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NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOURApril 2, 2011Jim CalhounJeremy LambKemba WalkerHOUSTON, TEXAS Connecticut – 56 THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with UConn. Coach, if you could give us a couple of opening remarks. COACH CALHOUN: Well, I really can't give you just a couple. It doesn't really exist with me as you have already found that out. I'm just so proud of my kids. I think that offensively we struggled with a lot of open shots. Obviously, they were loading up to find Jeremy and obviously Kemba, who was sensational again along with Jeremy. So when we get down the stretch run, after getting the 10-point lead early, did a great job, I thought, of doubling up, getting the pick-and-rolls. I thought we did a good job of forcing the sideline. We took away that handoff screen, which is a very tough thing to handle because you can't really hedge as well as you like. We did a great job early. Then we ran 'em off of three-point line. We talked a lot about that. The big guys helped out early and got that 10-point lead. I felt very comfortable except for the rebounding. Then the second half they came out and made four straight. Now we're in a whole different kind of ballgame. But down the stretch, four-minute mark, they were 1 for 10 because the kids knew, Kemba, Jeremy, that we were tired. I'm sure they were tired. It's a long day for both teams. They're a great basketball team. I thought the 1 for 10 down the stretch was the key to the basketball game. We knew we were not going to make every shot, but if we can defend them, we can win this basketball game. Got the six-point lead, made a couple of mistakes. They made a big three. But our defense eventually won it for us, along with, what I said, the best player in America. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Kemba, they seemed to be determined to stop you defensively, but you showed that you're a multi-dimensional player. KEMBA WALKER: Yeah, you know, I knew that those guys were going to try their best to stop me, stop me from scoring at least. I was able to find my bigs and find Jeremy and Shabazz, and those guys were able to make shots. Q. Kemba, this looked like the most deliberate pace I've seen you play offensively in the last month. Talk about how much of that was by design. KEMBA WALKER: You know, we really buckled down in practice. And we knew in order to score that we was going to have to run our offense at a full speed, set good screens and things like that. That was definitely one of the points of emphasis going into post-season. Q. Kemba, the other day John Calipari compared you to Danny Manning, the way you have carried this team. Can you even fathom that? Do you understand what you've accomplished thus far? KEMBA WALKER: Uhm, no. Honestly, you know, maybe it will all hit me once it's all said and done and we cutting down the nets. Q. We all hear about how Butler is a Cinderella team. Where you guys have come from, can you talk about what your team has accomplished. JEREMY LAMB: Yeah, coming into the season, we had a lot of freshmen. They didn't rank us. They had us finishing 10th in the Big East. You know, I think based on this year, yeah, you could kind of call it that. I just think that was motivation for us. I think we kept working hard. We was working hard all the summer. I just think that was just motivation. KEMBA WALKER: He said it all. You know, we worked extremely hard to get to this point. All the hard work is just paying off. But, you know, it's going to be a tough game against Butler. They extremely experienced in this game. They was here last season. Experience will maybe play a factor. I think as long as we play the way we've been playing, you know, throughout this whole tournament, I think we'll be fine. Q. Kemba, talk about Alex Oriakhi getting that missed rebound? KEMBA WALKER: Alex had a couple of big rebounds throughout that game. Alex just brings the energy. He brings that presence in the post, in the paint. As long as Alex have a big-time game rebounding the ball, stopping other players, other team's best big men, we always seem to come out on top. Q. Kemba, about three and a half left, they got possession down two. Brandon tried to drive it. Your big guys covered. You wound up with a fast-break layup. Talk about how much fatigue you had at that point, how important you thought it was to get that fast-break layup? KEMBA WALKER: Fatigue was definitely a factor at that point. I usually won't tell you guys I was tired, but I actually was. You know, we didn't get that timeout until about a minute and 50 left, something like that. But, uhm, that fast-break layup was very important. I think it put us up four points. So, again, that was very important. Q. Kemba, last time you guys played Kentucky, it was a much different game. What's different about Kentucky compared to in Maui? KEMBA WALKER: They a different team. They grew up, you know, throughout the year. You know, Brandon has just been a lights-out player ever since then. He's been a great leader for his team. He's been showing it throughout the whole tournament. Q. Kemba, were you and Shelvin teammates on that select