UConn Huskies women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma along with Bria Hartley and Breanna Stewart met with the media after UConn’s 75-56 win over the Stanford Cardinal on Sunday night at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN.

Here’s what they had to say:

MODERATOR: We’ll take a brief statement from Coach Auriemma and then go to questions for the student‑athletes.

COACH AURIEMMA:  Thank you.  I think the game played out at least in the first half how I thought it would play out.  We knew it would be a little bit of a struggle.  It’s hard to make shots‑‑ unless you’re Kayla McBride‑‑ it’s hard to make shots at the Final Four.

Once we got settled in and got our rhythm, I thought we played one of the best games that we played all year, given the fact that we beat a really, really good team.

THE MODERATOR:  Questions for the student‑athletes.

Q.  Breanna, talk about the first ten minutes of the first half and did you guys feel like you needed to settle in?

BREANNA STEWART:  I think at times we were a little jumpy, getting too excited.  And we had to settle down and get into the right rhythm of the game.  Once we did that, it seemed like we went on a run to end the first half and shots started falling.

Q.  Bria, what does it say about the state of basketball and the state of Connecticut that your men’s team will be playing for the title tomorrow night and you’ll be playing for it Tuesday night?  And what does it say to see Team Kevin and Team Geno playing for it all?

BRIA HARTLEY:  I think it’s awesome.  I know our men are really excited for us and rooting us on.  We’re doing the same thing for them.  I think all the fans in Connecticut are really proud right now and both teams have worked really hard all year and through the preseason preparing for this moment.  So it’s now the time has come when we make sure we finish on a good note.

Q.  Bria, did something change defensively at any point in the first half when you went on your run but you suddenly were making it really hard for them to score?

BRIA HARTLEY:  I think we just picked up the pressure on our defense, really getting into passing lanes.  I thought Moriah did a good job, got a few steals out there.  One steal that Stewy got was awesome.  It changed the momentum of the game.

That’s what our defense does when we go out there and we make it tough for them to score and we’re able to create offense off of that.  It really helps our offense and we’re able to play a lot better.

THE MODERATOR:  Anything else for the student‑athletes?  Thank you, ladies.

Q.  Geno, how big of a difference did bringing Kiah into the game make in your defense in particular?

COACH AURIEMMA:  When we went with the bigger lineup, we have a few more options defensively that we can do.  It allowed us to move Stewy onto a shooter and get some length out there.  Kiah has been a real good defensive player and a shot blocker, and we trust her now. We didn’t in the past.  But we do and we’re not afraid to put her out there in big moments.  That’s the best game she’s ever played, I think, since she came to Connecticut.

Q.  Wanted to get you to respond to the question about seeing your men and seeing your team get to it undefeated, and was Bria or Breanna a Team Geno draft pick?

COACH AURIEMMA:  Well, unfortunately when we did that, that Midnight Madness thing, we didn’t get to pick our teams.  So I was just assigned a team.  And I thought I had it made.  I had Shabazz, DeAndre Daniels.  So I thought there’s no way we could lose.  And we’re down like 20 at halftime.  Finally told them, I said that’s one reason why I don’t coach guys, you guys just don’t listen.  And then Shabazz scored like 30 straight.  We won at the end.

So you could see these guys that are playing for Kevin, you can just feel it, the energy that they play with, that they get from Kevin.

They just have so much confidence in each other.  It’s quite remarkable.  I don’t even know what words you could use to describe that.  For the second time in 10 years we’ve got two of our teams playing for the National Championship.

It really is‑‑ you don’t want to say it like it’s incredible, because we’ve done it before.  But just the fact that it’s happening for a guy that’s been a head coach for two years, that’s pretty remarkable.  That’s pretty remarkable.
Somebody told me that no one who has never won at least a regional has ever won a National Championship.
But they’re coached by a guy who played 13 years in the NBA all on one‑year contracts.  I would bet on Kevin.  Not that I’m allowed to bet, because this is the NCAA.

Q.  Thanks for clearing that up.

COACH AURIEMMA:  Absolutely.

Q.  You’ve seen a lot of things in women’s basketball, including with your own team, but 39‑0 versus 37‑0 is a unique place for this sport.  Can you step away obviously from the fact that you’re coaching one of the teams and sort of, do you recognize that this is a pretty historic thing coming up on Tuesday?

COACH AURIEMMA:  Yeah, it was almost‑‑ it looked to me like, as the season went on, it almost looked like it was inevitable, you know.  Like it was supposed to happen.

