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NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: WASHINGTONMarch 23, 2006Rashad AndersonDenham BrownJim CalhounRudy GayWASHINGTON, D.C. Q. University Washington was just in and said for them to win, you would have to have lapses and you have had some spells and lapses in the first couple of games, how much of a concern is that that you have not played your best ball in this tournament so far? RUDY GAY: I think we have come out of this tournament with two wins, and I don't think we played our best basketball. I think that's yet to come. We have gotten better each game we've played and it's a growing process. You know, it's a tough tournament. We've played two tough teams. I think everybody is up to playing against Washington, so I don't think we'll have a problem with that. Q. Are you taking Washington seriously or are you looking ahead to the tournament and winning it all? RUDY GAY: No, we're taking them seriously, you have to. They average a lot of points, they have a great player in Brandon Roy, we're looking forward to playing against them. We're not in no way or matter looking past them because they are a tough team and anything can happen, especially this time of year. Q. Rudy, after the game in Philadelphia against Connecticut, Coach Calhoun said that he had urged you vehemently to be more assertive not to hold back. Do you think about doing that when you're on the court, and how do you balance that with making sure that basically everybody else gets to do what they need to do? RUDY GAY: It's not just taking shots, it's taking smart shots. We have a lot of people on the team that can take shots and make shots. It would be dumb of me to take all the shots. It's just taking a good shot in the right situation. Q. Do you want a running game with this team, is that something that you would enjoy? RASHAD ANDERSON: It really doesn't matter. We're ready to play. Don't matter if we are playing Duke or any other team in this tournament. You've got to come ready to play no matter what style of basketball they are playing. Q. Besides size, what are areas that you see that you can exploit Washington? DENHAM BROWN: Just getting up and down the court with them. That's one thing that they do really well. You know, that's something that we look forward to doing. A lot of teams have played, you know, zone, been putting a lot of pressure on us taking out of our fast break. I think tomorrow will be a good game to get up and down the court. Q. Being in the area you were born and raised, how do you keep yourself focused from distractions? RUDY GAY: Of course I'm home, and I go to Connecticut which is far away from my house, but it's all about business. We're coming here hoping to advance further in the tournament and right now that's the only thing that's on my mind. Q. If I could ask Denham and Rashad to comment on this, Brandon Roy, what goes into stopping a player like that? And if your four years at UCONN, is there another player you've played against that he reminds you of? DENHAM BROWN: You know, I go up against guys like this every day, Rudy, Rashad, just in practice. So I think we are really well prepared for what comes in tomorrow and guarding Roy. Just a matter of putting hard work, getting help from the bigs and getting help from anybody else to cover him. RASHAD ANDERSON: Just like Denham said, you know, just try to limit his shots, that's basically it. You're not going to stop anybody who the offense is run through because they have got to get the ball. Just try to have guys help you out and limit his touches. Q. Rudy said at the beginning the team has not played its best basketball, but knowing the situation of the tournament, one loss and you're out, why do you think that is? Why do you think you guys have not played that kind of best basketball these first two games? DENHAM BROWN: That's something I can't answer. The best thing is for us to be prepared and I think the last couple of days in practice, you know, we've been well prepared for what we have to do on the court and just simple fact that, you know, guys have been stepping up the last game against Kentucky, really put together something special. We're looking forward to the bigs to do something this weekend. The way they have been playing the last, you know, ten games, they have really been spectacular with the bigs. Just to get everybody's contribution is going to help us out a lot. Q. One of the things Brandon Roy was saying, he hoped that his team played well and that your team had a lapse, do you feel like your team has had lapses through the season, through the tournament and what can you do to try to minimize that? RUDY GAY: I think every time has lapses during the season, but to try to minimize it, it's just all in the mind. You know we really have to go out there with one thing on our mind and that's win the game as a team. A lot of good things will come out of it. COACH CALHOUN: Well, like all other teams I'm sure playing in this Sweet 16, we're happy to be here, happy to have the basketballs. We were practicing at George Washington this morning is one of our former assistants, Carl Hobbs (ph), is over there and I said something to him, but he said, "Yeah, but you're playing." And that probably sums it up best. We're playing and we have an opportunity to keep playing and all 16 of us and I'm sure the game is going to be beginning in another few hours from now, we'll be down to a shortened version down to 12 and 8 and then down to 4. But we're excited about the opportunity. We've