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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: WASHINGTON

March 16, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C.

MODERATOR: We're now joined by Kemba Walker and Alex Alex Oriakhi from Connecticut. And we'll open it up to questions right away.

Q. You guys have played in two tournaments this year and won them both. Is there something about the nerves and pressure that might bring out the best of kind of what is a young excitable team?
ALEX ORIAKHI: Yeah. The two tournaments we played in, I just think a lot of -- both tournament we played in people didn't think we was going to do as well as we did, and I think we just played with a chip on our shoulder and, you know, it brought out fire in our bellies and we was able to come out and get wins in both of those tournaments basically.
KEMBA WALKER: I just feel like we just love the pressure. And we all know that it's one game and you're done and we just don't want to be finished. We want to go out swinging and fighting. So we're just going to keep fighting until somebody beats us.

Q. You guys played at such a high level in New York, what do you have do kind of maintain that?
ALEX ORIAKHI: I think we just gotta really build off of it. Same mentality. I think obviously everybody knows win or we go home. So we're going to treat everybody like it's the biggest game of the year and treat it like it's the Big East Tournament again.

Q. Kemba, can you go over your USA Basketball experience last summer, who you guarded, who guarded you, how that helped you prepare for this year?
KEMBA WALKER: Well, it helped me a lot because I was able to go up against the premier college and NBA players such as Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, just to name a few. Those guys helped me a lot. They guarded me like I've never been guarded before. So they just helped me just understand the pace of the game. That was really the biggest thing that helped me.

Q. Kemba, after the Stony Brook game when Alex had 18 rebounds, you said he wasn't quite Jeff Adrien yet but he's getting there. Can you talk about his progression over the course of the season, is he closer to being more like Jeff Adrien in terms grabbing rebounds?
KEMBA WALKER: Yeah. It's just all mentality with Alex. As long as he thinks that he's going to -- as long as he goes into the game knowing that he's going to have a big game, he does. And as long as he stays confident, we stay confident.
So I think he's definitelygetting closer and closer to that Jeff Adrien level.

Q. Alex, can you address that as well.
ALEX ORIAKHI: Definitely, I think he's right. I feel it's all mental to me. In the Big East Tournament I told myself I'm not going to be denied, and if I grabbed every rebound and don't score, that's what I'm going to do and I was able to do that. But I feel when I'm confident and I got that mean streak in me and I tell myself I'm going to get it done, I do it.

Q. Kemba, it's been a few days since you all went through the five-for-five in the Big East. A two-part question: Has the feeling returned to your legs? And B, have you had a chance to just think about what your whole team accomplished in going five-for-five?
KEMBA WALKER: Yes. The first question, yes, the feeling has returned to my legs and I was able to get some treatment and some ice baths and stuff like that. So I can feel my legs again.
And, yes, it definitely hit me. I don't think it's been a day that's gone by where I didn't say, wow, we really won the Big East championship because it was definitely, you know, surprising, and we accomplished so much, and a lot of people don't understand what we accomplished. So it's a big deal.

Q. This is for both players to answer if you could: So much of the talk nationally, whenever the talk is about UConn is about you Kemba, and sometimes the impression is that you're kind of a one-man show. Describe how you've been able to keep your head and stay within your game and do what you need to do to be a part of the entire team and keep that mindset. And Alex, if you could talk about how everybody else on the team has blended themselves in and make sure this has all been a team effort rather than watching Kemba just go crazy.
KEMBA WALKER: As long as guys know their role we'll be fine. With me, I think it all depends on how the defense is playing me. Some defenses have so much pride that they won't double me sometimes, so I'm able to just play sometimes and either score or just create for my teammates. And other teams would throw two to three guys at me. So guys on my team recognize that and they're able to step up and elevate their game. So I think it all depends on how the teams are playing me.
ALEX ORIAKHI: Yeah, the good thing about this team is that everybody knows their role, and we all know we can't be Jordan, and we all the know we're not going to average 30 points a game because that's Kemba's role. (Laughter).
We all know our role. That's the greatest part about it. And a lot of times so much pressure is put on Kemba they forget about us. So it leaves us open and we're able to make big plays and make big shots. But everybody knows their role and we don't care who scores. At the end of the day all we want to do is win.