And our sport probably doesn’t have enough significant moments, you know.  I don’t know that we have the kind of moments that happen last night at the men’s Final Four where you get a 7 and 8 seed playing for the National Championship.  I don’t think we have enough of those moments in our game.

So to have the spotlight on Tuesday on two teams that one of them is going to lose for the first time this year, and it’s pretty remarkable when you think about how hard that is to do for one team, much less two.

And they’re far and away the best team that I’ve seen this year.  Far and away.  No one else is even close of any team that we’ve played or that I’ve seen play on film.  No one else is even close.

Q.  Geno, can you talk a little bit about Bonnie Samuelson?  She was 1 from 7 from the field.  I believe they were all from beyond the arc.  And she was shooting 46.7 percent through the first four tournament games.  And they’re a team that typically tends to shoot a lot of 3s.  Can you talk about what emphasis you placed on defending the 3‑point line and how you went about doing that?

COACH AURIEMMA:  We knew that.  We knew they were going to shoot a lot of them.  They took 25 of them.  Our goal was not to let them take 25.  They made 10 against North Carolina, I think.  They made 10.

That’s 30 of their points.  And tonight they made six.  They banked two of them in.  That’s the kind of stuff that happens at the Final Four.  But we can do things that other teams can’t do.  We can play Chiney one‑on‑one.  We don’t have to worry about doubling down there leaving 3‑point shooters open.

We can switch some screens that maybe other teams can’t because they don’t have our size or our versatility.

So Bonnie’s a great shooter.  I’ve seen her make that one shot she made when Stewy got up in the air she went by her.  That’s the kind of stuff she can do.

Their whole team can make seven, eight, nine, ten in a row.  So that was part of the game plan.  Doesn’t matter how many 2s they get.  But we gotta limit the 3s and the free throws.  I thought we did a great job of both of those things.

Q.  Geno, speaking of 3‑point shooting, for about the last week or so you guys haven’t shot at the clip that you’re accustomed to.  How have you guys had to adjust and modify what you’re doing to account for the fact you’re not hitting as many shots from the outside as you normally do?

COACH AURIEMMA:  There’s not a lot of adjustments you can make when you’re not making shots.  At one point I think Stanford had all five of their players inside the lane and just daring us to make a shot.

As I said, it’s contagious.  You’re not going to believe this but yesterday at practice here and today at shootaround, we made every shot to the point where I’m like, yeah, I like this.  And then couldn’t make anything in the first half.

I’ve always said if you play great defense, you put yourself in a position to win a game.  And then however good your offense is, that will depend on what the spread is.

If your offense is great that night, you can win by a lot.  But if your offense isn’t great that night, you can still win if you play great defense.  And we managed to do that this entire season.

Q.  Geno, although it’s led to this dream Final, both you and Notre Dame have not only gone undefeated, you’ve overwhelmed virtually everybody you’ve played.  Is it good that two teams have separated themselves so thoroughly from the rest of the country to make it seem like it’s really been a two‑team season all along?

COACH AURIEMMA:  I think it’s good once in a while.  I think it’s good.  I don’t know that I would want a steady diet of that every year.  But I think once in a while it’s good.  Draws a lot of attention to the game.  An awful lot of people might tune in Tuesday night that wouldn’t normally maybe tune in.

I think it’s okay.  I know that there was more‑‑ it was much more competitive beyond those two.

Like if you took those two off the boards, everything else was really, really competitive this year.  It’s a work in progress.  I don’t think we’re there yet.

Q.  Why have you two separated yourselves so thoroughly from‑‑ what do you think it is about these two teams that has allowed each of you to separate, this season, to separate you so thoroughly from everybody else?

COACH AURIEMMA:  Well, we had everybody coming back from last year’s team except Kelly Faris and Caroline Doty, two kids that played a lot.  And Kelly was the backbone of our defense and was unbelievable.
But the core of our team was back.  So that obviously was a huge benefit.

And the same for Notre Dame.  They lost a great player in Skylar Diggins.  But what they had coming back was a great team.  The way both teams have managed to make the necessary adjustments throughout the season.
I’m not surprised.  We are the two best passing teams in the country.  I think we pass it great, and I think they pass it great.  I think we’re the two best passing teams in America.  And that’s something that a lot of teams can’t do, they can’t pass.

So when you pass the ball really well and you have a lot of really good players on the floor, you end up kind of having a dominant team.

