NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 29, 2002

Lonny Baxter

Juan Dixon

Byron Mouton

Gary Williams

JUAN DIXON: Well, for me, it took me a while because we had a great opportunity last year to do something special. We lost a 22-point lead. I think we learned a lot from that game last year. I think this year we learned how to win games like that. We learned how to put teams away and we learned how to win close games. I think we grew a lot since last year. Guys have matured a lot. Hopefully we can use that to our advantage tomorrow night.

LONNY BAXTER: I don't think I'm still over that, you know, that game last year. That's why we were determined to get back to this point this year. We're just looking forward to winning the National Championship.

JUAN DIXON: First of all, they have great players. I think they like to run like a sideline transition where they throw the ball up the sideline and get the ball in the post early. Our coaching staff, they're doing a great job of scouting Kansas. Hopefully us three guys can lead the guys tomorrow to go out there and try to execute our defensive assignments, try to win the game.

BYRON MOUTON: I think it's going to be big for us tomorrow because, like you say, we're more bigger than them. I think the key for us, we got a great defense. I think that was key for us late in the season. We had problems early in the season trying to go one-on-one. I think the difference between early in the season and now, we have a great help-defense. Most guys try to take us one-on-one, and they leave the middle wide open, I think it's helpful.

JUAN DIXON: I think we have an advantage at all three main positions of Byron is a great post-player. I think that's what a lot of guys don't see, how good he plays in the post. Hopefully we can take advantage of that tomorrow, get the ball inside to Byron early. Hopefully he can get off early and get us leading in the right direction.

LONNY BAXTER: You know, I always had success with bigger opponents. I just never doubted myself at all. Whoever I'm playing, whether they're the same size as me or bigger, it's all about heart, just going out and giving it your all on every play.

LONNY BAXTER: We just have to, you know, compete with them, just jump on every possession, try to keep them off the glass. I mean, they're outrebounding their opponents by plus 16. That's going to be a big factor tomorrow night.

JUAN DIXON: Yes, I think so. You know, Coach Williams has brought this program a long ways since he's first gotten here. He's done a great job. The program is certainly on the rise. Hopefully we can do something special this year. I think we have a great chance of winning this tournament. Guys just have to stay focused, you know, continue to take it one game at a time. I think guys need to continue to enjoy the game and have fun. Hopefully we can come away with two wins.

LONNY BAXTER: Yeah, you know, Coach Williams has been criticized a lot for not winning a championship. He's really a great coach. He's just been unfortunate. This year is the best year. We had a chance to do some really great things. We just look to keep moving forward, take it to the next level, win the National Championship for him.

BYRON MOUTON: Coach has been criticized a lot because he's never been past the Sweet-16. To go to the Final Four two years in a row, it's a big accomplishment. For us as seniors, it's our last time around, it would be great for him, too, being a head coach, going through a lot of criticism. That would be great.

LONNY BAXTER: When you have just two great inside players like me and Chris going against Gooden and Collison, it doesn't get any better than that. It's going to be a very physical, inside game, very intense. Can't wait to get on the floor and get to play them.

BYRON MOUTON: I mean, it all started with Mike Mardesich. I was kind of jealous of him, he had a whole pin collection. Last year, you had only two rounds. In order to be complete, you have to have all three, from all three rounds. I just wanted a National Championship, show him I had all three rounds, all of my pins.

BYRON MOUTON: Well, I think it's a big accomplishment for us, being five years, going through a lot of things. You know, we had three seniors last year. They did a tremendous job for us. Only player that really played was Terrance Morris. When you have three seniors on a team that starts, it's a big deal, because a lot of people look up to you, expect you to do the work hard, always listen to coach, do a great job. Everybody listening to you. We just want to come out, play hard, lead an example.

LONNY BAXTER: It means a lot for this program to have three seniors that are as important as we are. Especially me and Juan, two players that came in, and people didn't expect a lot from us. They really doubted us, said we weren't going to be factors. Now here we are making a difference for this Maryland team. We've just been so successful in what we've been doing.

