NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 29, 2002

Ebi Ere

Aaron McGhee

Hollis Price

Kelvin Sampson

HOLLIS PRICE: Yeah, I saw the Kent State game. Hopefully they don't carry it over. You know, Indiana shot 15 and 19 from the three. Some teams don't shoot 15 and 19 from the free-throw line. That's amazing to see something like that. But that's the important stat that we have to recognize. We just got to go out there and try to guard that.

AARON McGHEE: I think that Hollis brings just a tenacity to our team that most teams don't have. Most of the time he's stuck on one of the best players on the team on the perimeter. He usually does a good job of defending the ball. He's just tenacious on D.

AARON McGHEE: I think it all starts in practice. Coach did a good job selling this defense to all our players. Ever since then, we took it upon ourselves to be as good as we want to be on defense.

HOLLIS PRICE: Probably our positioning. You know, a lot of times we're in the right position. Sometimes we get steels in the passing lane. A lot of things that go into it, our intensity level. We just try to carry over from practice.

EBI ERE: Hard work. You know, that makes the best defense, hard work and effort.

HOLLIS PRICE: Huh (smiling)? I don't know if they have a specific goal to try to rough me up. It seems like I'm always on the floor every game after somebody bumps me. You know, you've got to keep your cool in this game. You're going to get bumped around. You just have to be tough and get back up and just go back at it.

HOLLIS PRICE: That was great. You know, to go to the hospital after the game and see Coach Sampson's dad who wasn't with us at the games that he''s normally at, it's special. The thing that really, really blew my mind was he was in a wheelchair. As soon as we walked in the door, he's telling us how good, how tough we played. I'm thinking he was going to be in a bed laying down, sick. But it shows how tough he is, you know. I think his toughness rubbed off on Coach Sampson.

AARON McGHEE: It was just a great feeling to go in there. I had just cut down the nets from the gym. I put them around Coach's father's neck. You know, he really couldn't be at the game to support us. But I'm sure he watched the game on TV. Since he couldn't be there, I just gave him the nets from around my neck.

EBI ERE: We went in. For a man that just had surgery on his head, had fluid taken out, he was the happiest person I ever saw (laughter). I mean, he was smiling. He was regular to me, you know. Once again, that just show his toughness.

EBI ERE: Coverdale's injury, you know, I wouldn't take that, you know, making us a heavy favorite. I think Coverdale will play. Just like they said, ankle injury, he was on the sideline, didn't practice, he came back that next game and got him 20. You can't underestimate the injury.

HOLLIS PRICE: Yeah, I think he's going to play, too. He's probably hurt, but this is a one in a lifetime chance right here, opportunity to try to win a championship. You know, Indiana's a tough team. Coverdale only scored two points against Duke, but they still found a way to win that game. You know, it's not going to be an easy game. We appreciate that everybody is telling us that we going to win. But we know that we got to stay focused and go out there and compete.

HOLLIS PRICE: No. Game plan doesn't change. You know, to press, I don't think we worked on the press all year long. I really don't think -- we're not going to pick up no full-court and try to press those guys because they too good of a team to just turn the ball over in a full-court situation. The game plan doesn't change.

HOLLIS PRICE: That's been so important. He plays a key role on our team. His improvement from last year is probably the best that I've been around. From last year, he wasn't really that good of a rebounder, and this year, you know, he worked in the off-season so hard on his body, his foot, his feet, his quickness and everything. Aaron made a big adjustment because he matured so much this year. You know, his game is reflected on the floor.

AARON McGHEE: I think the first year is the most difficult because especially the demands of Coach Sampson, you know, what he demands out of you. It's tough your first year. But I think the second year for me, I'm sure Ebi hasn't gone through it yet, you thrive a lot more because you know what to expect coming into the next season.

EBI ERE: I really didn't know what to expect when I came in here. It was kind of tough, the conditioning, the practices at first, you know. Especially on the defensive end. He really taught us and helped us out a long way. It was really tough at first. I sort of kind of got the hang of it now.

HOLLIS PRICE: Yeah, I really worked hard on my shooting this summer because I had an injury last year that held me out of the overtime game against Indiana State. I worked hard. You know, our individual workouts, Bennie Seltzer, our coach, he work us out so hard. I appreciate everything that he did for me over the summer. You know, I worked hours of just shooting. I think it's paying off.

AARON McGHEE: I think Jared Jeffries is one of the best players in college basketball. He has a great skill. He can pass. He can dribble, post-up, inside, outside. I think with a guy like that, you have to limit his touches as much as possible. Not to let him get in a groove or have a good flow in the game.

