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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: SYRACUSEMarch 26, 2010Da'Sean ButlerBob HugginsKevin JonesWellington SmithSYRACUSE, NEW YORK THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions. Q. Da'Sean, obviously we can see your hand is wrapped with the ice and everything. Is it all right? DA'SEAN BUTLER: It's fine. My hand is good to go. I'm taking care of things, precautionary reasons. I'm taking care of things before it gets to a certain level where I can't do anything with it. So I was shooting really well a second ago in practice. So hopefully I will carry that on to the court. Q. Obviously, so many of your key players are all New York-area guys. When you are recruiting is there a certain common denominator or common characteristic you are looking for when you are looking for guys like this? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Not really. We're just looking for good players. These guys were pretty much our first recruiting class. When I got there, I think we had one scholarship. So this was our first full recruiting class with Devin and Kevin and Truck. Trying to get the best guys we could get. Q. For Wellington and Kevin: Can you just talk about the difficult match-up problems that you guys will face with Patterson and also Cousins. And just wondering, obviously you guys have guarded bigger guys before, but is this any more of a challenge than say guarding a Harangody or Thabeet? WELLINGTON SMITH: We think that me and KJ both have each other's back in terms of helping each other out defensively. But we've guarded Onuakus and Thabeets. Only thing about Cousins is he does a lot more in terms of scoring. Harangody is more my size. He's so quick with his feet. But all you have to do is try not to let him get the ball that much. When he gets the ball in the paint, he's going to score all the time. Try to not let him get the ball, and hopefully by doing that we'll win and come out defensively doing very well. KEVIN JONES: It's the same thing Wellington said. We have each other's back on defense. We're just going to try to limit their touches as much as possible and just make sure we keep a body on them in every possession. Q. For Da'Sean: How did it feel out there? Were you able to do everything you wanted? Did you have a full practice today? Did it feel any soreness or pain? DA'SEAN BUTLER: No, honestly everything is fine. I'm just keeping it on just to make sure nothing happens. I shot the ball really well. We had a very full practice. Everything is going according to plan. It's just a matter of us going out there tomorrow and taking care of business. I don't see any wrenches or anything going on right now. So I'm fine. Put a wrench in -- WELLINGTON SMITH: What are you talking about? THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the student-athletes? No? OK, guys, we'll let you go. Thank you. Their breakout session will start in a little while. We'll take questions for Coach Huggins now. Q. Bob, can you kind of take us back to when Cal visited you in the hospital, and how much of that you remember, if you do, and what your thoughts were on that, him coming by? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Do you want to hear the whole story? It actually really is a pretty good story. I'm laying there. They scoop me up off the sidewalk and put me in the ambulance, and I'm kind of in and out of consciousness. They're pumping morphine in you. I kind of came to and I said to the -- whatever the guy is in the back of the ambulance, I said, "what's the ETA"? And he got on the thing and he said "22 minutes." I said, "Man, I'm not going to make 22 minutes." You know how they tap you on the leg and say, "I haven't lost a patient." I said, "Get ready, get ready to. I'm not some old lady, man. I know what is going on. I don't have 22 minutes." And so he got on and said, "abort, abort, abort." They went to a closer hospital, which is really right where Cal grew up. The guy in the back of the ambulance tapped me on the leg and he said, "Coach, don't worry. I'm not going to let you die until Cal beats you at least once." What was your question? Q. After that, when you were in the hospital, did Cal -- COACH BOB HUGGINS: Oh, yeah. Really, nobody was supposed to be in there but family. Cal being Cal, talked his way back there. Honestly I don't remember a lot. I was pretty drugged up. Yet John came in and Skip (Prosser) came in. When you kind of finally come to and realize what's going on, it means an awful lot. Cal was at Memphis. To fly in from Memphis and stop in the hospital really meant a lot. Q. Just to elaborate a little on that, you coaches obviously are very competitive. What did it mean to have your competitors come in to check on you that way? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Cal and I aren't that way. You say, very competitive. Tomorrow we're going to compete like crazy. But, you know, when he was at Memphis, they beat us, they beat us and I went on his TV show after the game. Actually I just walked on. He didn't know I was coming. Just for fun. I was kind of low. I was trying to cheer myself up. We beat them and we were at the rendezvous having ribs, and Cal came in with the priest from U-MASS. He brought the priest in and said, "I brought the priest in from U-MASS." That didn't even help. I said, "It didn't help U-MASS either. You better get another priest." I mean, we have fun. I think sometimes, I think the modern-day coaches, they kind of get that way. John and I have never been that way. John and I have always been friends. We played them in Springfield I think the first time we played against each other. I was in his room afterwards. And we were sitting around talking, and we've always been like that. John is good. John is really is a hell of a coach. And he's a guy who when coaches are down, he'll pick up the phone and call. He's always been very good about that. Q. Coach, you mentioned a couple of weeks ago that you don't have a substitution pattern. It's more of a feel thing for you. What are some of the things that spark those substitutions other than just mistakes? And specifically to last night's game, Deniz came in, gave you some minutes and some productivity. But then in the second half he didn't come in. Was that another feel issue? COACH BOB HUGGINS: I think we needed different things. We were struggling to score in the first half. And I thought with the match-ups, Deniz could score. And in the second half we kind of had it going a little bit. John Flowers was terrific. I thought John played probably as well as John can play last night. Moved the ball, rebounded the ball, defended, got his hands on a bunch of balls. I wasn't going to take him out. I called time-out so I didn't have to take John out. Q. How much recruiting involvement did you have with Patterson? I know you came in I think the year he was coming out. Could you just talk about him a little bit as a player. COACH BOB HUGGINS: When I got the job, it was down to UK and Florida, I believe. And I called, but it was too far down the road. I think he's a terrific player. He kicked our behinds last year. Was it last year? I think it was last year. Last year in the second half of the game. I think he's very good. He's a terrific rebounder. He's really expanded his game. Q. If somebody would come to you during that year you were out coaching after the Cincinnati situation and said whatever, just three or four years from now you'll be sitting here with a chance to take your alma mater to the Final Four, from such I guess a low point, has this worked out better, even better than you could have imagined? COACH BOB HUGGINS: It wasn't as bad a low point as you all try to make it out to be. It's kind of fine. I don't know if you ever -- my whole life I played, and so I would wake up every morning and I had a regimen and I would go run and go shoot and do all that stuff. I did my whole life. I've done it my whole coaching career. And just to wake up and say what do I want to do today? Somebody would call and say, do you want to do this? No, I don't want to do that. It was really great not traveling. I mean, I loved not going through airports. It was wonderful. People were trying to get me to come in and watch practice and do this. I'm like, no, I don't think I want to do that. It's really neat. Hopefully at some point in time your life you'll get to do that. It's kind of a neat thing to do. You all try to make it out like it was a terrible thing. I kind of enjoyed it. Cliff Ellis called me and said, "Huggs, are you all right?" I said, "I'm fine." Cliff said, "Seriously, are you all right?" I said, "I'm fine." He said well, "What are you going to do?" I said, "Well I think I'm going to open a bottle of red wine and have a glass of red wine. AK is on TV. I'm going to watch him play today." He said, "I'm really happy for you. I have to go." I said, "Where are you going?" He said, "I'm going to get a bottle of red wine and watch AK." It's not that bad, really. But to answer your question, yeah, I knew I would coach again. You see, everybody wants me to pontificate about all these things. And I don't think about those things. I honestly don't. You asked about John, we get together all the time and we don't talk about basketball very much. John and I are good friends. And John's a good guy. John is a guy who is there when you need him. That's when you know who friends are, really. Everybody wants to be around you when everything is going good. And you find out. That's what I found out. You find out who your friends are. Find out who is really your friends. There weren't probably any three-day period that would go by Cal didn't call. And Skip called probably every other day. And then you know the people who really care about you. John and I are going to be friends for the rest of our lives. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a great coach. Hopefully when he goes Hall of Fame, I can sit there and watch him go in. Q. If you were an NBA GM, say with the New Jersey Nets, and you had the No. 1 pick, would you automatically take John Wall? And if so what makes him so good? COACH BOB HUGGINS: I don't know anything about that, man. I honestly don't. You might as well ask one of those guys standing out there in yellow, because I have no idea. I'm being honest with you. I don't know. I've watched him play. I've watched a lot of people play. But I don't know. I honestly don't. I probably would have taken Sam Bowie instead of Michael Jordan, too. (Laughter). I don't know. Q. Bob, other than your effervescent personality, what's some of the biggest misconceptions about you? And I assume you're probably not worried about them either. COACH BOB HUGGINS: Not really. You know, honestly, I had a big time -- they called me, will you do this? Do you want to -- no, I really don't. Do you want to come do this TV thing? No, I don't want to be on TV. I mean, I don't. I've been accused of not liking you people. That's not true. Some of you I don't like. I'm being honest. Some of you are -- I'm not going to say the word. Some of you I don't. Most of you I do. And I've had a really good relationship with most guys. I don't care. I honestly don't care. The people who know me -- talk to Cal. People who know me, know what I am, know what I'm about. My kids know what I'm about. That's what's important to me. I've kind of found out it's really nice if your president knows what you're about, too. Which I think mine does now. There's nobody in here that's going to write anything about me that's any worse than some of the stuff that people wrote that never met me. That never met me, never talked to me, don't know anything about me. So I don't care. Q. I'm wondering how much you feel like Kentucky feeds off the other teams' turnovers, getting off in transition. You've obviously don't have your point guard, your starting point guard. I'm just wondering how that all plays on your mind? COACH BOB HUGGINS: If that's the case they're going to have a field day. We threw it around yesterday like -- hopefully we don't do that. Everybody does that. I think sometimes what people miss is Cal is a really good basketball coach. They're really good defensively. I think they're doing what John does best. For a while I think it might have been the year I was out, Cal said something about, they were going to press and do this and that. And they weren't playing as well. I said, "John, just do what you do. You're really good at what you do. Just do what you do." I think this team is doing a great job of doing what he wants them to do. I mean, he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. He knows where the ball is supposed to go. It's not as easy as what a lot of people think. And I think to take all those freshmen and put them together and mesh them together the way he has, there's very few people who can do that and come off the way it's come off. Q. Bob, when Devin talks about his defense, he mentions film and spotting tendencies, and you speak highly of how he knows the game. Is his preparation any different or any better than other people? And how much of a part of what he does defensively is that? COACH BOB HUGGINS: He probably pays more attention. It's like anything. All of you are sitting here and half of you aren't paying attention anyway. Because you already got your story ready and you're just waiting for me to say something stupid so you can put it in there. I know how it works. Dev does a great job of paying attention. And he really, really does. He really studies his guy. He doesn't pay as much attention, I don't think, to what everybody else is kind of paying attention to. He's kind of focused in on his guy and what he does and what they run for him, and those kind of things. Q. A few years ago back when Beilein left, back before Beilein was signed, I mean, you were offered the job at West Virginia and turned it down at a time when they thought you were going to take it. Was the timing not right? What was the reason there? And did you ever, not looking in that rearview mirror, regret the fact that you didn't take it then? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Bob, to answer first part, it just didn't work. It just didn't work. I think they wanted it to work, and I wanted it to work, and for whatever reason it didn't work. It would be easy to say yeah, now, after everything that happened, sure. I'm not one to look back. I have always had great love and affection for the university. Anybody who has ever been around me knows that. When they were selling those bricks out in front of the (WVU) Coliseum, I bought the bricks. I was coaching in Cincinnati then. I always had great affection for the university. Q. You went to the Final Four in '92. 