team? KEMBA WALKER: Yes. Q. Looking forward toward Monday, what can you tell me about that matchup you may have with Shelvin and did y'all get into competition when you were on the team together? KEMBA WALKER: No, we didn't play against each other. We actually did play against each other. I don't remember playing against him. But, uhm, it's going to be tough. He's a tough player. You know, he makes tough shots. So I think as long as we force him into tough shots, then we'll be fine. Q. Kemba, 13 minutes left, you made a defensive play in the corner. You came up limping. You retied your shoelace. The next play you chased Lamb down from behind and went up with him. What was the pain threshold and how did you block it out? KEMBA WALKER: Uhm, Darius Miller fell on my ankle. It hurt for a little while. But adrenaline, I pushed through it. I didn't want Doron to score. Chased him down and I was able to get a block. Q. Jeremy, guys from Kentucky said they were nervous, they didn't really know how to handle this. You hit on the big stage for the very first time and seemed fine. What was the difference for you? JEREMY LAMB: I was definitely nervous going into the game. But, uhm, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on around the game, up to the game. You know, coaches kept telling us, It's still a basketball game and just go out there and play basketball. After they called out the starting lineups, we all got on the court, I just tried to think, It's still a basketball game and I'm out here with my teammates and let's have fun. That's what helped me. Q. Jeremy, Kemba doesn't usually admit that he's had fatigue. When did you see it in him and what did it look like? JEREMY LAMB: Uhm, I know, you know, sometimes he just asks Shabazz to bring the ball up. Then when he's setting up the play, he'll go and sit on the side for a second, you know, and just rest. So, uhm, you know, really when he gives Shabazz the ball, basically he's trying to get a rest, you know, a quick minute. He don't get real tired. But, you know, when he need that little rest, he give Shabazz the ball and Shabazz will hold it down. Q. Kemba, late in the game you guys were very patient with your offense. Did you sense that Kentucky became anxious the more patient you guys were? KEMBA WALKER: Uhm, yeah, you know, because we had the lead. You know, they wanted to get some stops. I thought they definitely, you know, were very anxious. Q. Kemba, you guys stumbled a little bit at the end of the season right before the Big East tournament started. As soon as it started, you lit afire and have been one of the hottest teams in the nation since then. Talk about what happened when the tournament started that got you guys on this roll? KEMBA WALKER: Uhm, at the end of the regular season we lost to Notre Dame. We had a couple of great practices. It was like the first day of practice again. We really went hard, really got after it. We just tightened some things up. Going into the Big East tournament, you know, we had a couple wins under our belt and we started to get a lot more confident as, you know, we started to win games. I think that's really it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. You can go back to the locker room. We'll continue with questions for Coach Calhoun. Q. You haven't been shy about talking about where you think Kemba is nationally. Kentucky felt good about holding him to 18-7-6. Does that validate what you've been saying? COACH CALHOUN: If you let a guy control a game, you've done a great job on him, the block from behind might be the difference between that three-point winning the game. We always tell the kids, you don't know what play during a particular game is going to have that difference. If they have the heart to chase him down and make that block, it's Kemba Walker. They played terrific. John had his team I thought on great halfcourt offense. We did it with Kemba because I thought through the whole thing he wasn't jumping into his jump shot quite the way he normally does. I thought he was fatigued, quite frankly, most of the game. And at the end, during the timeout, we'd gone so long, I asked him did he need a 30-second blow. He was bent over, so he never responded. So I just kept playing him. Someone asked me, you know, did you find places to play him. I said, Yeah, on the court for 40 minutes. We're going to have to be careful to get him ready for Monday. Once again, if someone thinks that's controlling Kemba Walker, because he didn't get 30, 32, or 29, last time against them, so be it. He's just a special player. I know talking to so many coaches, because our convention is here, it isn't just the jump shot or the drive, it's all the intangibles, the joy of playing basketball, that he brings to the game that separates him, in my opinion, from everybody else, plus seven freshmen, two sophomores, nine of our team. He's the guy they all follow. As far as I'm concerned, he was very important tonight. I think defense won the game for us. I think that was the key. I thought Kemba could have had 12, 13 assists. Shabazz is a good shooter. We missed shots we usually should make and will make. But, you know, he was magnificent. I think he's a difference-maker in every game he's