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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: ST. LOUISMarch 24, 2012Harrison BarnesReggie BullockJohn HensonStilman WhiteRoy WilliamsTyler ZellerST. LOUIS, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH WILLIAMS: Yes, Reggie is getting stretched out. You saw in the game last night, he got his knee whacked a little bit. And so we're just doing some extra stretching on him. It's a MASH unit down in our locker room a little bit. We're ecstatic about being one of the final eight. We did feel like we survived last night. It wasn't an easy game by any means, and it wasn't the prettiest game by any means. But we're still playing and we're ecstatic, as I said, about that. We have got to play a big‑time game tomorrow against a great Kansas team that has had a phenomenal year. And it's something that you dream about all the time of getting yourself in this position. And our kids have gotten us there, and these guys up here on the podium have done a fantastic job for us and have drug me along with them. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. John, you guys are playing against Ohio yesterday and for awhile you guys kept turning the ball over and they couldn't get any shots inside the 3‑point line. You guys are known as a great offensive team, but has this defense been undersold a little bit? JOHN HENSON: Has the defense been what? Undersold? Our defense? Q. Yes. JOHN HENSON: I don't know, we play well defensively as a team, I think, and we're getting better and better. Even at the time like this, we're getting better each day. I don't know if it's undersold, but it's something we do try to emphasize. Q. John, what do you know about Jeff Withey, and Thomas and what do you think about your game maybe might work against them? JOHN HENSON: They're two big men that are playing very well together and they're tough to guard, and they're tough to score on. So it's going to be a tough game for me and Z down there. And yes, I was going to try my best and see what happens. Q. Stilman, is it kind of surreal that you're up here on the podium for an Elite8 game? Are you still kind of trying to have that all sink in? STILMAN WHITE: Definitely didn't expect it coming into the tournament, but things happen, and next thing you know, you're up here. So it's kind of weird, but you know, it's pretty exciting. COACH WILLIAMS: Let me explain to you something now. This morning at breakfast. Kendall's standing up and says who's toast is this over here? Looked at our table, no. Looked at the next table, no. Looked at the next table, no. Who's toast is this? John said, Toast, toast, anybody's toast? 21 people in there looked at Stilman and Stilman says, Oh, that's my toast. THE MODERATOR: Stilman, do you have a response for that? STILMAN WHITE: I was kind of into my iPhone game and I was working on a high score, so I had to wait until I finished that round before I could pick my toast up. Q. What game was it? STILMAN WHITE: It was Super Jet Pack. I think. It's a good game. Q. Harrison, when you had a rough shooting night in a venue and then play again in that same spot two days later, do you take much from the first game? And where is your confidence going when you're playing in the same spot? HARRISON BARNES: No, just got to keep playing. It's not necessarily always about shots. You can still contribute with good effort, defensively, get on the boards, just getting out in the pasting lanes and just making those effort plays, hustle plays. Q. Tyler, similar question to what John was asked earlier, when you look at Robinson and Withey and what they did against NC State last night, what kind of challenge is that for you and how often do you look around and see guys who are as big as you are or as mobile as you are? TYLER ZELLER: Not very often. Usually these guys that are really big or shorter, but they're a little skinnier, so that will be interesting to see how we matchup. And you got to give them a lot of credit, they're both fantastic players. Obviously Robinson is a Player of the Year candidate and Withey had 10 blocks last night, which is an incredible feat. So it will be interesting to see how we matchup I think with our size hopefully we can give them a some problems, but I think it goes both ways. Q. For any of you, who amongst you is also into Super Jet Pack and who is the best? TYLER ZELLER: I don't have an iPhone, so not me. JOHN HENSON: I think that it's a pretty good game. James actually told me about it, and to be honest, I was playing it before I walked in here. So Stilman's probably a little better than me, but I'm just getting on it. STILMAN WHITE: I'll take credit for finding the game, so pretty sure I'm the best player. HARRISON BARNES: Never played it. REGGIE BULLOCK: I never played it either. Q. Harrison, going back to his question a little bit. After having a tough shooting performance, how much did what you did in overtime seem to kind of find it again? How much does that carry over? So You get confidence from that, build on that or is it a new game, new start? HARRISON BARNES: I think it was a nice way to finish out the game. Obviously it gives you confidence that you can make shots in that building. But Sunday's a whole new game. Kansas is an extremely good ball club. You have to bring your best in order to beat them. So kind of put that game aside and just change your focus again. Q. Stilman, are you past the pinch‑me stage and how different do you feel say