NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: AUSTIN

March 24, 2005

Kelenna Azubuike

Chuck Hayes

Tubby Smith

CHUCK HAYES: My little brother, Thaddeus? That is different. That is my heart. Matter of fact, he will be here at the game this weekend. I mean, whenever I see him, I see myself, and I mean, when I am around him, I have no choice but to smile. My little brother, he is close to me.

CHUCK HAYES: I don't know what it is. I can't say it is the way I play. The fans, the way how Coach appreciates it. I can say it is a lot of luck. I can say the fact that I am two thousand miles a way from home so they embrace me real well. I think it is a combination of a lot of things. I don't think I am a favorite. He gets on me like everybody else.

KELENNA AZUBUIKE: Coach has embraced him as a son.

KELENNA AZUBUIKE: Basically, if he gets to it -- we are going to try to limit his touches, but if he gets to it we have got to rotate to the other guys to try not to let him get cuts to the basket. Basically, everybody rotates well and talks and communicates.

KELENNA AZUBUIKE: I think we are playing good. I think each game we continue to get better. I still don't think we are playing our best. I think we can play a lot better. I am playing well. I have been trying to be as aggressive as possible. Still trying to be smart, try to help each other be a leader and talk to the guys and just be on the same page as everybody. Stay aggressive and play our role.

CHUCK HAYES: We're grateful enough to have one of the three coaches here with the championship. I mean, Coach Smith, he has been to the Final Four. He has won at every level. His record in March is outstanding. Coach K and his program are getting a lot of attention, but we also have a great coach over here in Lexington.

CHUCK HAYES: I don't feel no pressure. I am pretty sure the rest of the team doesn't. I don't see where the pressure comes from. Right now we are playing really well. We just came off a big game with Cincinnati. We are going into the game just like they are.

CHUCK HAYES: That is definitely a goal for this team. We had an opportunity to reach that in Atlanta but came up short, so, I mean, I'm looking for it, I am sure Kelenna is. If we play the way we like to, we definitely have a chance to cut down nets.

CHUCK HAYES: Have I thought about it?

CHUCK HAYES: We're not paying attention to the next game, just Utah. It is no secret, unless we find out we are in the same region -- and everybody knows this is one of the greatest games ever. Right now we are focused on the Utah and how we will limit Bogut's touches.

CHUCK HAYES: The guy, he looks long. He is very big on TV. He is very fundamentally stout. He has a nice touch around the basket. One thing he has been getting credit for is his passing out of the post in the last two games that we watched they played in the tournament. The big guy, he can pass. He is very unselfish. It will definitely be a challenge for us.

CHUCK HAYES: That is in the past. That is a different group of players on both sides. They have a new coach. It is a totally different system right now. It is anybody's ball game.

CHUCK HAYES: Just a inside joke. He is a comedian right now. He is just whispering stuff to me as I am talking.

KELENNA AZUBUIKE: I am serious.

CHUCK HAYES: No. Media.

CHUCK HAYES: Yeah.

CHUCK HAYES: I don't know. They are in the Mountain West. I am not sure if they have a player like that. But the guy, he is a first team all American. He last seen double-double all year and still put up the numbers he has. I am pretty sure he is expecting it. We have to rotate and get to the open man.

COACH SMITH: Fond memories. Obviously winning the national championship is something you don't do -- we haven't done it that often. You reminisce about all the players. You reminisce about us coming from behind, being down by ten at halftime. It was a great effort on our team's part to come back and get that way. You know, being in Texas a lot of things have similarities. Being here now we appreciate Austin hosting this. It is a beautiful town, beautiful city. I have been here a few times in the past. Coming back to Texas at this point in time in my career and with the team, another team with the Wildcats, is really like deja vu. That is what it seems like.

COACH SMITH: You see a pro. You Andrew Bogut's ability level and skill level is agreement. You try to work as hard as you can to make him work. Given a lot of different looks, he has a lot of talent to go with it. Marc and some of the guys will do the same thing. The ball has to go to the goal when you have as many double-doubles as he has, as consistent as he is. It is not -- again, it is not going to be easy. When we play a style that we play, the trapping style, you know, I think again, you can't give them one strict diet of doing things. You have to change it up to make him take more time to find people open.

COACH SMITH: Sometimes it is the rules. The shot clock has been a part of it. The three point shooting has been a part of it. A lot of change in college basketball over the years. The different defensive special defenses that have been employed to a post player. I think the widening of the plain. Obviously a few years ago it wasn't as wide. Those are some of the things that have taken place over the years. Abilities of the athletes, the big players. They have been pretty mobile. The style of play. A lot of people don't think that people play a up tempo style, that teams always look to go run. Some of your post people have to be willing and able to get up and down the court. That is what you appreciate about Andrew. He can get up and down the court. He can face the basket and shoot, dribble, you know, just multi-talented, multifaceted. It has been a big reason why the post people have evolved the way they have.

COACH SMITH: Most of them left during high school. I think because he came from Australia, their style of play is very close to the way we play. They play -- Australian basketball is -- having been down there with the team in 2000, he is a typical of a lot of players that come from that country and how they play. They play aggressively. They play physical. He has got that in his game. The physicality of it. The aggressiveness, attacking the basket, so, that is it. I lost my train of thought that. I hope I answered it.

