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NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: ATLANTAMarch 22, 2006John BradyGlen DavisDarrel MitchellATLANTA, GEORGIA COACH JOHN BRADY: We're looking forward to our game tomorrow night. It is a great opportunity for our team. We have had a really fine season at this point. We have done it with some young players. And we're excited about the opportunity. We'll see how we play. We played a number-one-ranked team before this year in Connecticut and played them pretty well earlier in the year at Hartford. Duke presents a different challenge, with some different ways they score the ball. They are very good defensively but our team is excited about the challenge and we're looking forward to playing the game. Q. Of the 48 games so far 10 of them have ended with teams beating opponents that were seeded anywhere from 5 to 12 spots higher. Is this the year of the upset? COACH JOHN BRADY: Well, I think each year brings its own Cinderella types of teams. I don't know if this is the year or not, but I do think there is some parity within college basketball, particularly on one given game night. And a lot of times -- I don't know if it's true for the OVC teams that are in the tournament now, but a lot of times those teams are pretty good because they are playing the senior laden teams, they have seniors on their teams. Some cases fifth year seniors that make up those clubs. I think experience along with good talent can make for a good basketball team, particularly as well coached as some of the mid majors are. I think any given night, any good college basketball team can beat another one, particularly in a tournament situation. Our particular team is quite young and, you know, Northern Iowa came to our place earlier in the year beat us by one or two. Very well coached, experienced team. So it's not surprising -- sometimes your fans don't understand that (laughs), but coaches do, and I think that's what you are seeing now. There's good players all over the country, some of the mid major so-called schools are playing with some experienced players and they are very well coached. I think on any given night a team can win a game if you don't respect the team as you should, play as good as your particular team possibly can. Q. Last week in Jacksonville you spoke about how your team's approach is kind of refreshing and kind of given you a different outlook on things a little bit. I noticed A&M game during timeout in the second half where it was pretty tense, one of your guys said something to you, you were trying to -- talk about how this team has been to coach this year and how it's changed you? COACH JOHN BRADY: I guess my approach -- when you turn 50 you look at a lot of things differently. This team is very close -- they take a lot of things in stride, even when we were 8 and 5 early on, we lost to some really good basketball teams. Even as young as we are, our team never got discouraged about what was going on. I made a point to be extremely positive with this team because of our youth. I wasn't going to have confrontations or challenge them in a way that would create a confrontation. We decided early on to be extremely positive. Our team has responded to that. We do have a none-serious approach, even with youth. That's usually -- usually seniors and experienced teams handle stressful situations probably better than young teams, but this team, even though it is young, we have the one senior Darrel Mitchell, our whole team attitude and approach has really been quite positive. And when you meet our guys, if you ever talked to them, you will see there's nothing sacred in our locker room. They make light of about everything that comes along, not in a disrespectful way but in a positive if you know which. It's really helped me. When the shot doesn't go in at Connecticut to win the game or you squander early in the season, a 10 point lead at Ohio State, you lose a game by two on a three-pointer, our team has handled those things quite well in spite of its youth. I think now we have grown to the point where we do have experience even though we're still young and we'll see. We have another big challenge tomorrow night and we'll just see how we play. Q. Pitcher going against Randy Johnson knows he's going to have to pitch a pretty good game because the other guy isn't going to give up much. If you are going in against Mike Krzyzewski, Mr. American Express, do you think -- I really better be on my game tomorrow night or we're not going to have a chance? COACH JOHN BRADY: I did look at ESPN and I looked at -- they did flash Mike Krzyzewski's tournament resume against mine. It did dwarf mine a little bit. But certainly didn't intimidate me any. He just had some opportunities I suppose and some different situations. I totally respect what he's done and what that program is about. At the same time, we have beaten at LSU a sitting number one in Lute Olsen. He's pretty good. We have played Connecticut to one this year at Hartford and had a shot to beat them. And Jim Calhoun is pretty good. We have a guy in our league named Tubby Smith that's not bad, another one named Billy Donovan that's pretty good. In due respect to Coach Krzyzewski and his team, we have played against some good coaches and some other mighty fine programs and have been able to win a few of those games along the way. Now this is a different setting. You are in the Sweet 16 now. It's not like a regular season game, but going back to our team's approach, it certainly has been encouraging the way our team has handled the success that we have had and also have handled the adversity that we have had and we're just excited to play the game. Knowing we have to do certain things extremely