Q.  You hit on this a little bit, but you mentioned that they were far and away the best team when you looked at them on film.  Can you be specific?  Is it when you look at them on film, is it just a question of talent?  Or is it the execution that the talent that you see performed is at a higher level than anybody else?

COACH AURIEMMA:  I don’t think talent is always the answer.  Except they have two First‑Team All‑Americans that are as good as any two players in the country, individually and collectively.  There’s not too many players better than those two.  And they’re so aggressive, and they have such a scoring mentality.

And when they run their stuff, they really run it.  They execute as well as anybody in the country.  They probably attack the basket as well if not better than anybody I’ve seen.

When Kayla McBride gets the ball, when she gets to half court, you better put three people around the basket and hope because at some point she’s going to get there and she’s going to score or get fouled.  And Jewell Loyd is the same way.  So when you play with that kind of aggressive mentality and you’re that talented, you look like a great team, which is what they are.

THE MODERATOR:  Thank you, Coach.

Here are Stanford’s postgame quotes.

quotes courtesy of asap sports

photo credit: john woike – hartford courant

NASHVILLE – University of Connecticut women’s basketball team standout Breanna Stewart has been selected as the Ann Meyers Drysdale National Player of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association, as announced by the USBWA in a press conference at Bridgestone Arena on Sunday.  A Husky has now won the USBWA National Player of the Year Award seven times, including four times in the last six years.

Stewart becomes only the second UConn sophomore to win the honor along with Maya Moore in 2009.  The North Syracuse, N.Y. native was unable to attend the official press conference as she and the Huskies were preparing for Sunday’s national semifinal contest against Stanford.  Tip is scheduled for approximately 9 p.m. EDT and the contest will be televised by ESPN.  UConn director of athletics Warde Manuel accepted the honor on Stewart’s behalf.

The winner of the Associated Press and espnW National Player of the Year awards, Stewart leads the Huskies with 19.4 points per game and ranks second on the UConn roster in rebounding with 8.1 boards per contest. Her 738 points this season are fourth most in program history and represent the second highest total by a sophomore since Moore netted 754 in 2009-10. Stewart not only delivers on the offensive end, but the 6-4 forward leads the squad with 106 blocks on the season, helping UConn set a new NCAA single-season team record for rejections with 313.

Among her numerous career achievements this season, Stewart registered the eighth-highest single-game point total by a Husky in program history when she dropped 37 on Temple in January. She has logged 11 double-doubles this season and scored more than 20 points in 20 games. Opponents have held Stewart below double digits in just two games this season. On Feb. 16, Stewart recorded UConn’s first basket against USF to join UConn’s 1,000 point club as the second-fastest Husky to reach the milestone behind Moore. She is just the fifth Husky to achieve the honor as a sophomore.

The American Athletic Conference Preseason Player of the Year, Stewart went on to lock up Most Outstanding Player in the American Tournament by averaging 21.3 points and 7.0 rebounds in UConn’s run to the inaugural championship. The Syracuse native was named a USBWA All-American earlier this week along with fellow New Yorkers Stefanie Dolson and Bria Hartley. Stewart is also a finalist for the Wade Trophy, the Wooden Award, and the Naismith Trophy.

All-Time USBWA National Players of the Year
1988 – Sue Wicks, Rutgers
1989 – Clarissa Davis, Texas
1990 – Jennifer Azzi, Stanford
1991 – Dawn Staley, Virginia
1992 – Dawn Staley, Virginia
1993 – Sheryl Swoopes, Texas Tech
1994 – Lisa Leslie, USC
1995 – Rebecca Lobo, UConn
1996 – Saudia Roundtree, Georgia
1997 – Kate Starbird, Stanford
1998 – Chamique Holdsclaw, Tennessee
1999 – Chamique Holdsclaw, Tennessee
2000 – Tamika Catchings, Tennessee
2001 – Ruth Riley, Notre Dame
2002 – Sue Brid, UConn
2003 – Diana Taurasi, UConn
2004 – Alana Beard, Duke
2005 – Seimone Augustus, LSU
2006 – Ivory Latta, North Carolina
2007 – Candace Parker, Tennessee
2008 – Candace Parker, Tennessee
2009 – Maya Moore, UConn
2010 – Tina Charles, UConn
2011 – Maya Moore, UConn
2012 – Brittney Griner, Baylor
2013 – Brittney Griner, Baylor
2014 – Breanna Stewart, UConn

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced today that UConn senior Shabazz Napier (Roxbury, Mass.) is the winner of the 2014 Bob Cousy Collegiate Point Guard of the Year Award. This annual honor is given to college basketball’s top point guard and is named after Hall of Famer and former Boston Celtics guard Bob Cousy.

