NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 31, 2002

Lonny Baxter

Steve Blake

Juan Dixon

Byron Mouton

Chris Wilcox

Gary Williams

JUAN DIXON: It's very satisfying because everybody knows my situation coming to Maryland. A lot of people counted me out before I even got here. Me not having my parents around, it was a little harder. But I stayed strong. I had my extended family. I had this man to my left to help me develop as a person and also as a basketball player. I had a great career here. Hopefully we can keep it up strong tomorrow night.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: With Juan, I think sometimes people look at the story and hopefully they look at Juan as the basketball player, too. He's such a great player. It's not -- that story, you know, that's good, but you have to separate what Juan does on the court. It's incredible what he does. I'm just very proud of the way Juan has improved as a basketball player in his four years at Maryland.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: It's one of those things where when I was at the University, going to school, we weren't a very good basketball team, but you got to see some really good programs. I always felt when I left there and went into high school coaching and all that, there's no reason why Maryland couldn't be as good as anybody else. I guess that was always in the back of my mind, but never thinking I would be the coach at the University of Maryland. When I got the opportunity to go there, through the help of these guys, we've been able to get a team together that has been good enough to compete at the national level. Once you do that, then you have a chance to do this, if things go your way.

LONNY BAXTER: It's just a great feeling to come a long way, like we have. We're a team, no McDonald's All-Americans. We have a lot of hard-working players. It's just a desire to win and get to the National Championship. That's what we did this year.

JUAN DIXON: Basically what Lonny said. A lot of great players have gone through this program. For us to accomplish two Final Fours in two years says a lot about us as players and about this guy and his staff as coaches. Worked extremely hard since I've been here. Coach has brought this program a long ways since he's been here. Hopefully we can bring a national title back to College Park, if we go out there and perform well tomorrow night and defend well, I think we can get it done.

JUAN DIXON: First of all, Indiana, they have pretty good guards, Moye, Coverdale, Fife, the shooter, 32, I forget his name. He's from Louisiana, Byron said (laughter). We're going to go out there and play our game like we have all tournament long. Be aggressive on both ends of the floor. Me and Blake have to play solid. In order for us to win, as far as me playing in the tournament, this is my last time going through. I want to go out on top. I want to be aggressive throughout this whole tournament on both ends of the floor. I think I've certainly done that. Hopefully I can perform well one more game, try to help my team get a national title.

JUAN DIXON: It would mean a lot to me personally because Coach Williams took a chance on me. He's been here since I guess '89. He brought the program a long ways. They were in a lot of trouble back then. We're one of the top programs in the country today. Hopefully he can keep on being successful as a coach and keep on leading the troops back to Final Fours hopefully. Three us of are going to be gone. Hopefully Blake can step up next year and be a leader, try to get Coach Williams back to this point.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, we were the favorite I guess up till last night in the tournament this year. Kansas, you know, it was close going into the game. I feel that way with Indiana. Any team that's gotten to where Indiana has gotten, you don't look at their record, you look at how they're playing now, how they play. Any time a team plays team defense like they do, they have a chance to beat anybody. They proved that last night. They took out a very good Oklahoma team. That's what concerns me the most, their ability to play together as a unit. A lot of times you can play with anybody when you play that close together like they do.

JUAN DIXON: Just basically what coach said. We've been a top seed basically all season long, besides a couple games. But we stayed strong all season long to try to get to this point. Hopefully we can stick together for one more game. Indiana, they're a great team. They've been underdogs all tournament long. We can't count them out, underestimate them. Hopefully we can start out strong tomorrow, not like last night, give a complete effort for 40 minutes, try to get the win.