well in order to win the game, and I have tried to deflect the matchups of a particular players, I have been asked a lot about Glen and Shelden Williams matchup you just asked me about coaching against Mike Krzyzewski. It's really about the LSU team and if our team doesn't do things collectively very well, in terms of running good offense and executing and playing outstanding team defense, because of all the situations that can occur when you are trying to guard Redick, he can create other opportunities for his players when you put a defensive emphasis on him. If we don't guard collectively and do a good job from a team defensive standpoint regardless of who is matching up against who, the game won't go our way. I have tried to stress to our team that it's not about individual matchups or coaching matchup as much it is about our team playing the best that it possibly can on both ends of the floor. Q. Do you think that college basketball players in particular should get more in a scholarship than what they are getting they are getting now, full cost of what it is, and do you know of any scholarship athletes who kind of struggle to make ends meet with what they are given? COACH JOHN BRADY: Well, I don't know what that has to do with our game tomorrow night. I am for supporting the college athlete in any way that's possible. That's a so open-ended question you talk about giving them some stipends, and do you just give men's basketball and go to men's football and go to women's basketball and after a while you add up the dollars that that's going to cost -- it makes -- it already makes an expensive athletic budget more expensive. So I don't know the answers to all that. But I know from my individual players I am for supporting them in any way that's possible to make college life more meaningful for them in whatever ways that we can decide to do that where it doesn't put a very difficult financial strain on institutions I am for that. Q. With all the talk about star power in NCAA tournaments defense is kind of lost and forgotten about, what is your philosophy on defense and the tournament, is it any different, more important maybe, and on teaching defense to kids, is that something that can be learned or is it more natural -- COACH JOHN BRADY: I have always -- since I have been at LSU, we have always been about defending and rebounding because on different nights the offense can come and go regardless of the offensive scheme you may run or have drawn up. Shooting the ball is a tough, difficult thing. That's what makes Redick so special because he's so consistently can make shots guarded from three-point line or better distance. But our team -- I feel like defending and rebounding is all about effort and if you are a good athlete you can defend if demand is placed on you and you are held accountable for doing that and you can rebound. There's been good rebounding teams that aren't tall or athletic but they understand how to find their man and block them out and keep them off the board. I think every night it in the NCAA tournament you can certainly defend. I don't know if every night you can shoot the ball as you would like. I think a team that can defend consistently for extended periods of time and then once you complete the defensive possession by making the other team miss finish it off by rebounding the ball, I think those teams consistently have a chance. I always thought that you can sell your team on defending that it breeds unselfishness throughout your team. Players by nature think of offense because how many players do you know that go into a gym with a ball and work on their defensive slides? The first thing a player goes, when he says I am going to work on my game, he's taking a ball he's going in the arena, he's shooting baskets. He's not thinking about working on the other side of the game, which 50% of the time or more he plays defense. I think the key for the coach is to get his team to think defensively. We tried to do that since I have been here. I think most of the time that shows up in how we play the game. Q. I am you assuming when you schedule Cincinnati, Ohio State and UConn that are hoping that it will pay off come this time of year. But after such an SEC schedule, does it seem like light years ago when you were playing those guys and can the team draw from having played the top-notch opponents outside of the league? COACH JOHN BRADY: I don't know if it helps us right now because, as you said, that was a long time ago. I think what it did to help a young team that we have is to prepare them for the SEC schedule. I think it's an incremental development of your team. We had a tough preseason schedule. It was 10 or 12, 13th in the country strength of schedule. I thought it was little better than that. I get confused with the figures on the way they decide all those things, but certainly I think that the pre-conference schedule helped us prepare for a difficult SEC schedule, which in essence hopefully has prepared us to play a team like Duke tomorrow night. I think it's an incremental sort of progression that hopefully our team has benefited from. Q. For those of us who haven't seen Glen Davis too much in person, and really only on television, tell us a little bit about his game on the court and what you referred to earlier in terms of the locker room an those guys being loose, my impression from what I have read about him is he's one of those kind of guys tells a lot of jokes, so is he a factor in that? COACH JOHN BRADY: He's probably the key to our personality of our team and how it is developed over the course of the season. Glen's game is a mix of power and finesse. He's very good around the goal. He's not an over the rim guy. He's an at-the-rim player. Being 