COACH SMITH: I call him a servant. He is always willing to give of himself. He is not a taker, his a giver. He is a contender, not a pretender. He is a guy when you see him, he is well-rounded in that he has a lot of virtues and characteristics that any parent would want in their son or child. Obedient, caring, trusting, hard-working. He leads by example on and off the basketball court. When you can look up to someone like that, whether you are a new to the team or whether you are first meeting him, he has a way of embracing you or attracting people to him and drawing people to him. He is very accessible, willingness to talk to people. Just to go out of his way, the things he does in our community and around the school and with that. Those are things that you can't teach. Those are things that you obviously learn a long time with his parents and in his upbringing as going to school at Modesto Christian.

COACH SMITH: We tried to recruit or get involved with him about three years ago. We felt like we needed a post player. We did some vision and some -- I never regularly had a chance to watch him play until he got to the states and that was after he got to Utah.

COACH SMITH: Well, difference is you are playing your players obviously with four freshman. They never played long in their lives. Usually they are down with their scholastic gains and getting ready for all star games. That is one difference. You know, I guess the sheer onslaught of coverage, media coverage, we get quite a bit of it at Kentucky. It is a lot different when you get to this stage. It is fun because you are measuring yourself against types that you watch during the course of the season. I know from the coaching standpoint, our players obviously get excited about it. It is the greatest timing of year for college sports. March Madness gets everybody excited.

COACH SMITH: I don't know how much of a factor it is. That is just our style. That is the way we have coached all year long. I think our players here have been coached to go a certain amount of time and certain level of intensity and then we try to keep that intensity level. We usually try to bring in fresh people, fresh players. In the game against Cincinnati we played I think 13 players in the first half. In the end in the second half we probably went with guys that played longer, Chuck and Rajon and Kelenna. They didn't come out much in the second half. It is usually a game to game feel. Once you get in tournament play it is a one game tournament, things are not working, you try something different. That is the way I operate. I don't have the luxury of -- we had a different talents. They are not all in that one player. Like Utah, they have it all in one -- I have been impressed with a guy like Andrew. You never want to take him out of the game. He can beat you offensively, defensively, passing the ball. Not that we don't have a talented group of guys. In our starting line-up, our veteran players, Kelenna, Chuck and Patrick, they have been through the wars. They are very studious and very knowledgeable players that under our system do extremely well. Randolph Morris has become a lot more mature and a lot more -- he has more experience. He is staying out of trouble. Rajon is growing up and showing great floor leadership. We come off the bench with some veteran people. Sheray Thomas overcame surgery earlier in the year. Bobby Perry, Shagari. All our guys, Ravi Moss have been guys that have given us solid play from day one. I coach that way. If a guy is on the team he is on there for a reason. I think they should be able to contribute. I try to find opportunities for them to play.

COACH SMITH: We have one team left playing. This wasn't a down year for us. We competed with some very solid players. I think there were some injuries throughout the season that hampered some teams. I look back at Mississippi State. Once you get to this level you have got to come with some real intensity and also the experience of having been here before through coach, staff or players. I think our conference is still relatively young when you look at the players on the different teams throughout the SEC. We think about the teams in this NCAA tournament. You are looking at who we have to compete with next year. Everybody is back at LSU, all their front court people. Teams like Vanderbilt has everybody back. A lot of people have a lot of people back. Florida has people back. When you say down year, I don't see it as a down year at all. Everybody goes through some cycles. Sometimes you have more veteran players than others. I think it is a year where we have a lot of young players.

COACH SMITH: I don't know. I guess he has had more access to probably -- just because of talent; God given talent. God doesn't just give talent to American players, he gives it to everybody.

COACH SMITH: I don't have any comment about that. You ask me is there a distraction, is that what you said?

COACH SMITH: No, I don't. I don't really pay much attention to what people think. I am too worried about -- hard for me to understand. I am thinking about our team and keeping us focused on our goals. So, I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about that.

COACH SMITH: You don't have a whole lot of team. We were off a few days. We play Saturday, we took a day and a half off there. Our players really didn't start concentrating and focusing on Andrew Bogut and Utah. We don't focus on Andrew. We focus on the Utes. That is what we focus on. We know it is five on five or 15 on 15. It is not necessarily Andrew Bogut against so and so. It is a team effort. I am sure that they feel the same way. They play that way. He is very talented player. We have many ways of dealing with it in a player like a veteran player. He has been a real key to their success. You have got to have that type of leadership. You have other people that I mentioned here that are doing a tremendous job for them. I really am impressed with what Ray Giacoletti has done. I remember when he was at Illinois State with Bob Bender and in the Missouri Valley conference at Tulsa. You know he was going to be a great coach.

COACH SMITH: Outstanding. He is playing with a lot of confidence. He is really developed into a go-to guy. He has been there all along. He is one of our best on the team. You know, I look at what he is doing defensively. That is where he is probably improved most over the last year or so. His rebounding. Again, he is regularly taking the challenge. He is playing a lot more relaxed than he was earlier in the season for a lot of reasons. The main reason I think we have peaked at the right time is because of his play. He has played well over the last month or so not just during the tournament.