Q. Kemba, at the end of that Pitt game you draw a guy who is 6'11", can you just walk through how you set that up, how you set up a guy and who was that much taller than you for a game-winning shot, what's going through your mind and how you do it physically.
KEMBA WALKER: Well, I knew I was going to be able to get the switch. I didn't know it was going to be McGhee, but I knew I was going to be able to get the switch. So the first thing was to get a ball screen and that's what I did. I seen I had McGhee. My first thought was to go to the basket, but I knew he couldn't stay with me laterally, and I was able to just make a couple of moves and I was able to break him down and I was able to get a clean look at the basket. So that was really it.

Q. Kemba, you talked about how other teams defend you. What do you expect from the film, the scouting? What do you expect Bucknell to do on you?
KEMBA WALKER: I don't know. I don't know what to expect honestly. I never know what to expect from anybody. A lot of teams tend to switch up, just throw a lot of different defenses at me, try to play on my mind. So, you know, I heard that Bucknell has the Defensive Player of Year of their league on their team, so I'm pretty sure they're going to throw him on me and be real physical and stuff like that. But, you know, I don't care. I'm just going to play ball and whatever they give me I'm going to take.

Q. Kemba and Alex, too, Shabazz said you guys are much better when you have doubters, and Alex pretty much said the same thing. After New York you probably haven't got a lot of doubters anymore. Why do you think that?
KEMBA WALKER: Think we have doubters or why do we think we're better?

Q. Why do you think you have doubters?
KEMBA WALKER: I don't know. I think people still feel that we're just lucky, which is not the case at all. We worked for everything we did. From Maui people doubted us; from the beginning of the season people doubted us, but we always know to ourselves that we're going to be the hardest working team in the country and we show it. We worked extremely hard and nothing comes easy for us, you know. We take things.

Q. Alex?
ALEX ORIAKHI: I definitely agree with him. People don't understand how hard this team has worked. A lot of people have doubted us, but a lot of my teammates at night they're there in the gym working in the weight room, getting extra reps in and it just shows the hard work is paying off. And people keep doubting us, we just keep using it as motivation even more and it's been working for us.

Q. Alex, you alluded to your mean streak before. Is that a new-found thing? Did you come to UConn with that? Where did that come from?
ALEX ORIAKHI: I think it comes from this guy over here, just watching him play. A lot of times it doesn't matter who he goes up against, it's the same mentality with Kemba and he always finds a way. So that's what I really try to tell myself, find a way to get it done.
And watching Jeff and talking to Jeff, he's like a big brother to me and like a mentor. So I definitely try to watch everything he does because if I could be half the player he was, I think I could go a long way.

Q. Alex, it was only three and a half days ago that you guys finished the five games in five days. Do you personally feel mentally and physically refreshed since then? And if so, how are you able to do that?
ALEX ORIAKHI: Yeah, definitely. Like he said, I got ice baths, I got treatments. But people forget AAU, when you're 14, 15, you play three games in a day. So five games in a day it's not really that bad.
But I think I'm refreshed. I think the whole team is refreshed. We just had a practice and we went hard, so fatigue is not going to really be a factor.
MODERATOR: Thank you.
We're now joined by Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun. Coach, can you talk about the kids' excitement.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: I think all year we set sail to go to Maui beginning of the season. I think probably like every other basketball team in the country, you have aspirations. Our aspirations over the year has evolved in a lot of different ways, but obviously it centers around making the NCAA Tournament, and we've been fortunate enough to do that over the past 25 years. Had a chance to get to the promised land a couple times. But it is something, you know, I think that's moved away a little bit from, to some degree, season conference play yet you gotta win games. But out-of-season play we were fortunate enough to be 12-0 outside the league and those games become important.
Bottom line to get here is just a great accomplishment, and obviously we enhanced our position. It doesn't necessarily enhance your probability, in my opinion, of getting to Houston, but it does enhance your confidence and that's what last week did for us.
But we're excited about coming here. There's nothing that's not fun about coming to the NCAA Tournament.
MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Calhoun.