today than maybe you did yesterday going into last night's game? STILMAN WHITE: It's definitely different now. I definitely got my feet wet the last game and the pinch‑me‑stage‑type thing, you kind of have to put that away quickly because I haven't been here before. But all these guys have, and they're all great players and also playing with them is a lot easier because they're so good. Q. Guys, how much have you guys watched Kansas on tape? How familiar are you with any of the players? TYLER ZELLER: On tape we had a scouting report this morning, so we went over it. But I think throughout the course of the season, we watched them play. We watched them. I know I was watching them earlier this year, any team in the Top‑10 you love to watch and watch them play. So something that I think we watched them a lot, we watched them last night. We're very familiar with them, but we've never actually played them, so it will be interesting to see how we matchup. Q. Tyler, last night you said you were going to be watching most of your brother's game. How much of the other semifinal did you see? TYLER ZELLER: I was flipping back and forth, so commercials, I would go back to the Kansas game. But we didn't get out of here actually until I mean, I don't recall when it was, but we had a snack when we got back. So I watched probably the last eight minutes of my brother's game. And then right after that, I immediately went over to the Kansas State game. So I saw the end of it. But, yeah, I did watch my brother's game with my parents first. Q. Reggie, what happened when you tweaked your knee yesterday and was there ever any concern that you might not be able to go back in once that happened? REGGIE BULLOCK: It was never no concern, but it was basically just a player just tried to box me out and he just came to my knee level and just like buckled back. It just scared me a little bit because I was just thinking like I hope it's not another time for me not being able to play. But I just kept my confidence high and just hoped for the best, and it just worked out for the best for me now. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll excuse the student‑athletes and take questions for coach. Q. Everyone's dying to ask you about Super Jet Pack, but if we could ask you one Kansas question, when you went‑‑ COACH WILLIAMS: I know more about Kansas than do I Super Jet Pack. I can guarantee you that. (Laughter.) Q. When you went back in May, I don't know if you had been back at all or been in public there at all before then, but how comfortable were you and what was the reception like and what was that trip like for you? COACH WILLIAMS: Well, it was a great trip for me. One of my best friends in the world was the golf pro there, and I went back to help him with their grand opening of their new course. I think they expected two or three thousand people, but it was 41 degrees and wind blowing 40 miles an hour and misting rain. That's the first time I ever played golf with four layers of clothes on because when it's that cold, I don't play. But it was a great time for me. There was some friends that lived on my same street in Lawrence that came, but they didn't get the 3,000 people, and it was because of the weather. It was just so bad, I had one of my buddies said, I would come watch you coach basketball any time, but I played golf with you, I'm not dumb enough to come watch you play golf in this bad weather. So I wasn't in Lawrence, it was a right out side of Topeka, University of Kansas is nothing but great, great memories for me. It was 15 years of my life that I felt like that I gave my heart and my body and my soul. And the people were wonderful to me. It will always be positive memories and for that 15 years Kansas was my favorite basketball program of all time. And my second favorite program was North Carolina. And now my favorite basketball program of all time is North Carolina and my second is Kansas. But the passion that the people have for basketball there is just unmatched. Playing in the Fieldhouse, coaching in the Fieldhouse, I should say, was a tremendous experience for me. I had great players there. I've had three or four of the players that I had at Kansas that have already come to see me here. So to me, it was a great trip back. We won the golf match, which was really important to me. I lost all the money back in the casino, which was really important to the state's economy, so I tried to please as many people as I could. Q. Can you talk about your relationship with Bill Self off the floor. How much do you guys talk during the regular season? You don't play each other during the regular season, so do you guys talk often? COACH WILLIAMS: We don't talk often. Bill was awfully nice this year in the preseason to let me know of the alumni game that they were having. But it worked out that I couldn't go and I would have loved to have gone. There's no question there was some bitterness when I left with some people, but I think time has healed the majority of that. I took a lot of junk from the North Carolina people for wearing the Jayhawks sticker in 2008, so I perhaps maybe got one of my friends back from there. But Bill's a tremendous coach, and I'm not saying that lightly. He's a tremendous coach. We knew each other a long time before we were golf partners in a golf match on the Nike trip one time, and so it's a friend, but it's more respect because I don't call a lot of people during the season, other than the people that either coach with