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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: KANSAS CITY

March 18, 2009

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

KEVIN KLINTWORTH: We're now in the interview room with Oklahoma student athletes, Blake and Taylor Griffin.

Q. This is for both of you. What's this week been like. You've been off about a week now since you {lost} the Big 12 championship. How have practices gone for you, and have you worked more on yourselves or with Morgan State and your opponent is going to present?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: You know, I think we've had some really good practices this week. I think we have worked more on ourselves, just making sure that we get back to playing Sooner basketball, playing how we were playing earlier in the season, what made us successful, just really concentrating on competing and playing hard every possession.
You know, obviously we looked at Morgan State after Sunday, and, you know, we've put in a lot to defend them and how we're going to play them, but I think mostly, you know, we're working on making sure that we're ready to play and that we're ready to play our game.
BLAKE GRIFFIN: Like he said, we took a day off or two in there, and really when we came out for that first practice, we really concentrated on getting after it and, you know, trying to get back into the flow of things and really making practices competitive Like he said, also, after Sunday, we watched a little bit on Morgan State, and we decided to do some things to prepare for them as well.

Q. After the Big 12 game, coach mentioned several times that this team needed to regroup. Do you feel you have regrouped as much as you can up to this point and what did you mean by regrouping when you guys were at practice?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: You know, I think kind of like I said earlier, just getting back to playing the way that made us successful early on, playing together, you know. We've had a few games where we've kind of been a little bit out of sync with each other. I think we really concentrate on getting back to that and relying on each other, trusting each other, which, you know, I think we've made a lot of progress over the past week and, you know, at this point in the season, you know, that's what it comes down to, and I think that, you know, we're on our way to having a pretty successful tournament. I like the way our guys are playing together right now. I like how we're relating to each other and how we're interacting with each other on the court.

Q. Blake?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I mean the same thing, really. We just needed to get back to playing how we were in the beginning of the season and early in the conference games. I think we've done a good job. I don't feel -- throughout the year we haven't had problems like guys being mad at each other or anything like that. We haven't had problems like that. I think it's more about just really getting back to everybody playing the way they were and everybody understanding what they need to do, and I feel like we've done that this week. And, like he said, I've been really happy with how we've practiced and how we've competed and all that.

Q. Taylor, you've been on a couple of teams that made the NCAA Tournament, pretty good teams but not great teams. At times this year you guys had been a great team. Can you talk about how special it is to have a group of guys this good, this talented, and how you need to take advantage of it when you've got that opportunity?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: Yeah. I mean, I've known how talented this group was going to be since last summer when we started playing pickup ball together, and I knew this was going to be a special team. I knew we had a chance to make a long run in the tournament and, you know, that time is upon us and, you know, it's been a blast playing this season and having the success we've had, but, you know, none of that really matters if you go out and lose your first game here.
You know, I think everybody is really aware, from seniors to freshmen, is really aware of how big this is and what a big opportunity this is and that, you know, we got to take advantage of it.

Q. I got two questions. One, you said get back to Sooner basketball. What is Sooner basketball and then I'll ask my second one.
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: You know, I think this year we kind of created a little bit of an identity for ourselves, just playing, you know -- I thought a lot of times this season we played really well on defense, we played really well offensively, and just kind of clicking with each other, playing off each other, playing to people's strengths, guys knowing their role, just playing hard, and, you know, that's ultimately that's what's made us successful. That's where we had our most success. That's the way we were playing when we went on our two biggest winning streaks. That's what it's going to take for us to be successful in this tournament.

Q. Did Blake's injury just kind of throw you off kilter and just a matter of putting the pieces back to be playing the way you were before he got hurt?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: A little bit. I think it started a little bit before he got hurt. Obviously when you take the best player in the nation off of any team, it's not going to be the same team, but, you know, I think we're kind of -- starting a little bit before that happened. That kind of added to it, but, you know, we're all healthy and back together now. We've had some time to prepare and, you know, I think we're ready.

Q. Blake, less than a month ago, you guys were one away from being ranked No. 1 in the nation. Now it's hard to find a prognosticator out there that thinks you guys will get to the Final Four. Have you guys played the disrespect card?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I was watching ESPN today. Samuel Jackson picked us in the championship game. That gave us a lot of confidence. So many people pick their Final Fours, and sometimes people are right and sometimes people are wrong. We're not worried about what other people think. Right now we need to be worried or concentrate on ourselves. Only we can control our destiny. You can come out and play a really good team, they can play well, and we can play better and we can win. We're not worried so much about what other people are thinking. We're worried about who we're playing at the time and how we're controlling ourselves.