played Washington in a very memorable game down in Greensboro and in a Sweet 16 game. And won the game on a tip, tip and a little fadeaway shot by Richard Hamilton who is the greatest shot probably in UCONN history; then we lost to Vince Carter, Antoine Jamison in Greensboro. We also played for them when they had the Great 8 and were fortunate to play well in Chicago against them. I've got an opportunity to see a great deal on tape. We had the scouting report that night after we were fortunate enough to beat a very good Kentucky team. You know, they are everything advertised. Brandon Roy is in my opinion one of the top two or three players in the country, and there are kids who score, kids who rebound, there are kids who pass, kids who defend and kids who have feel for the game. He has all those attributes. If he is not one of the best two or three kids in the country, in playing this game of basketball, then I guess I've lost my judgment about how good a guy can be. Secondly, they have other good players. Obviously the Williams' kids remind me of Hicks who plays for Cincinnati except he's a little more depth of scoring. Maybe not quite as physical around the basket but he's a tremendous scorer coming off the bench, much like Rashad Anderson. I love Bobby Jones, I think that he's their version of Scottie Pippen and I saw the job he did on Brown playing one of the quickest guards in the country and playing very, very well. I'm sure he'll have a chance at Marcus and he'll play Rudy Gay. They are inside people work exceptionally hard and the biggest overall impact that I get after watching five games, four games, whatever it would be of total games, they fast break as well as anybody we have played in quite some time. They really run the break well, they move the ball exceptionally well, they are a good running team and they get to loose balls who initiate their offense, and I'll say once again are relentless fast break team for 40 minutes. We are very good at times and we average almost the exact same amount of points but we are much more sporadic. We have streaks of fast break and they play 40 minutes of fast breaks. We know we are in for a very, very tough matchup. We know it's a tough game for us because by speeding the game up we're not necessarily helping ourselves. I did see the Gonzaga 97-95 game. I think if you just do that, I think Washington is one of the few teams I feel in the country that you took a chance, if you just want to make it nothing more than a foot race because I think they do that well. We do it exceptionally well ourselves, but I do think we have, at times, we can be very good at the halfcourt set, and that's one of the things that we're still at this point a day before the game wrestling with. Yes, we are going to run; yes, the game is going to be a pace, but we need at times not to get into a gray area and run some good halfcourt set for us and obviously stop their fast break and stop Roy. Q. Is there a team in the Big East that besides yourselves that the Huskies remind you of or a team that you've played this year? COACH CALHOUN: I was thinking of that before, we like to do that, we like to say, by the way, this is similar, too. I'm not sure there really is to be honest with you. I think stylistically, Louisville before Pagent (ph) got hurt and Dean played a little bit early in the season, we didn't play -- Dean was out of our game. When Louisville was at its best, early, they remind me a little bit of Louisville, full speed up and down, 40 minutes. Their match-ups are a little different size-wise with Cincinnati helping, the loss of a player and they are down to seven kids. They tried to play very similar to that and at that point in time we are like 16-0 and we're a very good team. But I really cannot think of a comparable team because that's a great player, a great defender, tough kids inside, they really -- the size to me is not -- it's always been overrated anyways, we have a kid with 6-7, 6-6, Kevin Freeman who is the four man on the National Championship team in '99, so I think that's overrated. Brockman (ph), he's one of the toughest kids we've seen, playing like it's the last play of his life. Bottom line is, they are similar, but nobody -- the only team that we faced recently, and we had a four-game series with Carolina, was Carolina's relentless fast break is comparable to Washington. And I don't know if there's another player as complete or as poised all the time with the basketball as Brandon Roy. I was impressed with him when I watched, say, three or four games on TV, one of those junkies, worst thing they ever did was make the satellite dish and cable, killed everything else, but bottom line is he's a terrific basketball player. I don't know; facing that combination, great fast break, improving defense and a great player in Roy. Q. Going back to that '98 game, different teams, different styles of play, does that game help you at all for this game, and how memorable to you is that game, and is that one of the best games you've ever been a part of? COACH CALHOUN: It certainly was one of them. When you win a game and red light is showing and it goes in, obviously you're going to remember it. And when the stakes are that high or the opportunity to play the No. 1 team in the country to go to the Final Four, you're only 40 minutes away from going to the Final Four, it's very special. I remember that game very well from the two big kids coming off. I don't know if it directly affects this year's team. It did help set up I think our next year's team, but when