An original list, consisting of 47 candidates from around the country, was trimmed by a Hall of Fame-appointed, nationally-based committee to a final six before voting on the winner of one of college basketball’s most prestigious awards, which was won by Kemba Walker, Napier’s former UConn teammate, in 2011.

“The Basketball Hall of Fame is proud to honor Shabazz Napier as the top college point guard of 2014,” said John L. Doleva, President and CEO of the Basketball Hall of Fame. “Shabazz has proven himself a winner and has excelled tremendously this year with the Connecticut Huskies. He has demonstrated himself as a leader on the court and a deserving winner of this award.”

“It is an honor for us to award such a worthy athlete of this prestigious award,” said Bob Cousy. “Napier has fought hard in the NCAA Tournament and has stood out all throughout his college career as a dominant force in the game and a remarkable point guard.”

Napier was the 2013-14 American Athletic Conference Player of the Year and a unanimous all-conference first team pick. He was named a first team All-American by the Associated Press, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Napier is a John R. Wooden All-American, the USBWA District I Player of the Year for the second straight season and a member of the District I first team as well as NABC District 5 first-team pick. He was named the Most Outstanding Player in the 2014 East Regional NCAA Tournament.

He leads the 31-8 Huskies in scoring (17.9), assists (4.9), and steals (1.8), and is second in rebounding (5.8) as UConn goes after the NCAA national championship tonight against Kentucky at AT&T Stadium.

“We are proud and honored that Shabazz has been named to receive the Bob Cousy Award and we obviously think it is well-deserved,” said UConn head coach Kevin Ollie. “Shabazz has led our team in numerous statistical categories all season and has been a most valuable part of our success. But just as important, he has been an outstanding senior leader, setting an example for our players off the court. We are extremely happy for him.”

The other 2014 finalists included Kyle Anderson (UCLA), Aaron Craft (Ohio State University), Tyler Ennis (Syracuse University), Marcus Paige (University of North Carolina) and Fred VanVleet (Wichita State University).

Each of the final six candidates was reviewed by the Hall of Fame’s Blue Ribbon Selection Committee. The 2014 Bob Cousy Award presentation will be Monday, April 7, as part of the Basketball Hall of Fame class announcement in Dallas at the Final Four.

Previous Winners of the Bob Cousy Award

2005 – Raymond Felton (North Carolina)

2006 – Dee Brown (Illinois)

2007 – Acie Law (Texas A&M)

2008 – D.J. Augustin (Texas)

2009 – Ty Lawson (North Carolina)

2010 – Greivis Vasquez (Maryland)

2011 – Kemba Walker (Connecticut)

2012 – Kendall Marshall (North Carolina)

2013 – Trey Burke (Michigan)

2014 – Shabazz Napier (Connecticut)

UConn Huskies head coach Kevin Ollie along with Shabazz Napier, Niels Giffey, Ryan Boatright, DeAndre Daniels and Phillip Nolan met with the media on Sunday in anticipation of Monday night’s NCAA Championship Game against the Kentucky Wildcats at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX.

Here’s what they had to say:

THE MODERATOR:  We’ll take questions for Coach Ollie and for the student‑athletes, Shabazz Napier, Ryan Boatright, Niels Giffey, DeAndre Daniels, and Phillip Nolan.

Q.  Shabazz, you’ve obviously had a lot of big shots, game‑winning shots over your career.  Wanted to know how impressed you’ve been with what Aaron Harrison has been able to do the last three games with his game winning 3‑pointers and that kind of stuff?

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  Yeah, man, he’s a clutch player, as you can tell in three games, wanting to take that shot.  Like I always said, the biggest thing about that is if you’re willing to take it.  A lot of guys shy away from the moment, and he’s not one of those guys.

Hopefully it doesn’t come down to his shot, and if it does, we’re going to make sure that we move him away from that left side where he’s been knocking down that shot consistently.

So he’s got that clutch gene that everyone’s been talking about.  He’s not scared to miss the shot, because that’s the chance you take.  You take that shot, there’s a chance you miss it.  But he’s going to be the guy that’s wanting to be the hero and that’s just a lot of respect.

Q.  Coach, defensively in terms of defending Kentucky, what are you looking to key in on?

COACH OLLIE:  First of all, we want to get back in transition.  That’s our No. 1 key every game, especially them.  They got a lot of great athletes.  They use their quickness, their speed, their jumping ability, to get inside the paint.  So we want to locate, want to get back, want to keep them in front of us, and then play solid defense.  We want to limit the penetration and make them shoot over the top.

