I think when you look at both teams, we are very similar in that you really can't concentrate on one guy's tendency because there are so many people playing in the game, that there is not -- unlike North Carolina where North Carolina plays six or seven guys strictly. We play ten to eleven guys, and so does Utah. So that makes it tough to scout and tough to prepare for.