JUAN DIXON: I think us three guys up here, I think we grew a lot over the last four or five years. Like Lonny said, a lot of people counted us two out before we stepped foot on campus. We want to stay focused. I think all three of us developed a work ethic over the years. We became better people and we became better basketball players. Hopefully we can continue to lead by example and try to lead this Maryland team to two more wins.

JUAN DIXON: My situation, you know, I lost my parents at an early age. I was a sophomore in high school when my mom died, a junior when my dad died. It was tough because I was close to my parents, especially my mom. Unfortunately, they died, you know. They got caught up in the wrong crowd. But I had my extended family to lead me in the right direction, especially my older brother Phil. I just wanted to follow his footsteps because he's been a role model for me ever since I was a kid. He played baseball. I wanted to play baseball. Similar, basketball and football. He's had a great college career. He got his college degree. I basically wanted to do the same. I think that definitely my parents dying made me stronger mentally. I think I do have an edge when I step on the court because you always got to believe in yourself, and I believe.

BYRON MOUTON: I have a brother, he wasn't very athletic, but he was a great dancer. He just wanted to be great in whatever you do. He tell me, "I know you love playing basketball." The most important thing, he was always trying to preach to me to get my degree. You know, I listened to that. I'm on the verge of getting my degree and winning a National Championship. Every night I try and talk to him and let him know that I'm working hard on and off the court. That's all he asks for, just to try my best and do all I can to be a great person.

JUAN DIXON: Well, first of all, I would like to say that coach is a great guy. A lot of you people just see what he does on the sidelines, acting crazy. That's just the way he coaches. That's his coaching style. He's an intense guy. He's a motivator. Behind closed doors, he's like a friend of ours. He's fun, he's always cracking jokes. That's the best part about him. He always has a comeback. We crack one on him; he comes back in a second. We trying to persuade him, he needs to get his own stand-up. He's that funny. He's a great person. I'm glad I got an opportunity to play for him. I was looking forward to it when I first enrolled at Maryland. It's been a great journey the last four and a half years. Hopefully us three guys can lead this team and try to get two more wins for him.

LONNY BAXTER: Coach Williams is a great motivator on the court. You say he has a psycho act? That's not an act, that's how he coaches (laughter). Like I say, he's a great motivator. Off the court, we're like his family. He's talking to us, keeping us in good spirits.

BYRON MOUTON: Coach does a great job with us. Sometimes we think he's one of us, trying to tell little jokes, cracking on us, telling stuff like that. I had a bad experience with that because my first year coming in, I didn't even dress out. I was on the bench on my street clothes. He came in yelling at me. I can't do nothing, I'm in my street clothes, why are you yelling at me? (Laughter) I was mad at first. I went in the locker room, talked to the assistant coaches. He said not to worry about it, that he needed to relieve some of the pressure. He's a great coach, a great person. Y'all don't see it. Y'all see him yelling, his shirt coming out of his pants, tie all crooked. He's a great person, man. He's great to have as a friend. I'm glad I got a chance to play for him.

