NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 31, 2001

Jason Gardner

Richard Jefferson

Lute Olson

Michael Wright

COACH LUTE OLSON: Thank you. It was a great performance, I thought, particularly the second half. We made it very difficult for Michigan State to get looks. They did attack us inside for a little while when they made their run, and I thought we became impatient offensively during that stretch; but otherwise, we certainly could not have played any better in the second half than what we did. We knew that it was going to come down to the boards and turnovers. We honestly felt that we shot the basketball better than they did. So as long as we didn't give them a huge number of additional possessions, that we felt we could outshoot them as long as we didn't give them so many second and third efforts. They do an unbelievable job with the glass. They've got great quickness and very, very aggressive. I told Tom Izzo after the game, it's just amazing to me the job that he's done. When you take a look at who he lost off of last year's team, and for them to get back here to the Final Four is just an unbelievable job by Tom and his staff.

JASON GARDNER: Not necessarily. I think that so many people are keying in on Mike and Loren, think the perimeter's getting a lot of open looks. A lot of people were worried about Richard and Gilbert with the penetration of jump shots, they always get a lot of open looks.

RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, you know, I think it's real tough, you know. You know, knowing what Coach O and his family has been through, everyone on this team. What makes it harder is to see the look on his face, to see what we have to go through every time someone continues to bring it up and someone always, you know, I think showing their condolences, that's the hardest thing, you know, for us as a team, is to continue talking about it and continue bringing it up. Everyone knows, you know, that this season is dedicated to Mrs. Olson, but we've been talking about it for a long time. We haven't said anything different since, you know, when the whole situation happened till now. This season is dedicated to Mrs. Olson. We basically said everything we can about the situation.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Well, I think we did a good job in the second half of getting the passing lanes and things like that to get some steals. Like Coach said, we are a very quick team; Gilbert and Richard came out in the second half, got a couple steals. You know, it just set the tone for the game.

RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, for me, I was -- I'm from Arizona; and, you know, me and Mike and Luke Walton were probably the first group to sign after they won the national title. So coming here, you know, that was my dream, is to get to this game and to get to the Final Four. And, you know, the beginning of the season we saw the team that had that chance. We had been here; I had watched Arizona for a long time, and I knew that the team coming into this season was as talented as ever. We made a lot of statements about how good we could be. We believed that. We didn't know what was going to happen in the future, all the things we'd go through. Duke, North Carolina, any of those teams, if they were to go through the same situation, you never know how their season may have turned out. I think with our coaching staff and Coach Olson, we were able to gather ourselves at the end and make a run.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Like Rich said, when we first came in, we followed the championship team. You know, I mean, it's like, you know, every childhood dream just to play in the Final Four and things like that. I grew up watching the Fab 5 and watching them go to the Final Four. You know, it's -- I mean it's very exciting, you know, to achieve this dream.

JASON GARDNER: I almost think that Richard and Mike, they couldn't play no better. I also think that like they say, it's a childhood dream. You always want to get to this point. Also I just feel like that a lot of times a lot of people will be very excited about making it this far. I always felt like after this team, after everything started coming together, that we would be a contender for the national championship. We're right here now, so you know it's not over yet.

RICHARD JEFFERSON: Yes and no. We knew they're a talented team. You're not as successful as they are without making runs and coming back. So I didn't know what shot would have been a knockout punch, but people talk so much about their rebounding. Well, we're not that bad of a rebounding team ourselves. You know, people talk about their inside presence, their guards. Well, you know, we pretty much match up with everyone. They're probably a better rebounding team, but just because you're a better rebounding team doesn't mean necessarily that you're the better team.

JASON GARDNER: I think a lot of it is a lot of people call us not a physical team , our defense and pressure is not that good. In a way, it's kind of good, kind of bad. I don't think Michigan State expected us to come out like that. I think that, you know, when you're just playing a game, a lot of times you just read the situation. That's what we did today with me and Gilbert.

COACH LUTE OLSON: Well, not a whole lot of people know about our defense, but our defense has been tremendous all year long. We have held teams on the year under 39, about 39 percent. We've been under 40 as an average. And we've gone through a stretch from two months, two and a half months ago where it's been unusual for anyone to get over 40 percent against us. But people -- you know, people want to talk about the offensive ability, and the rest of you take a look at that defense, and they are -- I think we make it as difficult to score on us as anybody. The only problem we had was we got a little passive inside and we let the ball inside a few times. But there were not many shots that were taken from the perimeter that there wasn't somebody flying in to shoot or putting a lot of pressure on them.

COACH LUTE OLSON: There's never been any question in my mind ever since I first saw Gilbert play that he could be as good as he wants to be. Interestingly enough, today, one of the super keys for us was Gilbert's ability to pick off passes. He's -- I mean he is long, he's quick. And I just felt that once we could get him convinced that if he would be aggressive in the stance and anticipate, he could be a great defensive player. But typical of most guys who come, they've been big scorers in high school, and defense is something other people do. I think there's been a steady progress with Gil with his defense, and I mean, he came up with some big-time steals. We had twelve steals. I bet that most of those led to baskets on the other end. I had said before the game, one of the keys is going to be the number of possessions that a team has, and they had one more possession than we did for the entire ball game. And what I had said before, that I thought we were a better shooting team, we shot 50 percent from three to their 14 percent. We shot 81 threes for the line, and they shot 64 threes. I really felt if we could do the job on the boards and with cutting down our turnovers, I thought we'd be in good shape. We had eight turnovers total, and I think we had -- well, we had four in each half I believe.

COACH LUTE OLSON: Well, I think our changing up with our defense, I think, bothered them. They're a team that once they get in a rhythm, they're awfully good. We changed up from man to zone and tried to keep them off balance. Then, you know, from about the middle of the second half or a little bit earlier than that probably, they were having so much trouble with the matchup that we pretty much stayed in that for most of the last ten or twelve minutes, and they had problems solving it, other than what I was saying about they pounded it inside on us a few times, where they executed well and we didn't -- I didn't think we battled like we needed to in fronting the post.

COACH LUTE OLSON: Well, I think it tells a big part of the story because of the number of baskets that we were able to convert those steals. So many of them were on point to wing passes that ended up with dunks or lay-ins at the other end. You know, as a team, we've been trying over the last couple months to really concentrate on trying to keep the turnovers under ten. Obviously, we haven't done that very often. But that's a good time to do it. And steal-wise, we have good athletes. If we're alert, I think we've got a good chance of getting steals. And today, for Gilbert, you know, seven assists, one turnover with six steals, in addition to the rest of his game, but I mean that was key. We ended up with all five players in double figures, and we've averaged double figures from our starting five all year long.