6-8 1/2 with his sneakers on and legit 310 -- or between 310 and 320, I always say this, depending on what he ate the night before, kind of goes up and down. But he combines power with finesse. He has got a great footwork, tremendous hands, he can shoot the ball up to 17, 18 feet, good enough. And he can put it on the floor and go by you so he's a pretty much of a complete basketball player. Defensively he leans on you. He can push you out of the lane, push you off the lane, make you make baskets over him, which is all we try ever to get him to do. He's done that quite well. I will tell you a story about Glen that I shared on the court. We were playing Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament and Glen has had a terrific first half and he's made several shots in a row and sometimes when players are scoring pretty easily they tend to take a bad shoot and force one. He shot a three-pointer right in front of our bench with five minutes to go in the first half. And there was a break in the action and coming off the floor -- I was walking on the floor and Glen walked by me and he said, Coach, in the huddle I want you to yell at me for taking a bad shot. It caught me by surprise that he would even think that way, and he looked book over my shoulder, he said, for real. So I can't really tell a team what I really want them to do because I keep thinking about the comment that he just shared with me, right before we broke to go out on the floor, I said, Glen, by the way, that was a terrible shot you just shot. Get right behind the goal where you need to be take a better shot. He smiled and winked. He said, You are right, Coach. He went back on the floor. I think he understands his position on the team and he wants to be treated like everyone else and when he knew he took a bad shot -- first of all, it's good that a player knows that he took a bad shot. Coming off the floor when he shared that with me, make me yell at him in front of the team, I got on him before the timeout. It shows the kind of personality that he has. That's the way he is. He's kept our locker room light. And one unique thing about our team that some of you may not know is our starting 5-plus Darnell Lazare, who comes off the bench, these guys have grown up with each other and known each other most of their lives. Tyrus Thomas, Glen Davis, Garrett Temple, Darnell Lazare, Glen Davis, and even Darrel Mitchell, our only senior, they have all played with each other against one another since they were in grade school. We have got 4, 5 guys right from the Baton Rouge area, Tyrus Thomas and Glen Davis grew up in the same neighborhood together. So it's a situation where they really have their own way of communicating. They have their own language. I don't even know half the time what they are talking about. I corrected them one time because I thought they were mad at one another. They looked at me like I was crazy. They said, Coach, we do that all the time. I said okay, I will just back out of here. They are a unique group and it's been a pleasure to coach them and I think that's one of the things our team has been able to handle the success and some of disappointments we have had throughout the season because of how close they are and how well they have known each other. MODERATOR: Thank you, coach very much. GLEN DAVIS: Just I am here, man, I am just -- I am blessed, thank God that our team is winning, just trying to seize the opportunity, man. You only get one chance, you never know, you never know if you will ever see this podium again or ever be put in a situation where you compete with one of the best teams in the country. So I am glad to be around, y'all. Y'all guys are the, you know, yo to my fire, you know, so happy to be here with this guy. I love this guy. This guy right here, man, I can't say enough. Yeah, ready to go home and go to sleep in my bed, that's about it. Hotel room ready, get something to eat. You know. How y'all doing? DARREL MITCHELL: Thank God for this opportunity to be here, this chance to be here, like he said, once in a lifetime opportunity to get to the Sweet 16 and to play Duke makes it even more significant. But this is my last string, my last go around, so I am real excited to be here and with us being dropped out of this opportunity the first three years I have been here, for me to get in my last season I am sucking every moment in and I am ready to go. Q. Talk about the matchup you have got with Shelden tomorrow I am sure you have heard that several times before, I haven't heard yet. GLEN DAVIS: Shelden Williams is a great player. He's an all-American. Basically I am trying not to get too excited because a guy like me who is kind of low on the radar, is licking his chops right now because this is an opportunity to show the world that you can play, that you can compete with the best. So I am seizing the opportunity that I have to compete against one of these elite players. I feel me being the competitor that I am, I am loving this, you know, this is what you dream of. This is what the sweat and tears and all the hard work that you put in, this is when you show, show out, and it's not a better opportunity to show out on against Duke on a big stage. So I am loving this right now. But I am also at the same time respecting this guy because he has proven himself in the amount of ACC and also in college basketball. So I am ready. I am ready for it. Q. Your coach just mentioned that your weight can depend on what you ate last night. Talk about the challenge it's been for you, about your appetite, what a challenge it's been for you to get to where you are in this game and maybe how hungry you tore get this tournament done? GLEN DAVIS: Basically, it's hard to create a good habit of eating