JUAN DIXON: I think we're a very fortunate team because we can go inside out. Our game plan is by starting the ball inside to Lonny and Chris, work our way out. We don't mind running the transition. Lonny is 6'7", 265, he might be one of the most agile players on our team. He gets up and down the court just like a guard would. Chris does the same. We don't mind getting in a track meet. We like to run, that's part of our game. We average 85, 90 points this year. We certainly don't mind running. But I think if we take away their transition, I think we have a good shot at winning the game. We also have to rebound the ball. I think we'll be fine.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, you want me to answer that seriously (smiling)? You know, it's great to get to the Final Four, for a lot of things, especially for the players, to have them experience. Those guys that were just here, to get to two Final Fours, not many college players ever do that. But for me as a coach, took me 23 years to get to the Final Four. I certainly hope I was a good coach before I got to the Final Four. I've been in three major conferences and enjoyed the competition in each of those conferences. Certainly the ACC is a great place to coach. You get a chance to play against some of the greatest coaches in the country. So you learn every year. You get to the Final Four, that doesn't mean there's a cutoff point. The game is so good that there's always something to learn, like different trends happen, and all of a sudden you learn some more things that can help your team for next year. That's the way I look at it. I know people judge the Final Four a certain way. But as a coach, I always judge our season based on how we play. Did we reach our maximum effort as a team? If that means getting to the Final Four, great. Some years that might mean winning 15 games.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, it's hard to put a label, who is mid-major now. I think there's some mid-major teams that are as good as the major teams. There's a lot of luck involved, who you play, your seeding, all those things play into how far you go. In the major conferences, you do play against teams that are ranked quite a bit, things like that at points during your schedule. Maybe that competition level helps you when you get to the NCAA tournament. I don't know. But to call Kent State a mid-major or something like that, I think that's kind of an overused term. Kent State can play with anybody.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, for our seniors, they've been through a lot of the -- it's not all been positive in terms of wins and losses. That helps, too, that feeling you get when you lose a game. So that's important in our growth. I think in scheduling, whether you win or lose, if you play a good team, it really helps you because it points out the flaws, especially early in the season. You can schedule somebody, win by 35, but you might not have played well. If you play Oklahoma or somebody like, that they beat you, at least you know, "Here is what we have to work on, go from there." I've always tried in the last probably eight years, once we got to a point where we could be competitive, I've tried to play the best schedule we could play.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: For me personally it's the first day of practice the next year. I mean, that game, you know, it just stays with you. You can't get rid of it. You can always replay a game and see what you could have done better as a coach. Obviously, I was disappointed at the way things went in that game, from a couple different angles. You have to live with it. Hopefully that makes you better, for going through that situation. When you get in here this year, we're a better team, hopefully I'm a better coach, and we'll go from there.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, believe me, you know, especially with the players, they got to the Final Four. I mean, we weren't blown out in the game we played. We were a very good team last year in the Final Four by the time we got to the Final Four. We were very proud of what we did last year. We didn't put on mourning clothes after the game. We went back and celebrated our year at the University. Don't feel that we didn't have a great year last year. I mean, we lost the semifinal game to the team that won the National Championship. We had that positive thing to get us ready for this year. We were the only team here with no experience last year in the Final Four. We go up 20 in the first half. So our guys came out on the court ready to play against a very good team. So I was proud of that. There was a lot of things during the year I was proud of. The team had a lot of courage last year because we did go through a bad stretch. We learned something from losing, but we learned a lot about ourselves winning last year, too.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: We've just tried to maintain the way we practice going into a game, try to do everything pretty much the same. I mean, it's different from the standpoint of the obligations you have. But we went through it last year. I think the one thing we probably learned last year was, you know, you play big games during the season, this is maybe a little bigger game because of the interest involved, but it's still a big game against a very good team. Once you've done that, at least you know how to get ready. We've tried to get ready the same way.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: He's a very tough player. There's been other teams. I had a guy named Michael Adams at Boston College, very tough, played in the NBA ten years after BC. I had Jay Berson (phonetic) at Ohio State. They were the same type of players. Everybody told them they were too small to be successful at a major conference level. All three of those guys proved the experts wrong. To get a player like that, like a Juan Dixon, I saw him play I guess starting the summer after his junior year in high school. He was skinnier than he is now. At the same time you could see how badly he wanted to win. If it's close in talent or physical ability, you have a choice to take a guy who you think will really help the team win or take a guy that he's a great player, but he might not be the best team player, then I always go the way toward the team player, even though he might not be as talented as somebody else.