HOLLIS PRICE: Yeah, I can, in a way. But, you know, he had a chance to play again, and I didn't. I had to wait till the next year. The good thing about his injury that he got a chance to play tomorrow, and hopefully that's it (laughter).

AARON McGHEE: I think our practices are probably one of the most brutal in America. There's no out-of-bounds. There's a big plastic bubble they put on the rim every day. There's no possible way a shot can go in. It's kind of like a war down there. There are bodies flying everywhere, scratches, bruises. It gets physical a lot. But I think that carries over to our toughness on the court.

HOLLIS PRICE: Practice is probably harder than the games to us, I think, because our tight white team, they run the other team's offense so hard that if we are sleeping, they're going to pick us apart. I think we have so much pride in our defense that we don't want those guys to get any shots up. I thank our white team for everything they did for us.

EBI ERE: Practice is tougher than the games. It's true, the white team does go hard every day. They run the offenses just as well or better than the opposing team that we play. That makes it a lot easier, you know, to carry over to the game.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: You know, I'm not even sure how to answer that. I think there's certain things that are not negotiable. I don't really discuss it with them. We have a standard of how hard to play. I've coached over the years. Something that all our teams have been known for. I think good or bad, you're going to be known for something. You have to choose your identity. That's the one thing I think it's important for every kid to understand, that you can give a lot more than you think you're capable of. But just being consistent in your approach. You know, talent sometimes can have an off-day. Hard work and effort should never have an off-day. That's something from the first day of conditioning in September through the first practices in October, through the first game, you're always teaching that. Every day you have your antenna out for consistent effort. So we've just been real consistent with our approach that way.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: You know, I never thought we were a long way away. For some programs in the country, getting to the Final Four is just this huge, gigantic leap. For us, it was just a step. You know, maybe not the next step, but it was just a big step for us. I thought we were a talented team. I saw where we were picked to finish four or fifth in the Big 12. I didn't disagree with that on paper. I've never been much of a paper guy. We're picked different places every year, but that doesn't have anything to do with where you're going to finish. I thought this team was going to be talented. But it's like the question before, I didn't know how they were going to react to me, to the things that are important to our team, things like that, but we had a head start. We had great leadership coming back. Hollis Price, even though he was just coming out of his sophomore year, going into his junior year, he had a clear understanding of what our program was. I think one of the best things that happened to Hollis was getting to play with Eduardo, his freshman year, when Eduardo was a senior. That was really important. Sometimes we all have a tendency to give the coach a lot of credit for certain things. I think one of the main things that's helped our program is we've had great player leadership. Teams that have poor player leadership, those programs tend to underachieve. Teams or programs that have great player leadership, those teams tend to maximize their potential. I think a big key for us, we've had great player leadership.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Well, Hollis' shooting improvement was always a concern of mine. At the end of every year, this is just one of my lame superstitions, I take a three-by-five index card and I put their strengths on the front and their weaknesses on the back. Alongside the weaknesses, I listed things they need to really work on, areas of improvement. With Hollis, I thought the area he needed to most improve in was ball-handling, and 3-point shooting. He wasn't clear to use his arm, his elbow, the triceps muscle is your extensor muscle as your bicep is your flexor muscle. But he wasn't cleared to use his elbow for 3-point shooting until the middle of August. So he had surgery in March, late March. You're talking May, June, July, August. But Hollis is one of those kids if somebody else had had a healthy elbow, they would have shot 200 or 300 shots a day. When Hollis got healthy, he was one of those guys that got 500 or 600 shots a day. He shot so much we thought he had aggravated his elbow again, the triceps tendon. But he's just a doer. Some people talk about it; Hollis does it. That's the difference in him and a lot of kids.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: No. It's not a risk. He had to make a choice. I made a choice; he had to make a choice. For every action, there's going to be a reaction. That's the way our program is. I love these kids to death. Two or three hours I spend with them a day in basketball; to me, that's a learning experience. It's the way you impart your discipline. You find out a lot about them. When we got Aaron, Aaron was never not a good kid, he was a good kid, but he had no concept of work and improvement and how it related to his work ethic and his attitude. You know, he was an offensive guy. Offensive players tend to be bad defensive players (laughter). He treated rebounding and defense as a disease. Aaron would have been a heck of a football player because, you know, you trot him out there for offense, go on defense, you trot him off. Perfect at that. But in basketball, you don't have that luxury. But he came a long way. That's the great thing about coaching. While we tend to get evaluated based on winning or losing, Aaron has been a big win for us. Just the difference he's made. We always take pride in development, in developing players into better players. Aaron has been a huge joy for me this year because there was a lot of days last year when -- you don't take pride in this, this is just our approach, because I don't coach a kid -- I don't like coaching kids that have bad attitudes or the wrong attitude. Understand, there's a difference between a bad attitude and a wrong attitude. But Aaron had really had to change his approach, his attitude. When he started doing that, he got a lot better.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Hot. Where are you from?