me or played for me. And I can't speak for him, but I hate being on the phone. I despise the phone. If I could make one NCAA rule, I would make the NCAA rule that the head coach can never make a recruiting call. I'm serious. So I don't talk on the phone very much. My buddies when they call me, they say what they want to say and we get it and I get the dickens off the phone, because I don't sit at my house looking at that phone waiting for it to ring. Every damn time it rings there's somebody on the other end that wants something, so kind of thing. So I don't talk to a lot of people during the season other than the guys that really coached with me or played for me or something like that. But Bill's a big‑time coach and has done a great, great job with Kansas' program. Q. You mentioned that you took a lot of junk. How tough was it for you and can you ever be to a point that playing Kansas is another game? COACH WILLIAMS: It was really difficult for me because I didn't think it was fair. All the junk was coming from the North Carolina side, and in 1993, I was coach at Kansas and North Carolina beat us. And I stayed there for the finals in New Orleans waiving my North Carolina blue pom‑pom, and I didn't get any junk then. So I didn't think I should have gotten any junk in 2008, when I was cheering for Kansas. There was three guys down on that bench that I had coached and some of them even helped recruit when they were young. But it's over with now, and time, as they say, will heal a lot of things. But I don't think I will ever be comfortable, I really don't. Because again that was 15 years of my life that I tried to give everything. And North Carolina now is gosh, 19 years coaching and five years as a student, I graduated in four, okay, but I stayed and got my Masters my fifth year kind of thing. So it's sort of like I said to Greg McDermott, and John Groce, they're both friends, I really don't enjoy playing friends. Because at the end of the game, I'll never forget this in my life, in '91, we beat North Carolina in the Final Four, and Coach Smith was ejected. I felt so badly for him at the end, and I was also mad because I thought it would take away from a great victory for our team. And in '93, we played North Carolina, and they beat us in the semi‑finals. And as soon as the game was over with, the clock went off and I turned and stared at Coach Smith and he clapped his hands like, Yes. And he looked down that bench and I was walking towards him and the look on his face was the same feeling that I had. I had lost, but he looked down there and said, Gosh, that's Roy. And so I don't think it will ever feel good for me regardless of the outcome. I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with it. But a lot of people say I'm stupid, too. I don't disagree with them all the time either. Q. With regard to Bill, is there a sense of kinship or something like that it's only been eight men in that position and I know you've answered a little bit about Bill, but do you feel that a little? And with regard to that also, can you just tell about I think you host something in the fall typically where North Carolina and Kansas coaches or people of that background are the ones invited? COACH WILLIAMS: There's no question that there's a tremendous sense of kinship, I'll use your word. When I was the coach at Kansas I had the picture of the seven previous coaches, I was the seventh coach in Kansas' history. And I had big pictures of all of them up in the office. Now, I don't know if Bill does now or not, but there is a kinship there. I understand what Bill is going through. I know the stress and the pressures and the expectations and the feelings and the love and the passion. And it's all of those and some of those are good. The passion that they have is good and maybe the expectations aren't good. So I do understand that part of it. It is something that I told Coach Smith one time, I said, I'm the only guy, and you would be second, that knows what we have at North Carolina and Kansas. And he said, You're right. The people at North Carolina don't realize what we had at Kansas, people at Kansas didn't realize what we had at North Carolina. So that was a unique thing with me and, like I say, Coach Smith. But he saw it in a much earlier time period. And I'll never forget we had the hundred year basketball reunion at Kansas, and it was one of the greatest weekends I could ever experience. And so I'm with Coach Smith, and I said, Coach, here's your parking pass. I said, You'll need to turn here and need to go there and it will be the third spot. And he says, Well, can't I just park in the garage or somewhere. I said, No, coach. He says, Well, how many people do you have coming? I said, It's sold out. And he looked at me and said, You got to be kidding. It was an old‑timers' game. It was a bunch of guys running around in short pants again that were a little longer than it was when they ran around in them originally. But he was dumbfounded. So when I went to North Carolina, I said, We're going to have a hundred‑year basketball reunion when it's our one hundredth year, because it was in 2010, I think, and I tried to copy a lot of the things that we had done at Kansas. I tried to do away with the things that didn't go as well and keep the ones that did. And we sold out 21,750 for an old‑timers' game there, too. And so there is that feeling. The thing in the fall, Bill doesn't come and his staff, because what I do, it's the North Carolina guys