Q. For both you guys, you listen to some people they say the sky is falling around you guys and everything is over. What keeps you confident? Why do you believe this team will make the run that you're talking about?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: I mean, we know better than anybody what this team can do. I mean, you know, everybody outside the program can talk, {you} {know}, as much as they want, but in the end everybody, coaches, staff, players, we know exactly what we can do.
I'm extremely confident in each one of my teammates and our team as a whole, our coaching staff. I think that if we're playing at a high level or our highest level, that we can be the best team in the country. Just knowing that is enough for me, and, you know, I think I speak for the rest of the team as well.
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I think just the confidence I have in my teammates and our team is really the reason why I feel so strongly about that. I feel like we have great players at every position. You know, lot of people talk about how we don't play a lot of bench, lot of our bench guys. You know, that might be a weakness to some people.
That might seem like we don't have enough to get there. But, like I said, I have confidence in my teammates. I have confidence in my coaches and our coaches and everything. So I feel, like he said, if we play at a high level, we take care of what we need to take care of. We'll be alright.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Any more questions? Anybody else for the student athletes? One more.

Q. Blake, in the Big 12 you played teams four and five times in the last two years and they schemed all these new things to try to stop you. Are you kind of excited to see some new blood in teams who haven't seen you before in?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I'm always excited to see a different team. You know, I think as a whole team, we're excited to play outside of our conference. So, I mean, we're definitely excited to go up against Morgan State and see what we can do.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Everybody okay with OU? One more question.

Q. You guys do a bracket? Taylor?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: No, sir.

Q. You don't have one out there, middle name on it or something, no one knowing who you are?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: Try to stay away from it.

Q. Blake, you mentioned something about people talk about your bench may not be strong enough. Any chance you were talking about the Presidential analysis?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: No, not at all. I was referring to other people, I guess. I don't know. I didn't I don't want to question what he's doing right now.

Q. You guys have played in this building before, you're in the Big 12 Tournament here last year. I mean, any familiarity, any comfort knowing that you've been here before?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: I guess. I mean a gym is a gym. I really like this place. It's a really, really nice place. You know, I guess it is nice to not have {any} surprises when you walk in the door. But yeah, I mean, it's a nice facility. We're excited about playing on this big stage.

Q. Taylor, how hard did you guys work in practice to get Blake more touches? Nine shots against Oklahoma State. Is it just a matter of you guys got to shoot better or anything you can do to get him more touches?
TAYLOR GRIFFIN: You know, I think just having the confidence to put -- to place the ball in there. You know, we've seen everything from pretty much any kind of defense you can imagine, being thrown at us to guard him this year, and, you know, I think we just have to be confident enough to, you know, know that we can get that ball in there and confident enough in our passing to get it in there, and, you know, we know when that happens, he's going the make good decisions, he's going to get other guys open, and, you know, then it's just up to us to make shots and capitalize off of that.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Thank you, guys.
We're joined now by University of Oklahoma Coach, Jeff Capel.
Coach, if you could give us a few opening statements, and we'll open it up for questions.
COACH JEFF CAPEL: We're excited to be here in Kansas City. Excited to be a part of the greatest sporting event I think in all of athletics, the NCAA Tournament.
We're excited to play. We're anxious to play. We haven't played in a while. Been practicing, had some good practices, some spirited practices, and we're anxious to get going.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Yes, sir.

Q. Jeff, this week, did you work more on Xs and Os or the mental part?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Both. Probably an equal amount of both of those things. We obviously started preparing for Morgan State, have a lot of respect for that team, but we spent a good part of it working on us, trying to get better, trying to improve, you know, all those areas.

Q. Jeff, a noted basketball fan, Barack Obama, said today you don't play enough guys. Would you like to comment on American economic policy? (Laughter)
COACH JEFF CAPEL: I was hearing that all year, back in Oklahoma, that we didn't play enough guys. So, we're trying to win. So I'll let President Obama stick to running the country, and I'll try to {coach} my team to the best of my ability.

