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

March 24, 2005

Andrew Bogut

Ray Giacoletti

Marc Jackson

COACH GIACOLETTI: We're very excited to be here. It is a great opportunity to have a chance to not only win games s last weekend in the NCAA tournament, but a chance to play in the second weekend. A lot of has been made of the Kentucky team. It doesn't matter who it is, you have got to play someone. With the background of Utah and Kentucky, I know this week a lot of has been made of it. Most of us weren't here through any of the last five games, so kind of, I think, it is a new era for the Kentucky players, our staff and our program. So, obviously we're excited and going to hopefully give a great effort on Friday.

COACH GIACOLETTI: I didn't have to convince him at all. I was just telling Bonnie, the day I was announced at Utah, he was in the compliance office trying to figure out what he had to do to get a year back. That weekend it took me a couple of days to get his phone number. The following week we had a chance to talk three times. Before he talked with our staff, he went and talked to the players about him coming back. I thought that showed lot of character to have visited with our team before the staff. The one thing I remember about Utah basketball was this tough little guy that played the game with so much passion. Until I got the job I didn't realize he had a year left.

COACH GIACOLETTI: As far as him as a person?

COACH GIACOLETTI: I think he as skilled a big guy as I have ever seen. Most times when people think of international players, they think they are skilled but soft. Andrew is not soft. He has got a Croation background. He has got great toughness. You put that combination together with skill and toughness, you end up with a best player in college basketball.

COACH GIACOLETTI: I think Kentucky is more athletic then we are, and deeper than we are. Tubby Smith has played 13 kids in 25 games this year. But it doesn't matter. It is a 40 minute game and it is a one shot opportunity. It is not the best of three or whatever it may be. We have to play a certain style to be competitive and give us a chance to be successful at the end. If we're able to do that, great, if not -- we'll advance and go on, or lose and go home.

COACH GIACOLETTI: He seems like the glue to that team. He is versatile. He can guard four different players on the floor. Offensively it is the same thing. He is the guy on a smaller player that is going to take you to the post and post you up. As a bigger guy he can shoot the basketball. He is skilled enough to get to the basket. He seems to be ahead of the team and the glue to it.

COACH GIACOLETTI: Our staff had five weeks to develop a relationship with Andrew before the school was out. He was going right to the Olympic training facility. Our focus was to build a relationship with him, not ask him what you are going to do, not pester him. We did that through individual work. He had two hours a week with the NCAA rules. I asked him just stop by the office for five minutes a day, just get to know them as people. When I went down there, it was more than just to visit. I had talked a number of times with his mom and dad on the phone. I thought it would be appropriate to sit down face-to-face to talk about what we wanted to do. We wanted to help Andrew reach his goals. We had dinner and it was very casual. There wasn't a whole lot of trying to talk anybody into anything. At the end, Andrew said he would be back. The one thing that was different with kids in the America and family in America, and people in Europe, their words are gold. They had lot of different opportunities to go back on their word; they didn't. I think they are rewarded for it now.

COACH GIACOLETTI: I'm not sure how I fit in with them. I'm excited to be here. I worked for Bob Bender for five years. He was one of the first assistants for Krzyzewski more many years. There is some association there. Tubby Smith was head at Tulsa for a couple of years. I am probably the odd man out in the whole mess.

COACH GIACOLETTI: It would have used our entire budget at Eastern Washington. Thank God for Utah having a bigger budget. The trip back was a good trip knowing that Andrew was going to come back. Right now you would do it all again if you had the chance to be 29 and 5, and playing in the Sweet 16. We had to do what we thought was best. It was the right thing to do.

COACH GIACOLETTI: I think he is a great defender. He is a consistent point guard, and really makes others play better. We need to do a good job of containing his penetration. Guard play for us this whole year is kind of when we have been good on the perimeter, we have been better as a team. Sparks is a guy that concerns me. When he has gotten it going from threes, it made their team that much better. We're going to start with those two guys. Try to get Rajon contained in the transition so that he doesn't get easy things to the basket, and be able to find people like he has done.

COACH GIACOLETTI: I just deal with reality. Trying to do the best we can. We have signed five years and one was the best in the state of Utah. We try to deal with that problem when it gets here. Right now our problem is Kentucky and the present. Expectations? I wouldn't have taken the job with no expectations. Coach Majerus will live on in history at Utah. We can only do the best we can and lay your head on the pillow at night. If it is good enough, great, if not, we did our best.

COACH GIACOLETTI: The first people he went and visited with was his teammates. The only thing I asked him was just to tell me about why you walked away, and we kept that confidential. And two, that it would be a clean slate. We met three times before we agreed upon some things. It worked. I needed to talk to the players after I met with Marc a couple of times. He had already taken care of that and done a great job with it. It was a smooth transition.

COACH GIACOLETTI: The only thing we had to judge was from film all year. After he made the decision to come back, I went over to work with him, and that was first time I saw just how good he could be. Individual work you saw he was skilled, and he could shoot the ball better. He was more skilled than you saw on tape. In the Olympics you saw a 19 year-old that had toughness, playing against the world's best men. I remember they played the Greeks in a hostile environment with 12,000 people jammed in this little gym. They were serving alcohol; it was crazy. The 30 year old Greek center just chucked Andrew in the chest. I said, let's see what the 19 year old is going to do. He made a statement by chucking him back. The youngest person participating in the basketball side of the venue wasn't going to be bullied or pushed around much. He ended up having a great tournament. That is when I thought we had something special.