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Those guys all wanted to prove something because they did play against good players at the high school level. They knew in their heart that they could play. Because somebody didn't label them, "You're one of the best 30 players," whatever, that might give you a little incentive to work hard. A Lonny Baxter, getting himself in the physical shape that he is now, Byron Mouton, knowing that he could play on a winning team and be successful, and of course Juan Dixon showing people that, you know, he was strong enough and tough enough to play at the major college level. All those things, you know, those guys have done. The best thing they do, they put that into the younger players as they got older into the program. They made other people understand what it takes to be successful.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: After 37 games and playing in the Big 12, they certainly have a great deal of experience. They're part of a team now. I think that's one of the things that I've always admired about Roy Williams' teams, no matter how good the player or his reputation, he still plays as part of the team. That makes it easier for the younger guys when they realize that's their role. What you do, you do well for our team. You know, I think it helps younger players get in there. They see the other older players, that they can rely on them for the experience until they get it. But at this time I think they're very experienced players.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: They have. We played a very good rebounding team in Connecticut our last game. Now we play probably what I see is the best rebounding team so far, especially on the offensive glass. We're aware of that, and it is a tough thing for our players to look at that and understand how hard they have to rebound. But we try to use four inside players during the game. Obviously, Baxter and Wilcox are our starters. But Tahj Holden and Ryan Randle are important to the success we've had this year. If we get a foul problem or whatever, we can put somebody in that's a pretty good player and not hurt the way we play or have to change the way we play.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Personally, I'd rather breathe, keep breathing (smiling). But, no, I know what Roy means. You know, I want to win the National Championship badly also. But it's one of those things where if you don't win it, you know, I can handle that. I mean, it took me 23 years to get to the Final Four as a head coach. So I keep things in perspective. In other words, it's a one-game situation, and you have to really play well, especially against somebody like Kansas. You know, our players, if there's a reason I want to win it, it's for the players. I've had seniors, and luckily where they've stayed with us for four years, I'd really like to see them get it because they've earned it, won over a hundred games in four years. We had to overcome some things there at Maryland. Our program hasn't been one of those programs for the last 50 years that just has been on a steady high. We've had to come back from some things. I'd like to do it for the players first and then for the uniform.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I think there's a lot of people their age that have gone through tough things. They've gotten the attention because they're good basketball players. I look at Juan and you can't put yourselves in that situation because I didn't go through that. But I really admire what he did at a young age, at about 16. He had to make some decisions. He had an older brother and some other people that helped him. It's still the individual that has to make the decision. That's part of why Juan is so good, because he's never satisfied. I think he set some goals for himself personally as a person that, you know, he keeps to himself. This is all part of that, to be great at what you do I think is very important, because I think a lot of people along the way told him that he wasn't ever going to amount to much. That's a great motivation. Byron's situation was so sudden this year that it was really tough. When you're that age, you never expect to be going to a funeral of somebody that's older than you in your family. That was really hard, but he had a Juan Dixon to lean on when he came back, our other players. They're good guys. They helped Byron get through that situation.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: We've talked a lot about it, you know, that we think we're a good rebounding team. We're going to go out there and try our best to be a good rebounding team tomorrow against Kansas. It's part of Kansas' offense, comes from their offensive rebounding. They're that good that when you average 90 some points a game by Kansas does, those points come from different areas. Offensive rebounding is one of those points where they score from. That could really help us if we do that.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Cost me a thousand bucks for those two billboards (laughter). Our marketing people, they get cute once in a while, try to do some things. You know, what we've tried to do is really get -- having gone to Maryland, I always thought Maryland could be as good a basketball program as anyone else. We've really tried, in a major metropolitan area, tough sometimes, when you have the Redskins, Orioles, Ravens, all those things, it's hard to get your identity going in an area like that. So we've tried to do a lot of things to just promote the basketball program. It's worked out pretty well. Of course, winning is the most important thing. So some good things have happened. Then getting to the Final Fours, in a lot of people's minds, it puts a justification on the program that it is a major program. We're happy about all those things. You're never satisfied. I think that's the key as long as I'll coach. I'll never be satisfied with whatever happens here or in the future. You keep trying to have that better team each year.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, we've played against all different kinds of teams. Wisconsin, for instance, really tried to control the tempo of the game and really had to go out against them. We've played quick teams like Florida State or like Duke that really comes after you hard, and Oklahoma that plays the physical style of defense. So along the way, a Connecticut, really a good rebounding team. So you hope that each one of those experiences makes you better, and if you see it again, you can react quickly to that style of play. At the same time, though, you donÂ’t want to change the way you play. You want to learn some things that will help you when you play a team that plays a certain way. But for us to be good, we have to put our best game out on the court, and hopefully thatÂ’s what weÂ’ll do on Saturday.