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: You have an idea what I'm talking about. It's the way we make money. My father had four jobs every summer. He taught driver's ed. He sold World Book Encyclopedias. He sold life insurance. He worked the tobacco market. From the time I was really, really small, I went with him. Obviously, I didn't get paid. But my mother worked, too. That was, I guess, a way to baby-sit me. He'd take me to work with him every day. It's just the way it was. All those tobacco markets, warehouses, had tin roofs. I just remember how hot it was and how thick the dust was. You better do a good job or somebody's getting ready to holler at you.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Really? He flew from San Jose to Atlanta. What's today?

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Today is Friday. Well, we've got a game tomorrow. I mean, these days have just run so much together. I think Wednesday -- Wednesday night he flew. The trip took a lot out of him. I went and stayed with him this morning. He's tuckered out. He's really tired. His procedure, you know, they had to drain fluid from around his brain on Monday or Tuesday before he left. So this is something he's still recovering from. He had major surgery. He flew cross-country. But being at this game is really important to him. But I have a great mother that does a good job of making decisions for him. But if at all possible, he'll be at the game. I'm hoping he will be.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: I think every coach, and I'm no different than anybody else, certainly no more special than any other coach. I've got so many e-mails and faxes in response to my statement about being a young coach, going to watch the teams practice. One of the ones I remembered I got this week, for somehow it stands out to me, was Dan Munson, the coach at Minnesota. He made mention that, "You know what, I'm one of those young coaches that go to watch every practice. I'm that guy you were talking about." You know, I love coaching, it's always been my passion. This is the pinnacle of what we do as coaches. We'd all like to coach in the Final Four. You know, it's a very humbling experience. It's very humbling. When I think, there's a lot of coaches out there that have much better credentials and deserve to be here much more than I do, like John Chaney, one of my role models coming up in this profession. Gene Keaty, Norm Stewart, Lefty Driesell, I could go on and on. Those guys never had an opportunity to coach at the Final Four. It's something you don't take for granted. Tom Izzo made a great statement to me about how he really began to really appreciate what Michigan State had accomplished the last three years getting there after they lost to North Carolina State in the first round. It's a humbling experience, it's a tremendous accomplishment. But it's something that you treasure. I'm sure after the games are over, because right now I'm not treasuring anything. I just want to beat Indiana, to be honest with you. Looking back and getting all melancholy about it, I'm not melancholy about it. Your competitive juices start flowing. We have a game tomorrow. I'm sure as spring unfolds and the time separates, I'll realize how special this is. But then again, you lace them back up and hope you're back here again next year.

COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. I didn't plan it this way. There was never a formula for us. We had a kid that transferred from our program to Notre Dame, because of when he transferred it put us behind the eight ball a little bit, so we reacted to that. We had a kid last year, last season, that we had to suspend and ultimately dismiss from the team. We reacted to that. When you look at the timing of both incidents, it's hard to get a high school kid. Understand the level we play at. I mean, we've been a Top 25 team in the nation for a long time. To maintain that level, you better go get the very best. Not just the junior college kid, you have to get the very best. Daryan Selvy was a first team All-American, Aaron McGee, Ebi Ere and Jason Detrick were first or second team All-Americans. We've been able to get the very best junior college kids. My assistants do a great job of recruiting kids all year long regardless of need. We keep a lot of kids warm just in case something has to happen. You know, I almost get offended when people ask me about the junior college kids. Some of the questions, the way they ask them, it almost like there's something wrong with them. Jozsef Szendrei, we thought he would be a starter for us at a junior college kid. He's a 3.5 student, scored high on his ACT. Some of the kids have academic problems one way or another. Maybe they don't. But I look at Duke's program a few years ago when they lost William Avery and Corey Magette. They had those kids one or two years, they were gone. Junior college kids, same thing, you have them two years. Doesn't matter whether he's 18 or 20 when he gets there. You still have to coach him and get the most out of him. As long as they're great kids, I can deal with it.