18 years later you have another shot at it. What's different and what's the same as you think about it? COACH BOB HUGGINS: I don't know. We went in '92, and I really believe if Allen Jackson hadn't gotten hurt we probably would have gone in '93 again. I said this the other day. I was at Akron and we played Michigan, it was the best team in the country, and we lose by four. I'm thinking how do you ever advance in this tournament? Everybody is so good. And then the next chance I get to go, we go to the Final Four and then we go to the Elite Eight, and I'm thinking this isn't that hard. It is kind of hard, though. And then we've had some bad luck. A.D. (Jackson) getting hurt in '93. (Keith) LeGree getting hurt in '96. Kenyon (Martin) breaking his leg in 2000. Denny Krum said one time we were together doing a speaking thing, somebody asked him, what does it take to win a national championship, and he says, "You have to be lucky, and you can't be unlucky." He pointed to me and he said, "That's the most unlucky guy I know." Cal is going to win a national championship, there isn't any question. Really, if he was lucky he probably would have already won one. All the guy has to do is make a free-throw and all of a sudden he's sitting there with a national championship ring on and he looks a lot smarter. He's going to get there. He will win one. There's no doubt in my mind. You have to be lucky. I just haven't been very lucky. Q. Looking at Kentucky and the way they play, are they very similar to the Calipari teams you've coached against over the years? Do they do things differently? Obviously they have better players. Are they similar to what he was doing way back at U-MASS, for instance? COACH BOB HUGGINS: I think what you have to understand about John is John has won with whatever he's had. His teams much like my teams they're never the same. Maybe up until now Cal has never been in a place where you could just say this is the kind of guy I want and just go get 'em. We have had to take what we can get. He did a great job with that. Now he's got great players. Sometimes it's harder to coach great players. You can have guys that aren't very good, and you can have them run all this stuff and everybody say, man, he's a good coach, if he just had some players. Then when you get players, you screw them all up. John doesn't screw them up. He does a great job. And he's such a great communicator. And what I said earlier, you have no idea how hard it is to take all those guys with all those big reputations and all those future aspirations and make them play as a team. He's done an unbelievable job. Q. As you recall, you guys played Kentucky last year in Vegas. The Kentucky players remember -- COACH BOB HUGGINS: I'm trying to forget. Q. The Kentucky players remember it as a very physical game, a game that was not for highlight material. It was more of a physical test. How much do you think that might be the kind of game we have tomorrow? How much would you want it to be that kind of game? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Really, what I would want is for us to finally make some shots. I would be happy as a clam if we could make some shots. We are what we are, and we have to do what we have to do to try to win. They're the same way. I certainly don't see them shying away from contact. I was sitting pretty close yesterday. I didn't think any of them were running from anybody. They're physical. They're really, really physical. For my skinny guys, for them to think we're physical with the front line they put on, they just keep coming. It's pretty impressive. Q. How would you compare this team that you're coaching right now to some of your better teams you had at UC? COACH BOB HUGGINS: Not near as athletic. We're not near as athletic as what those teams were. I think we're probably as good defensively as most of the teams. We're different than the '92-'93 teams that pressed, and certainly different than when I had Kenyon. But I think for not having a big guy inside, I think we guard pretty good. And they're great kids. They're wonderful kids. You see them sit up here and smile and laugh. That's how they are all the time. They're good guys to be around. Q. Coach, you talked just a little bit about it last night, but I wonder if you could kind of expound upon what it would mean to the state of West Virginia for this club to be able to get to a Final Four. COACH BOB HUGGINS: They would be dancing in the streets. It would be a wonderful thing. They would probably close everything down for a day. Just kind of have a big time. I don't know, unless you're from there or spent time there, you can't understand. It's everything that I think anybody would want, from the standpoint of support that we have and how much the people care. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? OK, Coach, thank you very much. COACH BOB HUGGINS: Really, I do like everybody in here, I think. I'll tell you next week, but I think I do. Thank you all. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. Good luck tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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