NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 29, 1996

Marcus Bullard

Donae' Jones

Darryl Wilson

MARCUS BULLARD: Dontae' is a very active person, just very loose, at all times. He keeps the team up. Keeps it laughing and at times we need him. But also, he can be very serious. He's a very live person. And he brings a lot of spark to this team. He's a very enthusiastic person, always keeping everybody loose, keeping the mind from getting frustrated.

DARRYL WILSON: He's always talking on the court, keeping everybody active and motivated.

DARRYL WILSON: They have a very good two-three zone. They're very active, and always moving their hands, trying to get it on the ball. We're going to attack the gaps, and we can't forget our post matchups within the zone.

MARCUS BULLARD: What we've seen they put on a great two-three zone. Also at the same time we can't forget about our post man, we have to try to get Erick involved in the game early, and feed him as much as possible. We have to stay active. If we stand around the perimeter and are not gap driven, it's going to be tough getting good shots, as long as we stay active and keep the big man happy, we should do good in this.

DONTAE' JONES: The whole experience has been enjoyable. Anytime you get an opportunity, you know, to be a part of something like this, I think you have to enjoy it. But we know how far to take our enjoyment and how far to take the enthusiasm, because we know the job we have ahead of us. Anytime you're part of something like this, you have to enjoy it because you don't know if you're going to get to experience anything like this again. I don't think we have any pressure on ourselves, because it's just a ballgame, after you take the hype and everything around it away, it's -- it will still be a basketball game. We look at every game as just a basketball game and play the game for what it is instead of putting a lot of pressure on ourselves.

DARRYL WILSON: Well, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get my three-point shot, as long as we get a lot of movement in our offense, and get the ball down to the post guys, the three-point shots, Marcus, myself, and Dontae', that's our main key, is getting the ball in the area. And Dontae' is playing the post, and let them try to score, if they're successful on the block, then they want to head down, and that won't affect our three-point shots.

DARRYL WILSON: I have to make them, yes.

DONTAE' JONES: Not really, we haven't talked amongst ourselves about it not being a publicized game, but we knew coming into this game, Kentucky and UMass was going to be billed the championship before the championship. We don't look at it like that. We've been sort of the underdog the whole year long, and we feel we haven't gotten the respect we should have received throughout the year. But we don't worry about what the outside people think about the game. We're going to come in and play the best we can. If people want to look at it as the JV game, or so to say, we'll take it like that. But it's still the Final Four and we still have a chance to play for the championship, and we're going to go into it playing like that.

DONTAE' JONES: I don't know. We know our Coach, here, especially with the thing about those hats. Right after we accomplished something the school has never accomplished before. And while we were celebrating, we received hats with our biggest rivals' name on it, and that's kind of shocking, but he was very irritable about it. We didn't think about it as much as Coach did. Being that we don't get some of the respect that we think we deserve, I think a lot of people who feel that we haven't been receiving the respect, will be in our corner, because they feel we're the underdogs and a lot of people like to pull for the underdog. We'll be glad for anybody who wants to root us on. We need all the support we can get. And hopefully, all the people in our corner will help us.

MARCUS BULLARD: I think the biggest adjustment is just getting in the gym and working a little harder on my game. And I thought that if I did that then that will make my team a little more successful. I think I did that. And my turnovers have cut down, as the season went on. And I think I became a better point guard, as far as getting the ball in the right places and getting the right people shots, as far as Dontae' and Darryl and them .......... trying to run the ballgame the best way I can.

DONTAE' JONES: We set goals for ourselves, the first one was to get past the Sweet 16, but after we reached the Sweet 16 and got past that point, the next goal was to win it all. And we're two games away from, hopefully, being the National Champion. And I think after this tournament, when we play the way we did against Kentucky, that gave us more confidence and a little more motivation to achieve those goals we set for ourselves. And it gave us the confidence in ourselves that we could play with anybody. And I think that helped us. If we can keep playing the way we've been playing recently, and just going to the games and getting ahead early I think we'll be all right. Like I said, the goal was to win it all after we got past the Sweet 16 and that's where we want to be.

DARRYL WILSON: One of my main goals was every tournament we play to go in and try to win every tournament. We went to Oregon in December and won that tournament. We went to the Conference Tournament and won that tournament. And the next tournament was the NCAA tournament. And I guess we wanted to win it all. If we defend the rebound like we have been the past seven, eight games, then we have an opportunity for ourselves to win a National Championship. And that's really our main goal every game, to come in and defend the rebound. If we do those two things, we have an opportunity to win any game we play.