JUAN DIXON: Our goal was just to try to make it here. We weren't going to worry about any other teams, Duke, Oklahoma, the teams we lost to in the past. We just tried to get to this point. We took it one game at a time all season long. Hopefully we can go out there and perform well. Like I say, Indiana is a great team. They are going to come ready to play tomorrow. A lot on the line. Let the best team win. I'm sure we're going to give a great effort tomorrow and hopefully we can win.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, in our league, my first 10, 11 years, there was always two teams ranked in the Top 5 in the country. We had to fight our way to get up there to compete with Duke and North Carolina. We always had that since I got the job in '89. But now in our league, we feel we're pretty near on equal footing in those situations. We had the handle for the first time this year being the hunted. I thought our guys did a great job of that. As Juan said, we were only underdog a couple games all year. We've learned a lot from that, about how tough it is to play that role as opposed to being the team that's really fired up each time they go out because you have something to gain if you do win instead of just defending where you are. But when you get to this point, in my mind, that other question about who we're playing, we're going to prepare as hard as we can for this game. We happen to be playing Indiana. You're playing for the National Championship. There's no more that we would do for anybody else than what we'll do for Indiana tomorrow night.

CHRIS WILCOX: Thanks for the question (smiling). I mean, me coming to Maryland, it was a lot of things that I looked at. The coaches were great. He knows how to win games. That's what I came here for, just have us get to the point we are now. He's a very intense coach. Sometimes we need that to be a better team. I appreciate him for just coming very intense in games. He helps us out during the long run.

STEVE BLAKE: His intensity was not a shock to me. I had a high school coach that was pretty intense just like Coach Williams. I think I know how to handle it sometimes. He gives it to me pretty good, but it's all right. We enjoy it (laughter).

BYRON MOUTON: Coming in my first year, I wouldn't be able to play. Like I tell everybody, the first game that we had, coach came and yelled at me, I wasn't even dressing out. I call home, told them coach yelled at me, I'm not even playing (laughter). I'm just so excited because when a coach is like that, always involved, you know you are going to have a great time with him because he's always getting our guys motivated, ready to play. When you got a coach like that, you always have a chance to win.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, we stay together because they like me so much, they didn't want to leave (smiling). But when you look at this senior class, they've done things no one else has done at Maryland. To me, they're the best senior group because of what they've done. The facts are there. I would think this is the best senior group. I think with each guy, the seniors, Byron transferred in from Tulane, so he got in a little late. With Lonny and Juan, they've both used the four years as a chance to really enjoy playing good basketball against good competition. We've always tried to schedule really good teams. Winning I think is something that you can't go get, no matter how successful you are in life, once you leave college, it's a great feeling to win because I've been on both sides of that. I think they enjoy that situation. They're mature people. They realize that college is a limited number of years. Whatever basketball holds for them after college, it's going to be there. They've only improved their situation by staying the four years.

LONNY BAXTER: It's just been a great time for me at the University of Maryland, just coming a long ways. A lot of people didn't expect me to be even playing at the University of Maryland. Coach took a chance with me, recruiting me, even though I wasn't highly recruited. I just learned a lot from him. His intensity, making me work hard every day in practice. You know, that's one of the main reasons, just why we're so good, is the way he coaches, his intensity. The three seniors we have, we just play intense every night out, just because of the way coach coaches us.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I always measure players with how they make the other players play, how they fit in, given that Juan is a scorer, can he still fit into the team, all those things. Just given the number of games we've won in Juan's four years, the other seniors, the fact that getting to two Final Fours, I wasn't fortunate to coach Len Bias. I saw him play, he was a great player. I think Juan is as good as anyone that's ever played at the University of Maryland.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I look at who we played to get here. We played Kentucky, with their tradition, Connecticut with their tradition, since Jim Calhoun has been there, then Kansas with their tradition. We're trying to establish ourselves, our program probably hasn't been as smooth as a lot of those other programs. We've had some ups and downs. As we go along here, I think we're establishing our own tradition.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, by last year I knew these guys sitting up here pretty well. I knew that we weren't satisfied with what happened in the Final Four last year. So it's hard as you get older in the program to regroup after something like that. I think if you're young, freshman or something like that, you might be able to take that a little better because when you're a veteran, you think that might be the one shot we had, I have to do all that weightlifting again all summer, everything we do in the fall running-wise and things like that to get ready to play. These guys never wavered. You could tell the first day of practice the intent of this team. There's no guarantees that you put all that time in that things are going to work out this way. You know, there's not going to work out this way unless you do that. These guys were willing to do whatever it took to get here.