Q.  Kevin, Louisville defeated your team three times by a total of 55 points.  How much is that matchups and how much is your being here improvement?

COACH OLLIE:  Things happen throughout the season.  They got great players, Coach Pitino is a great coach, but Florida beat Kentucky three times.  So, I mean, it’s all about going out there, playing each and every day, each and every game.  It’s something different.  You got to be able to step up to the challenge.

I tell these guys all the time, You don’t play the game, let the game play you.  I thought we did that last night when they came out, and 16‑4, we didn’t get down.  We kept allowing our defense to take over and our unselfishness to take over and our togetherness to take over.

So I thought we built last night, but I thought we built on a lot of up‑and‑downs throughout the season.  That’s what great teams do.  They take the challenge and they get better from it.
So we want to go out there and we want to win one more game.  That’s our only goal.

Q.  For DeAndre and Phillip, what are your guys’ impressions of Julius Randle and what do you think the key to containing him is?

PHILLIP NOLAN:  He’s a pretty strong guy.  Basically everything coach said, just try to keep him off the glass.

DeANDRE DANIELS:  We’re not focused on one player, we’re focused on Kentucky as a whole.  But just when their bigs get it in, just everybody communicate and helping one another and just always have other bigs back, no matter what happens, and box them out and rebound.

Q.  Shabazz and Ryan, I think this Kentucky team has like seven McDonald’s All‑American and seven future pros.  When you hear stuff like that, what goes through your mind and does that give you any kind of added edge or motivation in this game?

RYAN BOATRIGHT:  Yeah, they’re All‑Americans and they’re supposed to be future pros.  We don’t really look into that.  It’s another game.  We’re going to go out there and we’re going to execute our defensive schemes and play together and play UConn basketball.  We’re not taking it as an extra challenge or nothing like that.  They got to lace their shoes up just like we got to.

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  Yeah, like Ryan said, we all play the game of basketball to compete against the best.  This is one of them games.  At the end of the day, they’re going to throw the ball up in the air.  They don’t do nothing different.  We put on our jerseys the same way.  They worked hard to get to this point, and we did, too.  We’re going to try to do our best to try to get this W.

Q.  Kevin, what have you seen from DeAndre in the tournament?  He went from an up‑and‑down season to being one of the best players in the country in this tournament.  Two double doubles.  Obviously yesterday was phenomenal.  Is there anything you noticed different about him?

COACH OLLIE:  No, we just want DeAndre to play.  We always talk about DeAndre with touches.  It’s not about points, it’s touches.  It’s activity.  It’s effort.  We consider touches offensive rebound, defensive rebound, 50/50 ball, blocks.  When he’s active, he scores.

If you look back through all the stats and our season, if he averaged eight rebounds, he averaged 19 points.  So that tells you when he’s active and he’s paying attention to details and he’s going after the ball‑ we call it collective ball hunters‑ when he’s a ball hunter, he scores, because he’s that talented.

None of our players got roofs on them.  There’s no limits on our players.  We’re just going to go play hard and we’re going to play together.  It’s no limits in our locker room.  There’s no limits in our student‑athletes.  They don’t have no limits.  I would be doing them a disservice if I put limits on them.

Q.  For all five of the players, it’s a short‑answer question.  Beginning with the big guys, going down the line, in one sentence, why do you believe in your heart that Connecticut will win the championship?

PHILLIP NOLAN:  We work hard.  I just feel like all the trials and tribulations that we have been through throughout last season and this season just has prepared us for this moment.

DeANDRE DANIELS:  I’m just going to say heart.

NIELS GIFFEY:  That’s it? (Laughter.)

All right.  I think we put so much work into it and it didn’t start this season, I think it started last season.  Just this whole collective group has been through so many down periods that I think we really worked hard for this.

RYAN BOATRIGHT:  Yeah, they said everything.  Just wrapped that all in one.  We been so much together last year and this year.  We worked extremely hard.  The UConn preseason is probably the worst preseason ever.
We got a lot of heart and a lot of will and coach always told us that this was a special team.  He has been saying it all year, been saying it all last year, it’s a special team and we really believe that.

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  And like they said, I just got all the confidence in my guys and we believe in everything we do.

Q.  Shabazz, coach called you basically an unpaid coach at one point.  Just talking about how much of a leader you are on the court.  I was wondering if you could talk about your growth as a player under him and the kind of relationship you guys have had.

