NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 30, 2002

Lonny Baxter

Juan Dixon

Gary Williams

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Thank you, Chris. We really thought we were ready to play. We had a good week. We had a great practice yesterday. We came out and Kansas took it right to us. But the thing we have as a team this year is courage. This team has never gone away in any tough situation. We've gotten beat, but teams have really had to make a great effort to get us. I was just really pleased probably as much as anything to get Lonny Baxter another game. Lonny was in deep foul trouble early. We had to battle without him for most of the game. He couldn't relax. Because he was always worried about bumping into somebody or something like that. It's great that Lonny does have another game. The guy next to me, two away, Juan Dixon, he's been there all year, and really the last three years, for us, in big games, big plays, whatever the situation. He's been able to do that. To win on a night when maybe a couple of our guys didn't have their A game with them is a great feeling because Kansas is a great team. I was thinking coming down here, I've gotten to know Roy Williams pretty well. You just watch them play, the things that they do, they're so tough to play against. We were fortunate to make a couple great runs tonight against a very good basketball team. Our bench, once again, I thought was really key tonight. Tahj Holden, I don't think anyone could have played better coming in, and Lonny Baxter's foul situation. Ryan Randle gave us minutes out there on the court. His statistics might not look like it, but that was key. Then Drew Nicholas played quite a bit at the point guard position for us tonight. That's been our rotation during the year. You try to sell all year that we have to play the same way in the NCAA tournament that you do during the season to get to the tournament. We were fortunate to do that tonight.

JUAN DIXON: Basically just said, "We need to play. We've been in this position before." It's unlike us. Like the coach said, we had a great practice yesterday, we had a lot of fun. Guys probably got a little tensed up. That's why we had the start we had. Guys stuck together and we pulled it out.

JUAN DIXON: I think so. I've been saying that the whole week. If we ever got in that position again when we were up 22 points, we were going to find a way to pull the game out. We did. It's just our experience. We grew a lot over the last year or so. So hopefully we'll go out there and get one more.

JUAN DIXON: Kansas is a great team. They didn't give up at all. They threw a couple -- they made us commit some turnovers. But we stayed strong. I hit a big shot when we needed it. The opportunity was there for me to take to the basket. I made the shot. I missed the three before that, so I definitely wanted to come back and make a play.

JUAN DIXON: That's basically -- that was my goal coming to the tournament. I just want to be aggressive as possible on both ends of the floor. I think guys feed off my energy. I'm just out there trying to be a leader, along with Lonny and Byron. We're doing a great job.

LONNY BAXTER: Like coach talked about in the scouting report, Kansas doesn't like people in their space. We played up on them tight. Didn't allow them to get free runs at the basket. Just stayed physical with them.

LONNY BAXTER: I don't think I'll forget last year until we finally win a National Championship. That's what the goal was. After that game last year. We've just been shooting for it all year. That's what we plan to do come in Monday night.

JUAN DIXON: We were struggling at the time. I just wanted to be aggressive, like I was throughout the whole tournament. We needed some buckets. Lonny got in foul trouble early. He's basically our inside presence, along with him and Chris. I just took it upon myself to try to hit some big shots. I helped my team get back in the game.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: First of all, no one's beating Kansas by 20. It's not going to happen. We have similar styles in that we like to run. When you run and you're really playing well, you can really score a lot of points in a hurry. But conversely, when you're not playing well and you run, you take quick shots, you give them easy plays to score on, and all of a sudden they can come back quickly. The way we play is a great style once I get the lead. It makes you aggressive playing that way and I like to play that way. It's really tough to pull it in a little bit and make sure we're running the clock. The other thing we did, we put them on the foul line and stopped the clock for them. Basically quite a few possessions in a row. All we had to do was keep the clock running and it wouldn't have gotten so close.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, Chris is going to be a great junior next year for us (laughter). No, Chris is special. He's got some things he can do. What he's done this year has really increased his knowledge of how to play basketball, which for all great athletes sometimes, you know, you don't see them get to where they should go in terms of knowing the game. But Chris has really worked hard to learn the game. He's a much smarter basketball player right now than he was in October. His ability to get off the floor quick with Collison and Gooden out there obviously was an advantage to us. What was the second part of that?

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Tahj is a completely different player. Tahj probably knows the game as well as any of our guards. He's a great passer. We got him in to get the ball inbounds at the end of the game there because he is such a good passer. He's a very good free-throw shooter. Tahj is an outstanding outside shooter. He's won big games for us during his career by hitting three's. Tonight he really had to be a factor inside for us and he was.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I just know how Steve has played for us for three years. He started every game since he's been at school as a freshman. He did a great job. We won 25 games. It's there. It's kind of my job to really get with Steve the next couple days. He'll be fine. I really believe that. He played better as the game went on today. I thought he did much better as the game went on. You know, this is a confidence game, especially when you're a point guard. You want everything rolling for you when you're a point guard.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I didn't watch the game. I was rather nervous getting ready for Kansas. I just know, just reading about them, seeing them play during the year, you watch a lot of games, how tough they are, how driven they are this year. They seem to be on a mission. I think they had a lot of courage today to play as hard as they did. We played Oklahoma, lost to Oklahoma. We know what they're like, how tough they can play defense. Indiana is a very good basketball team. I think people have to stop saying that, there was three really good teams here, and Indiana. I think that's done now. I think they've proven themselves with the Duke win and the win against Oklahoma. They're a very good basketball team.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: That's what you go to. In other words, that's their job, to get us out of that situation. You know, Juan Dixon, I don't care, he did that when he was a sophomore. That's not being a senior. But Byron Mouton is a very tough guy for us. He won't back off. He might not play great all the time, but his effort is always there. And his attitude is, "We're going to find a way to win the game." When you have a senior doing that, it really helps the other guys.