you get to the final eight and the next year we won the National Championship; but I think directly relating to this game, I don't think it has anything, because as you said, if we were playing West Virginia, for example, the style would be the same if John Beeline (ph) was still the coach. Lorenzo has brought in a whole different basketball. The memory of it, yes, is embedded in my mind very deeply and it was a heck of a basketball game. But I don't know if there's any parallels as far as the kids are concerned. Now, Rip has called to tell us all about it, again, what he shot and remind the guys that he did not lose to Washington, but we came within a millisecond of that happening. But the bottom line is clearly my mind, yes, I don't think it's going to correlate to the game. Q. Your depth is often talked about and you've said recently you think Washington is a little deeper than they get credit for, how do you think your teams matchup in that regard and can you comment on some of their players that come off the bench? COACH CALHOUN: We bring off Rashad and you saw when he did in the first half against Kentucky, 14 points and the game changed. All of a sudden up 12 points. We in my opinion could do almost the same thing, plus get your big guys in foul trouble. He's one of the more unique players in the country. So therefore, the shooter comes off and I think 80 percent of his shots are three-point shots. That's two bench players, by the way, two very good bench players. I truly believe that depth, neither team, unless it's Brandon or maybe Marcus or somebody that really, really is critical to your game plan, I don't think depth really will become a factor in this game. If that happens, by the way, if one of those guys end up having foul trouble, it's going to be depth of what someone coming off the bench does. But I would probably say it's equal. I really would. I think it's probably a wash. So they are one of the few teams I think that their benches is certainly one of the stronger that we've seen. Q. As someone who loves the game as much as you, how do you feel about starting the Sweet 16 game at 9:57? COACH CALHOUN: There's nothing I can do about it and there's nothing that any of us can do it about it. We are playing Washington, it makes sense to be primetime and that's what it's all about. Obviously we've been through this argument. Big East as you know is a -- as Boston College graduate, wanted to get that clear -- as a Big East guy more than anything else, you've been in the Big East, I think you helped invent it with Dave Gabbet (ph) one of these creators. (Laughter.) My point being that because of all the TV that we received, and we're a league by the way, the Big East created by TV. We took major media markets, put teams in there, very good existing Eastern teams and came together through TV and now we are seeing the ultimate in this great, great thing called March Madness that they want the country to see as much as many of these teams play. And people do want to see Washington/Connecticut, two great fast break teams play, and so that's why you end up with that. It's the time we're going to play. As you know going back to Florida, the overtime ended at 1:03. We ended a game against Florida in the Sweet 16 at 1:03. Same time zone as we live in and all that type of stuff, but it was very difficult. I don't think for kids, for college kids, it makes any difference. Most of them don't consider -- I talked to one of our players today and said simply: "How did you sleep last night?" "I went to bed early. I was in bed by 1:15." (Laughter). No, that's early. It's only us old folks that have to go to bed at 11, 12 o'clock. They do that, they have been getting up at nine, also, by the way. I said we're giving you guys some extra time to sleep; we'll wake you at 9:30. The guy looked at me, "9:30?" There's got to be an adjustment on that and I would like to see us work harder. I don't think it's as productive as it should be in a true sense of competitiveness. When you are playing a game theoretically past 12:00 at night, it may not be quite as competitive as you'd like it to be, just because of the time aspect about it. Q. What have you seen from the freshman point guard? COACH CALHOUN: He's been solid and he's grown. The biggest thing I think he's grown over the year and that's the reason that the coach starts him. He beat out an older player who is a terrific three-point shooter, but I think he's been solid. I love his defense and I think he's really, really -- you know what he does very well and we have a kid who has an awful lot of assists on our team in Marcus Williams. But he gets the ball to the people in the right spots, which can set up their offense. They run double-down screens all the time and he hits the guys at the right time. To me, hitting a player at the right time is a critical ingredient. And I bring his name up and that tells you, and I really think he's good, tells you just how kind of under-the-radar, really good year that he's had. He's been a real critical part of them replacing a great point guard who is now in the NBA, and that tells you really -- and their record will tell you the kind of job that he has done. So they would not be anywhere near in my opinion the 26-5 or 6 or whatever they are, 26 wins without him. Q. When the Washington players were in here, they said that for them to win, they need you to have lapses, but they also saw some lapses in your first two games, particularly the Albany game. How concerned are you about the fact that you really haven't hit all