and my Kansas guys that played for me or coached with me in coaching. And I'm trying to think, I don't think, well, Barry Hinson, brought him one time, but that's when he was at Missouri State. We have one little problem because it doesn't bother me ‑‑ let me back up. People think that we shouldn't do it like Jeff Lebo was the coach at Auburn, and Kevin Stallings was coach at Vanderbilt, that's two guys in the same league that are going to play, so we do try to stay away from guys that are going to coach against each other during the year. Q. Coach Self was saying a little bit earlier that Drew Gooden has a similar injury to Kendall Marshall's and it took him a week to get back. How do you feel about Marshall's chances of playing tomorrow right now? COACH WILLIAMS: Well, I think that I'm not sure you heard his answer properly because I think Drew missed seven games. And Bob‑‑ am I close on there or do you remember? Drew became a heck of a lot better player while he was hurt, because he sat up there and he listened to us coaches and saw what we have been trying to get him to do and then realized how stupid he had been. And I say that lovingly, but he did. It really helped him because he sat there. But I don't think it was just one week, and I may be wrong and Bob or somebody may have the media guide, but I know it was not just one week. Kendall today went through the dummy stuff. Today's the first day he's bounced a ball. So first day he's caught a ball. It's the first day that he's shot a ball. We kept him out of all the life stuff. Now we want to see if it bothers him or if it pains him or if it swells up or if his toes curls or whatever happens next. And then tomorrow at shoot‑around, we'll try to probably do the same thing. And then there's two things that have to happen: one, he has to feel comfortable that he's not hurting.  And then two, I have to decide, can he be effective in the game with his situation. Q. Kind of a follow‑up to that. Yesterday we watched you guys kind of grind out a game. Kansas is a team that's ground out games all year. We think of you two as high‑powered offenses, but is tomorrow a game that's going to be maybe in the 60s decided that way? COACH WILLIAMS: You know, we love to score, I think Kansas likes to score. Kansas is really good defensively. I'm going take a guess at this, they're sixth in the nation in defensive field goal percentage. We're in probably the top 40., they're 38‑6, we're 39‑7, something like that. Yesterday you said grind it out, and I appreciate that. We were damn ugly. That's what we were. We're one of the Top‑10 in the country in turnovers per game. Fewest turnovers per game. We averaged like 11 turnovers per game and, I don't see Kirshner in here, but I think that's fairly close. We had 13 in the first half. And Kendall is extremely important to us. I've never had a guard have that kind of an assist‑to‑error ratio. He has 351, 101 turnovers. We don't turn it over very much because Kendall is in charge of the basketball. And so we were ugly because we didn't have Kendall. And hopefully one game under our belt will help us not be as ugly tomorrow. But when you play Kansas and Bill's had great mentors himself, and when he worked for Eddie Sutton and I was coaching at Kansas and they were at Oklahoma State, I felt like every game we played them was hand‑to‑hand combat. And that's probably what it will be tomorrow too. Q. Bill talked about some apprehension following you, that he had to call his father and discuss that, you took the Kansas job without ever having been a head coach. How did you navigate those waters and keep that job from swallowing you up to a degree? COACH WILLIAMS: I wasn't as confident as Bill, because he says apprehension, I was scared to death, is what mine was. But in saying that, I was pretty confident in what I could do, and Larry had left a great group of youngsters there. Danny wasn't there, but the other kids that were left were just great. And they gave me a chance. They really did. The secret to the success we had was that first team that those kids. Kevin Pritchard, Mark Randall, Milt Newton, Scooter Barry, that gave me a chance. They tried to do what I asked them to do, and instead of doubting everything, and that's the reason that that first team got off to a really good start until we started getting everybody banged up. Then the second team was even better, and we stayed healthy and won 30. But I've always been fairly confident with my abilities. I don't think I'm being cocky, but my whole life has been getting guys together to do things. When it's getting guys together to go play basketball in the playground when I was in high school or getting guys together to go play golf in college. And even now, I have two or three golf trips a year now that I set up with eight guys and their wives. One of them it's all couples trips, go to Scotland a couple. Been there with a whole group of guys and their wives, so that's my life, has been putting things together and getting guys to work towards a common goal. The kids that we had at Kansas really made Roy Williams. I'm not overexaggerating. Kevin Pritchard, Milt Newton, those guys, Mark Randall, they gave me a chance, and that helped. And then there was a little bit of credibility there because of the success that we had. And the other guys just believed those guys. And then we had, we were laughing here because Richard Scott was a big‑time player for us, and those kids just believed in me. And that was