Q. Coach, you lost I think four of your last six, is it? I know there were some injuries factored in there. Are you worried about a dip in confidence as you come into the tournament?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Not really. If you've been around our guys, you know, there's not a lack of confidence there. You know, our season was interrupted a little bit. We were playing really, really well, and with that game at Texas, our best player gets hurt in the first half, and, you know, it's a really significant blow because everything we do revolves around Blake, both offensively and defensively, and we didn't have a lot of time to prepare, especially for that game for the second half, but even for the next game against Kansas and so that happened during arguably the toughest stretch our season.
We lose to Kansas after a valiant fight. We go down to Texas Tech and we win. I think what happened, in my personal opinion, is after we beat Texas Tech, the first game Blake was back, I think some of our guys thought that, well, Blake is back and everything is fine, when in reality it wasn't because we weren't playing well, and we go to Missouri and we didn't play well and they beat us.
Then we finish out against Oklahoma State at home and we win and come to the conference tournament and we didn't play well, and they made us not play well, Oklahoma State did, and we didn't deserve to win that game. It was during a tough stretch when all these things were happening. We've had some injuries that we haven't publicized, just where our practices are disjointed.
This past Sunday before the selection show, we practiced. The first time in a month we've had everybody in practice. I'm talking about not just guys that don't play for us, guys that played significant minutes, we've had them in practice.
So all of those things I think factored into us not playing well, on top of we were playing against some good teams.

Q. Jeff, some people say the sky is falling around you guys with four losses in six games. You still seem confident. What is it about this team that makes you believe that you're ready to make a run {in} this tournament?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: I believe in my team, and we don't get into listening to what other people say. I think I know my team. I certainly know what's going on within our program. So I don't have to listen to anyone else or hear what someone speculates or what sources close to the program say. I'm there everyday, so I know what's going on. And you just have to get back to the drawing board, and you have to get back to practicing harder and trying to figure out some different things, and I think we're on the right track of doing that.

Q. Coach, those injuries, can you talk about them now?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: I mean, it's no point. They're fine now. We're good now. So, again, we've had all the guys in practice this week. We've had some good practices, good preparation, and I look forward to us playing well tomorrow.

Q. I'm sorry. I also wanted to ask you about something. You said on the Big 12 Conference {call} other day, we were talking about impressions of this part of the country, especially if you're from back in ACC territory. When you were thinking of Oklahoma, back when were you back in the East, did you think of Oklahoma as a football school, and after that, is it -- I'm trying to do something on football schools versus basketball schools and how you can have winning programs at both. Does Oklahoma prove you can have winning programs at the highest -- play at the height highest level in both major sports?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Everyone thinks of Oklahoma as a football school. As many times as you've won at many championships and everything, that's what everybody sees. How would you look at Florida? They one back-to-back championships a couple years ago. Couple of years ago the National Championship game was Florida and Ohio State. What would you think of those two schools?
So it can be done. It has been done and has been done at the University of Oklahoma for years. If you look at the rich tradition of our basketball program, it's been very, very good.
I can honestly say that until I took this job, I didn't know of the complete history. I knew of some of the teams and I knew some of the players, but I didn't know the basketball program has been as good as it has been through continuous years. And so it can be, but there has to be a commitment to each sport, and it has to be a commitment to both necessary.
University of Oklahoma has been very fortunate that they've had some really good players and they've had good leadership from president, AD, to some of the coaches that have been there, and I think that's why both programs have been very, very successful.

Q. Coach, you have the best player in the country, may have the best freshman in the country. You're a 2 seed. Not a lot of people are picking you to go to the Final Four. Have you played the disrespect card at all to your team?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Not really. I mean, that's -- again, I didn't know that. I've been in my bubble. I don't know what people are saying right now since we got beat last Thursday. I didn't really want to hear what people had to say after we lost last -- yeah, it was Thursday. I've been trying to focus on my team. Not really.

Q. Having said all that, a month ago you were 25-1. Are you as confident now?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: I am. Our team is. You may not be and other people may not be, that's fine. That's -- you guys are going to write what you think or say what you think. That's fine. People didn't think back in December that we would be good. There was talk about our guards weren't good enough back then, and then all of a sudden, we started playing well {and} we were on the cusp of being number one in the country until our season was interrupted. We're fine and will be fine.