been in this year. So they did a better job than most teams could, but the price you give up is the fact you leave other people open. Once again, they gave us all we could handle. We were fortunate they came back in the second half, it was a great basketball, but Kemba was still pretty special. Q. Talk about Shabazz today. He didn't have the greatest day until his four points turned out to be the biggest points of the game. COACH CALHOUN: I'm not trying to be sarcastic with you, but he played great, great defense. A very young, good player that's been going crazy. Last time he shot 3 for 18 against them. Tonight we call those costly points. I think that Knight is an absolutely magnificent player. But 6 for 23 is expensive. That's how we look at it. We try to use that term defensively. In other words, if you take a lot of tough shots, that's expensive because your field-goal percentage goes down and we in turn have a much better chance to win. I thought Shabazz played great. I thought he made a mistake. I was so concerned during the timeout that he'd be so concerned about losing the basketball, dribbling into traffic. He looked to me and said, Coach, I'll make it up next play. What am I going to say? Of course, he makes two foul shots. I thought Shabazz missed shots but played terrific. Q. This is your third appearance in the championship game. When you were coaching in the past, did you think this was possible? COACH CALHOUN: Beating Framingham South, beating Catholic Memorial, some of those teams, 23 straight my last year there. Sharon with Dudley Davenport was too good to beat us (laughter). I'm going to tell you something. I went into the Hall of Fame. I was very fortunate because of the great players and universities I've been at. I say this to everybody. You know the game that I played in the Tech Tourney in Massachusetts, to win the Northeast Conference at Northeastern, to beat Holy Cross, those games were incredibly important to me. I can't tell you they're as important as this because I'd be lying to you and I don't want to lie. Very simply put, a coach is a coach. There's a thousand guys out there that do incredible jobs coaching and don't necessarily have the opportunity that I do. I have the opportunity to coach guys like this. Q. In your three other trips to the Final Four, the year before you could kind of get the feeling that a run like this was possible. When this season did you start to think that playing on Monday night would be a legitimate possibility? COACH CALHOUN: A couple different times probably. You know, middle of the season when we were on that six-game winning streak, beating good people, including Villanova. I said if we can beat Texas at Texas in front of a sold-out crowd, I thought we could beat anybody. And then we hit a couple of bumps. And lost some in our conference. I thought when we beat Pittsburgh. We had beaten DePaul, Oliver Purnell will do a great job there, but right now, they're not. They're going to be. Then we beat Georgetown by 18, and I know that Chris Wright didn't play. To beat Pittsburgh the next night, I said, You know, Pittsburgh is really, really good. Whether they lost in the tournament is not really relevant. They're good and we beat them. Kind of at that point I thought the way we approached the Bucknell game, we were up by 38 at one particular point, that's like some of my No. 1 seed teams with four or five pros on it, I started to get a feeling this team had a good feeling about itself. Since then, the two games in Anaheim, to play two road games, you know, before 18,000 people out there, pretty special. So, you know, I felt at that particular point. My assistants kept telling me, We're this close. I think we closed that gap somewhere in the Big East tournament. Q. With five or six minutes left in the game, Napier came over and said something to you. It appeared you were spreading them out. COACH CALHOUN: We actually called a timeout and ran the Princeton offense. Called a 23 set. We got a nice score out of it. Ran a slip screen, a dunk inside. What it did is it got the ball in other people's hands beside our two guards. We ran them both through to the baseline. Made double down screens, curled, and we did it again. You're right, it gave them a little bit of rest. The second time around we really made a hard screen and the big guys slipped it, we got a layup inside. It got us at that time a four-point advantage. Q. Talk about the play of Alex Oriakhi tonight. COACH CALHOUN: We can't go to war without a warrior inside. Someone within that paint area, Charles didn't have rebounds or points, but we needed physicality in the middle. Without question, Harrellson has been playing terrific. I thought we more than neutralized him tonight with Alex and Charles. They did a great job for us. Q. You've coached in power conferences, you've coached in the non-power conferences. Philosophical question. Would it be good one year, not suggesting this year be it, for a mid-major team to win the entire NCAA championship? COACH CALHOUN: You know, I think starting in 2012, '13, it would be a wonderful idea (smiling). THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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