BYRON MOUTON: Well, he's having a great tournament. I feel this is his last go-around. We always talk about it, the three seniors. We just want to go out in style. I think our chance is more than ever right now because we have a very talented team. We feel this is our year. We're going to do whatever it takes. He just feels all the stuff he went through, all the stuff he's been going through, last time around, he just wants to do is on his senior year.

LONNY BAXTER: I'm just really focused on, you know, beating a good Indiana team. I mean, like I said last year, our goals were set just to win the National Championship. Tomorrow we're just going to come out and give it our best shot. Everybody is going to play hard. It's just going to be the best game we played so far.

JUAN DIXON: For me it was just something I was waiting to happen. I saw it in Chris when he first stepped foot on campus. When we started playing pick-up games, I guess the pre-season of his freshman year, you could see how talented the kid was. I mean, but it's all about Chris getting better, working hard, not being satisfied. Chris has stepped up each day this season, man. He's gotten better for this team. Once he was put in the starting lineup for good, he's been getting better. He's been stepping up for us in big games. Hopefully he can step up for one more game tomorrow night and go out there and play hard. He has a tough challenge because Jared Jeffries is a great player. I'm sure Chris will come ready to play.

BYRON MOUTON: My deal with Chris, between this year and last year, is playing time. I always talk to Chris, this kid is going to be a great player. The difference for Chris from this year to last year is playing time. Once you get the experience. You can look at Chris from the first game, what he started, coach yanked him and started Tahj, you can look at him now, he's playing so well, blocking shots, rebounding, running the court real well. That's the difference between this year's Chris and last year's Chris.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, when I first took over, there was so much to do, you really -- I mean, I was trying to do a lot of things there, mend a lot of fences that had been torn down for the previous five or six years. It really kept you busy, so I was just trying to get the program into a position where you could survive in the ACC. The problem is you get on the bottom of that league, it's hard to leapfrog teams because everybody has good basketball tradition. There's only nine teams, so everybody takes it seriously. It's not a football conference, it's mainly a basketball conference. What we had to do was get to the level where you could compete night in and night out. You play everybody twice, so you're not going to hide from anybody. You had to figure out a way to get into the upper division if you ever wanted to make the NCAA tournament. We were very fortunate the second year after the sanctions to have Keith Booth and Joe Smith as freshmen playing for us.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: With Indiana's size, I say they look more like Wake Forest. Wake Forest had a very physical frontline. But Songalia, Scott, people like that, they have the skills that Indiana has. They were very difficult to play against. So I see a little bit of that. Wake Forest had some guys who could really shoot the three, just like Indiana. They had the combination of the inside and the outside game.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, he took a chance on me, too. Works both ways. I saw Juan play, the first time I saw him play, he wanted to win. That was the thing. He was called too small to play in the ACC. That was the big thing. Especially locally, all the talk shows and everything. But Juan has this winning thing that has helped him both on and off the court. You can't get too many guys into your program with that attitude because you look at our three seniors right here, I don't think I've ever had a group of seniors that wanted to win more than these guys. It's reflected through the team. As a young guy comes into the program, they feel that, and it really helps me as the coach. Once you get people caring enough about the team, they have to be talented, but they also have to have that caring for us to be as good as we are right now.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I'm a slow learner, I admit it (smiling). I usually figure things out after a while. The best thing that happened to me was staying at Maryland. I was never at a place more than four years. I can see now it gets somewhat easier the longer you stay at a program, if it's a good basketball program, good school, that type of thing. So that's helped. But, you know, you get better as a coach, too. You learn more. The game is a great game. There's always something to learn. You never reach a point where you think you know everything. You just try to get better every year. When you have seniors, you have a chance to learn your players better, too. I think that's very important.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I think Juan, that second part is really true, Juan has been a catalyst. If you look at our team, I think we have really good parts. In other words, the other guys really do a great job of getting Juan the ball when he's open, for instance, of playing good enough defense where we can break some things loose because Juan is very good in transition. It's a combination of things that allows Juan to do what he does. He's obviously a great player, and he can do some things. Also getting the ball in the right situation is very important. The other guys here have a lot to do with that.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, I don't know. Kansas has too much pride. They're too good of a team. Nobody is going to beat them by 20. That's just the way it is. We're similar teams in that we get runs of points pretty quickly. We had a couple good runs. Kansas had a couple at the start of the game, end of the game. As far as how that affects tomorrow night, in this situation, once you win that game, you put that behind you completely, now you just prepare, you do everything you can. You'd have to do the same thing whether you won by a lot or whether it went the way it did last night. I don't think it really has a lot to do with how we play tomorrow night. We're going to have to play a great game, and we understand that.