cylinders yet in this tournament? COACH CALHOUN: Quite frankly, we've probably had five complete games all year. We've been a team of lapses. We've been a team that because of -- at times, we went through 11 games without the best point guard in the country, Marcus Williams. He's the best point guard, best passer, not a question in my mind about that; I'm not saying that to be cavalier but very honestly. At times our nature as a team, every team has a particular nature to it, we have not been as consistent, and I would agree with you by the way, just particularly recently at the end of our season, and even going into the biggest tournament where a game we probably should have won, went into overtime, we trailed big, early. We have had lapses, early, late, whatever, Kentucky, plus seven, with a minute and 14 to go coming down to a two-point game. Yet we went back and they come out the second half, take a 12-point lead and knock it right down to five right off the bat. The Albany game is a bad game to use. We play 30 minutes tentatively not playing, my opinion, not to lose. And I understand that because I watched Villanova do it the very next game. But, in those last 11 and a half minutes, I'll take that tape, play it back 100 times and that honestly would be the instructional video I would use for my team next year. We were great. That's not as good of a game to use because there's a reason for the 30 minutes -- this was not by nature, forget the chronological ages of players; this by nature has not been quite as mature a team as I would like. I truly expect, though, and I hope it happens obviously and needs to happen, for us to have a bust-out game where we put together a lot longer stretches of the kind of basketball I think we are capable of. I do think some of it comes down to ball handling because we rely on -- singular players doing a lot of it, as opposed to three or four other guys making plays. It almost cost us the Kentucky game, the game we dominated yet only won by four points and obviously it could bite us, no question. If I would ask one thing tomorrow night, I would ask for us to focus. Q. Do you talk to Rudy and Josh at all about the fact that they are considered local guys and that the focus needs to be a little bit better coming into this playing here? COACH CALHOUN: Well, I thought Rudy against Kentucky was very good and Philadelphia they were able to get there, and Rudy 19 points, he was spectacular and best defensive game he had all year, good time to do it by the way. Yeah, Josh said, "Coach, you wouldn't believe it," and I said I would believe it. I said as a matter of fact you win two more games, I won't believe it. All the media attention they have received and attention from friends and others, no question, that it's something that is going to put aside, I asked the kids today put everything aside to unclog your mind and only think about the time on the floor. You can deal with the other issues after the game, but when we're on that basketball court, the only thing -- let mom or someone else handle tickets. You handle the basketball. But it is an issue I brought up. Q. George Mason's coach was talking about how the NCAA is sort of David versus Goliath and fans flock to David. Do you embrace the Goliath aspect of your program, or are you interested in what happened in the game prior? COACH CALHOUN: No, I don't have any -- Jim Larranaga and I are very good friends, so it's hard for me not to have some interest in that. I've known him 25 years, and he's a real good friend of mine. So obviously I have a little bit of interest in that game. But as far as competitively and that type of thing, I coached at Northeastern University and made the NCAA Tournament, we won three games, we beat Fresno State, went to advance, lost a triple overtime game to a great Villanova team. So I've been there. I can tell you right now, at Philadelphia, there are a thousand people rooting for Connecticut and 19,000 rooting for Albany. That I heard. I think it's the very charm of exactly what this tournament is about and I truly believe that. We played Gonzaga to go to the Final Four, this is before Gonzaga became kind of a household name, back in '99, and everybody in Phoenix was on Gonzaga and attached to them. That's a very natural thing. I find myself at times -- I'm a boxing fan. I know you would not ever think that by my sideline antics, but nevertheless, you do, you watch a boxing match. And all of a sudden you start rooting for the underdog, the guy that was supposedly set up to be the sparring partner, gets him through, he's the next guy because this guy is a contender. I guess simply this whole idea of David and Goliath, it's a natural and normal thing to root for the underdog and when you raise them up, you always pull them down. But that's the charm of this tournament. The charm of this tournament is every single night we're all surprised by the various things that happen, and I think that's what -- I'll maintain this, because I'm fortunate enough to win two, but that winning an NCAA Tournament title, with all of the great coaches that have come now and certainly come before me. Look at the list of recent times how many guys; and Mike Krzyzewski, an incredible coach, he's won one title in the past, someone help me, 15, 16 years, something like that. He's an incredible coach. And my point, it's one of the most perilous journeys that you have to make, as a, quote, Goliath. It's difficult, but I tell you what, it's not that easy as David, either.
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