Q. Two questions: Now that the dust has settled from New York, have you had a chance to sit down and process what you guys did over that last weekend? And two, talk a little bit more about Alex's progression as a rebounder this year.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, when the dust did clear, it was somewhere maybe driving back from New York on late Sunday morning, and just realizing what those five days mean. It just felt like Groundhog Day a lot of times where you get up, have breakfast, go play a game, come back, meal, chalk talk, repeat the same, and then go to Friday, Saturday. And quite frankly the more it flowed, it did flow. The more we played, the more comments we had. We were very fortunate.
In many ways I think DePaul is going to be a fine basketball team but DePaul is not right now a team -- it's a team that's been struggling. And we were able to get some offensive confidence in that game and something we didn't have at the end of the season. And then Georgetown we know didn't have Wright, but still we played very well in that basketball game, and then Pitt and Syracuse and Louisville. When I put it back in perspective after the two national championships there's nothing more special to win that kind of fight in your neighborhood. Everyone wants to win the neighborhood fight against the guys you've been competing against, a lot of those guys and programs, Jimmy Boeheim for 25 years.
And as we drove down by bus on Monday preceding the tournament, you know, it was, let's get by DePaul, and then kind of went on from there. And looking back upon it, as I said, except for the two national championships, it clearly is the one of the highlights of certainly my coaching career, of being involved with kids playing basketball and having someone to lead a team so well as Kemba did.
I think we're going to be fine coming back off it, getting ready for the Tournament now. My personal opinion is that we're ready to play basketball and these kids play a lot of basketball. I can't look into their heads, psychic makeup of where we are, but I do know we're probably a pretty confident group, and you need confidence to go into this tournament.

Q. Jim, on the subject of Kemba, you've coached some fairly good players in your career. How does he stack up?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: I never try to put one over another. We were just talking in back here about Caron Butler, who for two years was one of the most special kids I've had and still is like a son to me. Ray Allen, who just broke the all-time 3-point record. You can keep going. Donyell Marshall, who today was at our practice. Rip Hamilton, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon. Those guys are all so special and now it will be Kemba. Kemba's name will be now in the mix with all of these guys.
The week he had when we came to New York, he graduated that year, Emeka did, but he didn't play two of the games in the Big East Tournament. And he wasn't in until the end down the stretch against Duke, which I'm sure you were very happy about, and then a Monday against -- and then, no, no, I'm saying he was great in that second half. Certainly great on Monday. He was just special. Kemba had a special week, a real special week.
And I just don't know if you could take -- I don't think you can do it, take a list of top-20 teams and top-10 teams and line them up and do what these kids did. And that's to me just phenomenal. Clearly and very definitively he was the leader of that, there's no question.
That wasn't a shot; part of my cynical personality. Always have to get a little sarcasm there.

Q. Coach, a lot of your teams at UConn have held their end in rebounding and blocking shots. After the Notre Dame game you lamented that you guys were struggling in that department. Do you feel that this is still an issue going forward in the NCAA Tournament, rebounding the basketball?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: I hope it isn't and for the year we're plus 4. We should be better. In normal years we would be. But during the five days we were plus 8. We were really, really a very good rebounding team during the Big East Tournament.
It's still something I have a little concern of. We really haven't done as a good job. We shot the ball well in the Big East Tournament; for the season we haven't been as good shooting. Defensively we're still in the same ballgame as we always have been. And in most games we play we'll have the best player on the floor, and that's always an advantage. That's always a great advantage to have the best player on the floor.

Q. Alex alluded to his mean streak before, which I'm not sure when he came in he was known for that. Can you develop a mean streak or are you born with a mean streak? And do you see it in him?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, I was trying to figure out where that mean streak was. He's one of the nicest young guys I've ever coached, and I want him to emulate his coach a little more if he could, nasty and all those kind of things.
But, no, I tried telling him about Caron Butler, who would run you over on the basketball court but was one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. And in his own way Emeka Okafor could be very physical. I don't know if that's a mean streak. I've had kids, tough kids and a lot of different kind of kids, Kevin Freeman comes to mind. I think he's developing some of that.
I think he's a sophomore and because he's our inside presence, he is our inside presence, consistently over the season, we expect an awful lot of him. And at times he gets 20 rebounds against Texas and then gets two rebounds against next team, and those are the kind of things. But as far as getting better, he's improved greatly. He doubled his scoring average from last year and has increased by over three and a half rebounds a game.
But, yeah, his aggressiveness -- his play, by the way, will determine a lot what happens to us against Bucknell, and if we're fortunate enough to win, anybody else. He has to play pretty well, and he did during those five days by the way.