ANDREW BOGUT: I would just like to meet him because he is my idol, you know. I'd like to see the way he worked, like to work out with him for a day. Just to see what types of things he goes through in a day. I know he works out from 9:00 to 5:00, and works his butt off every day. That is something I admired growing up. I have been through some of the same things he has. He got cut from a couple of teams as a kid. That would be my ideal if I met him.

ANDREW BOGUT: Yeah.

MARC JACKSON: For the thing with COACH Giacoletti, I don't think it was going to be him. I didn't know who he was. He called me and he kind of talked for a couple of weeks and figured some things out. You know, there wasn't much said to convince me to come back. I was waiting for Bogut's decision to see what he was doing. You know, I wanted to make the best situation happen if he came back. That made things happen a lot quicker. It was just one of those things that we were both, you know, trying to see if we will be able to work it out academically, and things did. So there really wasn't much said.

ANDREW BOGUT: I was just playing my man. It wasn't something personal or anything like that. I wasn't trying to prove a point. I was just playing. I get pretty fired up in a game situation than in a practice. That's just my ball playing, the way I play.

MARC JACKSON: For most of part it was pretty good. Definitely there was some individual comments that were made. Me and Tim Drisdom, we had a prior relationship that was very good, and I talked to him and asked how things were, you know, and what his feelings were if I came back. Everything was pretty much on the same page. There was no bad feelings. We had a meeting and talked about things that happened in the past. We moved on and definitely we were more joined as a team this year.

ANDREW BOGUT: Not really. NCAA basketball is not big overseas at all. I didn't even know about the Mountain West Conference or how the tournament works. Coming over here you obviously heard about them. The media loves them. Kentucky is a pretty big name. Obviously, there is whole series we played with them. We haven't beaten them in a while, and blah-blah blah. We have to come back and play basketball. We don't care what is written on their shirts.

MARC JACKSON: It could be different because of the guy on the right of me. Two years ago we didn't have that. Our team is fresh. We are still fresh at this point in the year. We weren't here two years ago. It is one of those things. They do have the name Kentucky. They are a different team, and we are a different team. We are playing well right now. We have a lot of confidence. We have got a good game plan. We have to execute.

ANDREW BOGUT: The two biggest factors were I would have to learn a whole new language. Being further away from my family, and not being able to speak English and so on. Obviously the situation was good. It was a fresh start for me. It was a fresh start for the guys. I knew he would bring a new confidence to the guys. In the summer before I went home I knew what the Coach was impressed with me. He came to visit me in Australia. That was the bottom line.

ANDREW BOGUT: Somebody asked me about it three minutes ago. It definitely developed me a hundred percent. It puts you in a situation where you are playing basketball every day. You may get Sundays off. You wake up in the morning with a shooting session. I go to my high school on a school bus. The rest of the athletes go to the high school and come back, lift weights, eat lunch, come back after that. You have study hall when you are in high school. It taught me the professionalism that comes with the game. Obviously now the media hype and stuff, so on and so on.

ANDREW BOGUT: Definitely. Hopefully we're taking it game by game, then we'll think about what is lying ahead. We don't want to put ourselves in that situation. If we can play good basketball this next game -- if we win that, we will be thinking that the Final Four. Obviously in the past couple of weeks we won the regular season conference. New Mexico got the win and that was a big factor.

ANDREW BOGUT: I'm not intimidated really. I was intimidated as a kid. It is a challenge going against players that are better than me. It is part of the game. I love doing it. The fact that we watches it from overseas didn't effect me either.

MARC JACKSON: Obviously that is why there are 16 teams here. We have worked hard. People didn't chose us. It's one of those things. We don't have any pressure on us. You know, we would like to burst their bubbles. That is one thing of being an underdog, I guess. It is one of things that is enjoyable about this game.

ANDREW BOGUT: Not really. I heard a lot about him and the way he played when I was being recruited. It was a big factor to go there. I don't know if I was missing out on something. We obviously clashed a couple of times this year. We had some scuffles. He remembers that. I was pretty firey. We would get over it the next day. He is great to play with. Without him we wouldn't be here today.

MARC JACKSON: Having him down low is definitely a big advantage for us guards. When we threw it in there teams have to prepare for a double team or triple team. It makes our shot a lot better. Our percentages have gone up because of that. Having a big man that can pass out of a double and triple team makes it easy for the cutters or field guy to shot the jumper. Makes the game a lot more simpler.

MARC JACKSON: The first time, you know, like Andrew said, he is not very intimidated by people. You know, I am the same way. I am very competitive. I like the challenge. I like that higher status that Kentucky play brings in. I came off the bench two years ago. I told myself I was going to be aggressive and let the game come to me. Same thing this year. Let the game come to me. Andrew makes things easier on us. It will be a very fun game because, you know, they have to prepare for us a lot more than what they did two years ago.

MARC JACKSON: I didn't know I was going to have an opportunity. When I got that phone call from Coach Giacoletti that was a surprise. I knew he got the job. It was just one of those things I consider a blessing. I don't think I would have the opportunity to come back. It has been more than I imagined. Coach Giacoletti and I, we always talk about it. We have done this much; we can't break it.