right because all your life you was able to eat chips when you wanted to and wanted to do some things, wanted to eat some things that you wanted to. But my determination to be the best player I can be has grown tremendously. I fully figured out what I want to do in life and that's perform and play basketball, so it's not a problem anymore. If that's what I have to do to change my bad habits to be the best player I can be, I am giving up any kind of food you want, I don't want to eat nothing. I am starving, so (laughs) basically it's changed me as a person and it's hard work, man, really, really hard work. Q. Describe what it's like to grow up with a bunch of guys, as so many people on the team have, and played together in college and specifically on a stage of this magnitude when so many guys have known each other for so long? DARREL MITCHELL: Well, I think that's what kept us going this season regardless of the tough pre-season we had with all those guys and with me being from 60 miles away and knowing -- growing up with these guys I think that's what kept us going and driving us here. We're like some brothers to each other. We do everything together. We fuss and fight amongst each other and that just made us stronger this season. With us having that close bond throughout the season, I think that's what is keeping us from being and having a terrible season that some folks may have thought we might have had. That's what kept us driving and pushed us throughout the season. Q. Along those same lines, Coach, was here a little bit ago talking about how nothing is really sacred in that locker room. It's quite a change of maybe past years. Talk about how different it is in the locker room now and just feeling around the team and how much the guys sitting next to you has caused that? DARREL MITCHELL: My first season everybody had -- I think everybody had their own separate goals and no one was really for the team, and now this season the bond that we have, everyone is on the same page and everyone wants to do the same thing. No one has their own individual goal to do this and that to get where they want to go. Everybody is working hard together. I think that's what that's what has got us here to the Sweet 16. Everybody, this was all our goals to come here show up and do things in the turn. We did that in the first two rounds. With Glen being a part of that, he's a big part of that. That's why we're here. He's a load to handle and with him producing and carrying us the way he did towards the end of the season just shows his leadership even though he's a sophomore, his leadership role towards the end of the season he basically carried us on his shoulders with me getting my injury and Tyrus being out for the time that he did. He basically carried us on his shoulders. He just showed up big for us and he's just a special guy. I am happy he's still here with me for my senior season. Q. Talk about J.J. Redick, what you guys collectively as guards have to do to try to slow him down? DARREL MITCHELL: Like Shelden, he's an excellent player. The team, their team, they thrive off of those two guys. The offense is basically based around them. So we're going to give them all kinds of different looks, I will guard him Garrett will guard him. Garrett's going to give him a different look with his length and I will give them a different look with my speed and quickness. It's going to be a challenge for us tomorrow. He's one of those guys that if he gets going you know he's going to be a tough guard. But I think if we can slow him down and give him different looks, get him frustrated and try to corrupt him as much as we can, that will an big key for us tomorrow night. Q. How tough a decision was it to give up football coming out of high school, ever regret -- GLEN DAVIS: You cannot regret it because you love -- everybody loves the game of football. They like to play it. But my passion for basketball is no question more than football. So it wasn't that hard, you know, because I gave up something to do something I loved. So it was kind of easy. Q. How much do you hear from comparisons to Shaq and how do you compare yourself to him? GLEN DAVIS: (Laughs). I hear it everywhere I go. I should have wore my shirt. It says "I am not Shaq." I swear. Tell them. I got a shirt like that. It says "I am not Shaq." (Laughs). I hear it all the time. Shaq is a great player. He's top 50, greatest players that ever played the game. So to be to be compared to him is -- thank you, I appreciate it. But, you know, me being the guy that I am, I am a competitive guy. I want to have my own stamp immortality, you know, every guy strives for immortality. Wants to live forever. You know, so Shaq is going to live forever. I can't -- I can't live forever being known as "baby Shaq." I want to be my own guy. If the -- you know, the big baby forever, known as a basketball player, you know, I know I am easy to adapt to because of my personality, but I can play the game of basketball, so that's basically it. We got a couple similarities -- just domination, you know, we like to dominate, but that's about it. (Laughs). Q. Obviously having Tyrus back has been big help for y'all, specifically how, what areas have y'alls game is that much better with Tyrus on the court? GLEN DAVIS: Basically it makes -- so easy because his athletic ability jumping and altering shots and his offensive game, you know, helps our team tremendously. His impact, we need Tyrus to be successful to do some big things here. He's big -- he contributes to our team in a lot of ways. So we're glad that he's on his way back to being healthy and he's a tremendous player. MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
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