the neatest thing. Somebody asked Richard what we were going to do after we left this meeting, and he says, Well, you know coach tells us to go spit in the river, we're going to go spit in the river. I mean it was a total belief with those kids, and that was the reason that was the reason that Roy Williams has been able to do what we have done. And those kids, I'll never forget those original kids, the way they had that. But I had Coach Smith to lean on and ask questions of. I had a wonderful staff. I mean my staff was Jerry Green, who later became ahead coach at Oregon and Tennessee, took Tennessee to four straight NCAA tournaments. Mark Turgeon, who has been a big‑time coach, still is, and is dying to beat my rear end now, at Maryland. Kevin Stalling is one of the great coaches in the country at Vanderbilt and Steve Robinson. So I had a wonderful staff to help me through those time periods, too. Q. I would have to imagine that every year the personality your team that you're coaching changes. For lack of a better word, how interesting is the personality of this team and how much more interesting was it on Friday? COACH WILLIAMS: You saw it up here. We got four guys yelling out, Whose toast is this? And my kid's over there in some space jam thing going on kind of thing. And you know, he's really unique young man, and I was so pleased with what he did last night. I tell you another neat thing that it was nice in coaching, is that last night after at our meal, after we got back and all the press commitments and everything, and we gave them a quick run down of what today was going to be like, and I said, But guys, before we go, I said, Stilman, 32 minutes, six assist, zero turnovers. Son, you played your rear end off. And my other guys gave him an ovation. And I mean it is a neat group of kids. We can screw it up in a heartbeat and we're a little wacko at times, but it is a team that's fun to be around. And we go in there last night, and my only sorrow of last night is that, and it was probably caused by me, at this stage of the year, you want to win. Win and move on, I told them, and my wife's an English teacher, she didn't like this, I said, You guys remember the story of Casey at the bat, there's no joy in Mudville. They never heard of that. Hell I guess it's not on any Space Jam thing on there or anything. Maybe we need to get some poetry on there. But it is a team that I wish they had been able to celebrate more last night going to the Elite8, but we were exhausted, mentally maybe more than physically. Because there was so much stress without our engine, without our driver, without the head of the thing. I mean it mentally was really draining for us last night. But each team, they have a different personality. You have this guy sitting right here with the quiet confidence. And I like the way he answers somebody's question. Last night's game was last night. And it did help in the overtime, and, in fact, I said after the regulation when we didn't score at the end, I said, All right. This is even better, because now we can play really well during the overtime period and that will make us feel even better about the game. And it did. But we were still exhausted in the locker room. There was nobody jumping around or doing anything whatsoever. So it's every team is unique in their own way and this one is, too. Q. I think I'm remembering this correctly, but with Ty's toe a few years ago, he had a painkilling shot for the Duke game and you said after that, that's not something you would consider doing again with a player. Was that an option at any point for Kendall to deal with the pain in his wrist and would it be on the table or not be on the table because of your experience with Ty? COACH WILLIAMS: It's an evolved question. They have not told me that that was an option. The thing that bothered me about that one is that the more I thought about it is that we were, and I was wrong, I said, Are we just masking the pain? Are we just hiding the pain kind of thing. And that really bothered me. I didn't think that I should be doing those kinds of things. They assured me later on that it wasn't masking anything that would allow him to hurt it even more later. And so I still don't feel good about it. I would still struggle with it. But since that time, also they have given me a shot one time to get through a game because of my back, and I lived and birdied the first hole of the year, so I guess I was all right. Q. How would you evaluate the way that Stilman is handling all the attention and the expectations with being a point guard at North Carolina? COACH WILLIAMS:  Well, it's been so fast, there haven't been much expectations except the stress that probably he puts on himself and feels the responsibility for being the point guard. I'm not sure that that young man feels any stress. I don't even know if he can spell it. He's ‑‑ I don't know. He's weird. He's a weird dude. But there's some kids' minds that I would like to get into to figure out what they think. That's one mind that I'm going stay away from. (Laughter.) And I say that in a caring way. But I mean he's a neat kid. That's what it is. You think about it, there's a lot of stress, there's a lot of this, there's a lot of that. But college athletics, I love. I've been very fortunate, I've had 11 different NBA teams talk to me about their head coaching position over the years. I don't think I could have that relationship with those guys that I have with these guys right here. So I'm