STEVE BLAKE: Not at all. Just going to play the way I always played. Played solid defense. Offensively play the same game. His ankle looked fine last game I saw yesterday. So I don't think it will change the game plan at all.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, first of all, you're a good bench if they're talented players. You can't put them in unless they can keep the team where it is or even improve thing. With Lonny's foul trouble last night, and Tahj's ability to come in, Randle's ability to play 15 minutes last night helped us, and of course Drew Nicholas has been very important because we can play him at three positions out there on the court. Those guys know they have a role. By this time of the year they know their role, just line Indiana's bench does. Our guys have really come through for us at times this year when we've had problems early in games. Hopefully that will be our constant tomorrow night, also.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: Well, I just worry about what we do. We'll do some things today. I was going to go three hours, but our seniors talked me out of it, so we'll just walk through some things, you know, really have a good mental practice today. But, each coach has to do what's best for his team.

COACH GARY WILLIAMS: I have work to do on Indiana. If I really knew one key, I'm not sure I'd put it out there. I'd probably keep that a secret for a while. You look at Indiana, they've been successful as a 3-point shooting team, but they've had games where they haven't shot the three and won against some good teams. I think one of the keys with them is their defense, can we attack their defense. Oklahoma really struggled with that last night. Hopefully we can do a better job. Obviously that really impressed us, Indiana's ability to play drop-back team defense.

JUAN DIXON: Well, I'm just going to go out there and play my game like I've been all year long, just go out there and be aggressive, just try to keep the pressure on him. The more I attack on the offense, he's not going to be able to talk on the offensive end against us. He's a great player. He's a big guy. He's going to go out there. I guess his job tomorrow is probably to go out there and try to stop me. We have a lot of guys on our team that is capable of putting up big numbers. I'm not going to go out there and try to shoot 20, 25 times. I'm going to go out there and do whatever it takes to win. If I have a good shooting night, I do. If not, I'll try to do other things to help my team win the game tomorrow.

LONNY BAXTER: I think I was a little over-aggressive in some situations. I should have backed off. But I was just playing my game. I play a physical game. Hopefully tomorrow I won't get in that foul trouble if I just play smart and get in the right position to move my feet.

BYRON MOUTON: Well, no one have no idea they know they going to get there. I think our main thing is we work hard, we work hard all season, we got here. Our main thing was just to get to the Final Four and just prove to everybody we are capable of doing it two years in a row. I tell the guys, "When we get here, whatever happens happens." Fortunately we're playing for the National Championship. You know, being a senior is great, man. Everybody wants to play for a National Championship. Some people don't even make the NCAA tournament. I'm fortunate enough to be able to play for a National Championship.

JUAN DIXON: Well, I think any senior throughout the country would want the opportunity to go out and playing in the National Championship game. This is something that us three, including Earl Badu, has worked hard for, trying to get to this point. We have a great opportunity to do something special. Hopefully we can go out there and perform well, hopefully guys can stay focused for one more night, get their rest, hopefully we can win the game tomorrow.

LONNY BAXTER: I kind of knew since last year, with the success we had, everything we went through, that we would be here in this National Championship game. That was our goal. We just kept shooting for it. We believed the whole time that we would, and now here we are.