NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 31, 2000

Mike Miller

Kenyan Weaks

KENYAN WEAKS: I don't feel like a babysitter. I think our young guys have grown up a lot this year. That has pretty much been our success this year, them being able to catch on early for them, and they've done that. We've won basketball games.

MIKE MILLER: The one thing that's helped us mature as a basketball team is -- winning definitely does that; but losing, we've lost some tough games. Any time you lose tough games down the stretch against teams that you had the lead on the whole game and it ends up slipping up, you know, you mature early. That's one thing that's helped. You always look at it, you never want to lose. People say you learn from losing, I don't believe in that. But this year it's been the case. I think it's important that we lost a couple of close games. It's really helped our team mature.

MIKE MILLER: I think we learned that it's going to take all ten of us to win. That's definitely what it did. It also taught us that anyone can win, it doesn't matter what it says on the front of your jersey. Butler was a great basketball team. They didn't get a lot of pub going in just because they're Butler. You learn that anyone can win going into any situation. We had a chance to win. I think we learned if we stick together and play as hard as we can, the game's never finished and you can do anything you want. I think it's really helped us up to this point.

MIKE MILLER: I don't think that will be a distraction at all. I think our basketball team's focused completely on North Carolina and how good and what they're bringing to the table. I think our team as a whole understands the situation that we're in and that's going to be difficult. I don't think there's no distractions.

KENYAN WEAKS: It's definitely two different styles of play, two different systems. I think whoever executes that system better is going to win the game. Hopefully that will be us.

MIKE MILLER: Our style of play is definitely a difficult style to prepare for. Coach Guthridge has that team playing great basketball at the right time. He'll have something prepared for them. The age of coaching is really no different except Coach is going to be a little more enthusiastic. But at this point both coaches will be so... I think the different styles are going to be interesting to see who prepares the best for each person's style.

MIKE MILLER: It all, you know, stems back to if you want to win or not. You could easily go somewhere as a McDonald's All-American, a basketball player who wants to go out and succeed for himself. But if you're willing to win and buy into a system like Coach Donovan's, then winning to me and I think the rest of our teammates is the most important thing. I think for us to sacrifice that is important. And, you know, our style of play is definitely what helps us win. That's why we sacrifice what we do to win.

MIKE MILLER: I don't think so. I think the thing with Brett Nelson is he still, at the beginning of the year, didn't realize what to expect and what he can get away with that he did get away with at the high school level. Now he's playing great basketball and he realizes exactly what he needs to do. If we can get guard play like we have so far this tournament, it's really the difference-maker in our basketball team.

MIKE MILLER: I think one thing that was an advantage was coming out of Mitchell would just be my playing for my high school coach. You know, he never let me get up a lot of shots -- I got my fair share of shots but he never let me, you know, just go wild like I think some high school players do. That's definitely an advantage, just because of the fact that now I get in this system, I know how to play with the great players around me. And Mitchell, tomorrow, is definitely going to be, you know, pandemonium. They're going to be excited. It's definitely going to help the South Dakota area as far as basketball and knowing that, you know, there is a lot of basketball in South Dakota, there is good basketball players out there.

End of FastScripts….