one of the world's fortunates. Q. Bill Self said that he would be open to a Kansas/North Carolina home and home series. Would you be open to it? COACH WILLIAMS: No. Q. On two different ends of the spectrum here, nine years away, does it become easier for you personally when you play Kansas and when do you decide, you got your lunchtime, your walkthrough, okay, guys, spit in the river? COACH WILLIAMS: We're really getting technical about this coaching stuff, aren't we? I don't know at nines years, 19 years, 29 years, I don't know what that time is. But there's no question that I don't look out there like I did in 2008 and see some kids that I had started recruiting process with, had Brett Ballard, Michael Lee, that was on the bench coaching, Danny Manning used to come to our practices workout with our guys and was over the charts, positive with our guys. It's different now, because as I said, time does a lot of things. So it's different now. But I am wacko. Stilman probably wouldn't want to be in my brain either. I don't know that it will ever be just another team. And I hope not, to be honest with you. Because the love I have for that place, that was special, they gave Roy Williams a chance. Margey Frederick, Bob's wife, Bob was the athletic director who passed in the accident with the bicycle a couple years ago, she came over here yesterday to take Wanda out to lunch to visit with her, and we visited about the former baseball coach, to see how he's doing now. I mean there's some great, great memories there. But the other question, we're going to figure out a way to get all that done. I don't know when and how and what the timetable's going to be, but we'll figure out a way. I've already done it today, too, so I do go overboard on some things. Q. 15 great years at Kansas, great teams and great players, want to know if there are any guys that are up here with you today that kind of remind you of some of your Kansas players? And your team this year, does it bring back any memories of particular teams when you coached at Kansas? COACH WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think all these kids would fit in very well. They're wonderful kids, good students. They're caring about the right things. They're really neat kids. I have two grandchildren, two grandsons, two years and four months almost and then eight months. Every kid up here I would say, Would you watch my grandsons for the next couple hours, and I'll be back, and I would feel very, very comfortable. That's the same kind of thing I had at Kansas. Whether it's Jacque Vaughn, Wayne Simien, Mark Randall, so I've been very lucky in that part of it. And the teams, I don't know that I have ever had any teams that handled as much adversity over a couple years as this team has had. Last year, I suspended our only returning player that had played significant minutes ‑ not suspended him, dismissed him from the team. Had a guy leave in the middle of the year. We lost our best outside shooter before the season started to an ACL, then lost our guard, two guard, who was also our back‑up point guard to another ACL. And I mean these teams have been tough mentally. Every team has some adversity. I don't remember going through as many injuries or problems at KU as we have here. I mean I looked before we played Ohio, their top nine guys had missed one game, and I think Kansas top eight guys have missed one game. I mean this last really four years, it's just been off the charts. In 2009, we lost Marcus Ginyard for the entire season, Tyler Hansbrough, at the first, Tyler Lawson at the last. Next year, we lost Z half a year, Ed Davis half a year, I mean eight different guys missed games. And then last year as I said the problems that we had, two ACL's and a bad left hand and a bad right hand and a bad knee and coach with a bad mind. So the adversity is what I've really appreciated, how they have handled it with this club. Q. Along those same lines, you obviously were not feeling very well last night. Did you require any medical attention and how do you feel today? COACH WILLIAMS: I didn't feel very well. The blood rush getting upanddown, and I've had a cold for three weeks. I'm a yeller and trying to get information out to my guys, and I don't think they can hear me. So I'm trying to yell louder. And all of a sudden, I feel this pain in the temples and things start a little dizzy, and I go black for two or three seconds. And it happened more often last night than any game that I've ever coached. And I think it's directly related to the frustration of not being able to get guys to hear me. And after the game I had a little headache, not bad. I got something to eat, feel great today. I just wish I would get over this dadgum sore throat is the bottom line. But when I was at Kansas, they got worried about it one time and sneaked me into the hospital one night and ran all these tests. And I don't know that they really cared that much about me or just didn't want me to die on their watch. So I come to North Carolina and they have done the same thing. But I've been to the Mayo Clinic and they said I have a benign positional vertigo, and I need to be careful with some of those things. But it's something that started with me when I was 13 years old. And just any time I would jump up quickly and try to do something, I have that little two or three second deal. So I tell everybody not worry about it, just my assistants are good, because if they think I'm going all the way down, if we're