Q. Coach, you've been in two tournaments this year, you've won eight games and won both tournaments. Is it a coincidence you've been playing your best basketball at those particular times or is there something to the pressure and the nerves that bring the best out of a young team? And Kemba and Alex mentioned it might be that they had something to prove, also.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: Yeah, I do think there's something to prove because at times it's been -- when I first came to UConn it was easy playing the underdog role and then it became very difficult, and I'm sure no one wanted to hear and no one wanted to listen. But point being is that we're picked tenth in our league. Sports Illustrated, there was 68 teams they had for the field, we weren't one of them. I have nothing against Sports Illustrated at all, but my kids had to hear that. But before you talk about making the NCAA Tournament, we weren't in the field of 68 yet. So we played off that.
And I do think that coaches, we're very hard on trying to find more reasons than just, let's play well. Let's have everybody think we're a real good team. No, that doesn't necessarily work. It works as there are different forms of motivation. "You're so much better than people realize you are," they've heard that enough different times. They hear it from just in practice. "You can't make that kind of play, you're too good player to make that kind of play."
So I think we played that underdog role at particular times. We won't play that tomorrow but I've been in the same seat at Northeastern, NCAA Tournament play at other times, and when I first got to UConn all the underdog and you can really, really get yourself motivated that way. But I think they played off the fact that they didn't feel they get the kind of respect that they deserve. I think they're getting plenty respect right now.

Q. Your kids don't seem to get rattled, such a young group what's allowed to go out and play?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: I don't think they see the games near as big as I've seen older teams occasionally do. It's funny, I can go back that there are games that I've had starting out -- I always think the last game and the first game of the NCAA Tournament for you might be the most difficult. I think first game is hard for a lot of people. Hopefully this team will stay in character and they won't consider it a big game. Jeremy Lamb, he doesn't think shots are big, they're just shots to him. Much like Richard Hamilton.

Q. Coach, Kemba and Alex both talked about getting ice baths and some treatment this week. I know you're not the trainer but what specifically did they do? How many ice baths and how is it different from a normal week that they would have had?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: We cut back a little bit. Honestly you'd be crazy not to cut back. They talk about playing games, I've seen a lot of AAU games and those weren't AAU games. And so, therefore, they're a long way from AAU games, trust me. And the physical price, there were a lot of kids being banged up, a lot more ice, a lot more ice baths, some of those type of things to recover.
My main concern is the psychic makeup of a team, is it fresh and ready to attack something? And I thought after the Notre Dame loss last game of the season that we were fresh. And we were upset because we knew we could have won that basketball game. And we attacked and I just hope we feel the exact same way playing against a very good Bucknell team.
About Bucknell, someone asked me my greatest fear, the Defensive Player of the Year in Cohen, the big kid who is already a terrific player, going to be a tremendous player. Their point guard is very good. My biggest fear about any team like that, they don't know how to lose right now. Unfortunately. They've won 20 of the last 21 games and there's something to that in this tournament. And the old line the coaches have, if you're the guy who's favored and you're up six, you'll get a little dry mouth coming with about three to go, and you're the other guy, they got us right where they want us. And that's a two different bench viewpoints of a game, Bucknell and Connecticut. They're a very good basketball team and they're very used to winning. So it should be a very interesting game.

Q. Jim, at the end of the Pitt game did Kemba change who set the screen in the huddle? And how does he does he have some sort of input and a good sense about that kind of stuff?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: I have ask him a lot of questions on angles, on screens because most people hedge it, people read it or double team it, people blew it by getting two people on top. But no, we had Jamal Coombs setting the screen because we thought that would be a different look, therefore, we made them switch to try and get McGhee on Kemba, to try either take it to the rim or shoot a jumpshot. But we wanted to make sure we didn't roll a man to clog the lane, we wanted to pop a man. That's why Jamal Coombs as opposed to one of the other big guys sets the screen.
MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

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