Q. How much do you try to coach your players the way you kind of tried to play when you were at Duke? I remember your freshman year, the regional final you were trapped in the corner against Purdue and threw a behind-the-back pass for a basket. How much do you try to let players just play?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Well, I think it's important, but, you know, I think you have to try to teach them how to play on a team concept or the concept of what you're trying to do, of what you want to get accomplished.
I don't believe in putting guys in a bubble and kind much cutting them off. It's almost like if you have, you know, some seeds and great soil for a flower but you put it in a jar and you put the top on it. You know, you're not giving it a chance to grow and see what it can become.
That's the way I feel about -- that's my coaching philosophy. It's different now because I think these kids today are more sensitive, a lot more sensitive than they were back in my day. I don't know if any of these guys could play for the guy that I played for, but, you know, it is important to have freedom of expression and allow these guys to be able to make plays.
One of the things I try to tell them, if you're going be a basketball player, you're going to have to be allowed to make mistakes. You're allowed to miss. We don't want to miss too much, but I don't want guys being afraid, playing afraid to make mistakes.

Q. Jeff, you both played and coached teams that were top notch, top elite teams, and you've had some teams that were a little bit lower than that caliber-wise. Can you talk about how important it is when you do have a really big time team, talent, success, all that, how important it is to take advantage of the opportunity?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: It's very important because these opportunities don't come around that often. I remember after my freshman year, we lost the national championship, and I remember being up here on the stand doing the media stuff afterwards and in the locker room, and I remember thinking, you know, hey, man, we'll get back here at least once, twice, during {my} career.
I'll have another chance to win it. We never got close. The furthest we got during my last three years was the second round.
You certainly don't want to take it for granted, and you have to be able to hopefully lay everything out there on the line. You don't want to look back, and as a player, this is something I have talked to our players about. You don't want to look back, you know, a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now and think about what could have been.
My brother talks about his junior year at North Carolina. They were the No. 1 team in the country. They had won 18 games straight. They had just beaten Maryland, and then there was some friction on their team and things just kind of turned. And he says now that that still something that haunts him that he regrets to this day.
So if you care about something, you certainly want to take advantage of it and you don't want to live with any regrets.

Q. Coach, now that you've studied Morgan State, what concerns you about them and specifically "Itchy"?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: I think they have good guards that can really score, that can go off the bounce. They're tough. They have a lot of kids from Baltimore, and those kids there, they're different. They're very, very tough. They've played a very tough non-conference schedule. It's a team that won at Maryland. It's a team that won at DePaul, a Big East team. It's a team that went to the University of Washington and played well there.
So as a 15 seed and those kids from Morgan State, it's their first time in the tournament, but we won't be in awe of the moment. They play really, really hard. I think they're very fundamentally sound on both ends of the floor. They don't turn it over {ever}, and defensively they do a good job of containment and helping each other.
So it's -- and they're confident and they're good. You know, they've done something really special throughout the season.
When you get to this part, when you get to this tournament, you're usually facing someone that's done something special, whether it's a whole body of work throughout the year or they've gotten hot towards the end, and certainly Morgan State I think encompasses both of those.
They're well coached, and we know they'll be ready to go. And so will we.
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Anything else for --

Q. Coach, I don't want you to give me exact stats, but in your opinion, to be successful in this tournament, how many times do you think Blake Griffin has to take a shot or two?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Has to get the ball a lot. The ball -- our offense goes through him. He has to get the ball a lot. But it's different ways to get the ball. You know, he can get from it offensive rebound, get it from running the floor. You know, we anticipate them double teaming. That's what everyone has done to us this year except for two teams, and, you know, with that, you know, he has to figure out and we have to figure out different ways to be able to get him the ball with that.
Our last game against Oklahoma State, I know a lot was made of him only getting 9 shots. He went to the line a lot, still had five turnovers, and so he got {touches}, but also they didn't -- they didn't guard some of our guards. They fronted them, they played them differently. They fronted them, and they didn't guard some of our guys. So it's going to be important for those guys to step up and make shots as well. But he has to have his fingerprint on everything we do, not just on offense, on defense, too.

Q. You mentioned your guys are in pretty good shape healthwise. Give us about Austin Johnson, because he seems to be a guy that's missed some practice time.
COACH JEFF CAPEL: He's practiced every day this week and he's been pretty good.

Q. Jeff, one of the things that's been said since last Thursday that you might not have heard is that Seth Davis asked one Big 12 coach what's wrong with Oklahoma. The Big 12 coach who wasn't named said the only thing wrong with them is they're overrated? What's your reaction to that?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: I have none. That's that guy's opinion. He's entitled to it. It's fine.

Q. Can you guess who it was?
COACH JEFF CAPEL: Probably somebody that beat us. (Laughter).
KEVIN KLINTWORTH: Anything else for Coach Capel?
Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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