playing well, they catch me. And if we're playing poorly, they're afraid that I'm going to do something else, so then they try to push me away. Or I should say vice versa type of thing. But, no, I'm fine. Q. The reasons are probably obvious, could you elaborate on why it would be too hard to schedule Kansas, just too emotional, can't go to Allen Fieldhouse that kind of thing? COACH WILLIAMS: Too emotional for me. That's the bottom line. Allen Fieldhouse, you guys if you want, this is something I tell my kids, what you would like to have in your life is someone, when someone mentions Bahay Gregorio, when they hear the name, it makes them smile. When somebody says Bob Davis to me, it makes me smile. And that means that you've had a very positive impact on somebody. And when somebody says Allen Fieldhouse to me, that's exactly what I think about, is all those positive thoughts and I don't want to go in there as the coach of the opposing team. Q. Was Reggie's performance last night, was it a sign of his just kind of growing up, and also how important will he be tomorrow? COACH WILLIAMS: It was a big‑time game for him. If you look at our team, I thought Z played very well and I thought Reggie played very well, and the rest of us struggled, including me. But Reggie has played really good basketball for us. 17 points, 10 rebounds, I'm mad at halftime because we have five points on offensive rebounds and they have four. And they didn't get any in the second half. And I think that Reggie's really helped us with his rebounding, and last night, he made some big time threes. At the end of the Florida State game in the ACC tournament, he missed one right in front of our bench, and I told him at that time, I said, Hey, it looked good all the way. You're going to get another chance. You're going to make some of those. And I think that it is part of his development, as you were asking. And I think he's getting a little more confident. And what he said up here, didn't mean as much to you, but when he got hurt last night, we were scared for a second. And then they said everything's okay, and I said, Well, tell me how it feels. He said, Oh, I'm okay. It just scared me to death at first because that's the same knee he's had two surgeries on. And so it's his development his confidence has been big. Q. Just curious, being a grandfather, has that changed you at all personally, maybe not professionally, but personally at all? COACH WILLIAMS: It has. I think buddies don't think I changed that, but I really do. In '97 after our season at Kansas, I think that I changed a great deal because who knows, what's the right word, but I had a desperate desire to win a National Championship at the University of Kansas, and that year we went 34‑2 and had eight seniors and all eight graduated, two of them made first team academic All‑American. One of them them was the academic All‑American of the year. We lost one game when the ball was deflected back through another player legs and the guy picked it up and shot it in from the foul line at Missouri. And then we lost in the round of 16, I guess it was, to Arizona when Jerod Haase's broken wrist finally just gave out on him. And I thought, what else can do I? And so at that point, I changed my dream of life, is that I could live long enough to coach my grandchildren in little league baseball and basketball, and then when those little rascals come, I mean, it's 2010, we had a tough year, and now we lose at Clemson and had some ice problems. And so I had the team waited and went back and I rode with the my in‑laws back up to Charlotte to see my little first grandson. And he was five or six weeks old, and he falls asleep laying on my chest. And I know I'm a corny, but, guys, it doesn't get much better than that. So having them here, not here in St. Louis, but having them now does give you a different perspective on life. Q. I'm just kind of curious about your thoughts about this current run of eight consecutive Big‑12 titles that Bill Self and Kansas has been able to pull off. COACH WILLIAMS: I think it's fantastic. We have been fortunate, or we were fortunate there at Kansas. We won nine out of 15 and one of them we were picked to finish 8th in the Big 8, and we still ended up winning the deal. So that's not easy to do. For Bill to do that, for his teams to do that for eight years is phenomenal. And at North Carolina now, we have been able to win six out of nine, so those things are hard to do. Q. What's your favorite Tyler Zeller story or memory or moment? COACH WILLIAMS: Favorite Tyler Zeller story? Man, that would be a hard. I would really have to think because you're talking about a guy who's perfect. And I'll never say that in front of him. But I mean even when he screws it up, I tell him whether it's very viciously when I'm telling him or just matter of factly, he just says, Yeah, you're right. There's not been one time that I've ever been mad at Tyler Zeller. And the number of times I've been mad at his actions, have been few and far between. Let me tell you this: they pay coaches a lot of money or my wife, I don't know what we get. Never see the paycheck. But I've written two checks in 34 years of marriage, too, so I may be broke. I don't know. If you only coached people like Tyler Zeller they should make all of us back up to the pay and pay us the minimum wage and we should still feel like we were cheating. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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