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  Yeah, I came in with coach, he was the assistant coach, he was the guy that I was always beside and we worked out a lot.  He did a lot of things for me.  Coach Calhoun was the guy that yelled at you,

Coach Ollie was the guy that patted you on the back and kept you moving forward.  The four years we have been together it’s been tremendous.

He’s been where we all want to be, a point guard in the NBA.  He’s been through a lot.  A guy like that who never pointed fingers at anybody but himself through all his trials and tribulations and everything he’s been through.  You can learn from that.

We all believe.  We all believed in each other, and no matter what’s going on, whether I’m laughing and joking with him or when I was a sophomore and I was crying in his arms because I was upset the way I was playing, he was always there for me.  I never had a father in my life, and like I always said, I feel like he was always a father figure to me.  That’s what I wanted.

He believed everything I did was with a lot of passion.  It may not be the right thing at the right time, but he understood that I gave everything I got.  When you have somebody like that in your corner, you should always cherish that and me and him has just been growing up since.

Q.  For the seniors, can you tell me some of the similarities and differences between this season and the last championship season?

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  We had Kemba Walker, the biggest difference.  That team was definitely a unique team.  This is a totally different team.  We got a different coach, different players, different managers going down the line.

So, I mean, it just is a totally different team.  We always said that we want to do what that team did, but at the end of the day, we want to go on our own path.  So far so good.  We just got to get one more 40‑minute game.

NIELS GIFFEY:  I think that one of the similarities you can see is we have a great back court.  Otherwise, I would say this is a very different team.  We got more seniors, more juniors on this team than we had our freshman year.  So I think we have our own identity in that way.

Q.  If you could please talk about what those differences are, rather than just different players.

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  That’s the biggest difference is the players.  I think the heart’s the same.  Everything’s the same, just the players.  I don’t know how to go in depth with that.  I think that just kind of sums it up.

Q.  For coach and also for the players, what did you do last night?  What time did you go to bed?  What did you do?  What is the most interesting text, tweet, e‑mail, phone call, that you received?

COACH OLLIE:  I didn’t go to sleep too much.  I had to stay up and watch Kentucky and do scouting reports and do those different things.  I have an amazing coaching staff and we collaborate on a lot of things, it’s just not me.  They do a great job preparing my student‑athletes for the war and the battle.  So we were up all night preparing.

The only text I got was from Coach Brown just saying congratulations and have fun with it.  I love him to death.  I had an opportunity to talk to him this morning and he just gave me some sound advice, Have fun, don’t make it complicated.

DeANDRE DANIELS:  Last night after the game, we went to the hotel, showered, ate some chicken tacos and couldn’t really sleep.  Was tossing and turning all night just thinking about Monday.  I just couldn’t wait to get on the court.

My text messages, I don’t remember.  I have like 168 text messages, so I don’t know.

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  I can’t go in depth like he did, but after the game, I just sat and ate with my mother.  We were talking and hanging out.

Text messages I got was just saying, Keep working hard, way to keep your composure, and just keep believing.

Q.  For coach and Shabazz and Ryan, simplistic question, but you’ve watched this game since you were young men, children.  What does it mean to be in this game?  The importance of this game, what does it mean to you to be in this spotlight?  The second question for coach, if you’re faced with your team up by one point with 5.7 seconds to go, what are you going to do to stop Harrison?

COACH OLLIE:  Hopefully we are in that position, we’re up and we have an opportunity to fall back on our defense.  We have been doing that the whole year.  It hasn’t been offense, it’s been defense.  And that’s what we hang our hats on.

I’ve been telling you guys the whole time, Madison Square Garden or not Madison Square Garden, we played defense to win those games.  And the same thing we brought here to Texas, we’re going to hang our hat on defense.  In that situation, I look at the floor game, who is playing the best defense, the best five out there on the court that can play together and can get one more stop.

Hopefully it comes down to that and hopefully we get one more stop to win a game and to win a National Championship.

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  What was the question?

Q.  Did you watch this game growing up?

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  Oh, man.  I’m tired.  We worked so hard to get to this point, and we just continue to believe in each other.  It’s just so surreal to be back here.

Niels can tell you, when we were freshmen, the biggest thing guys said was, Take your chances, take your opportunity now, because you don’t know when you’re coming back.

For us to be back here now, it’s so surreal.

Q.  Ryan, last night Coach Donovan gave you and Shabazz credit for keeping Wilbekin out of the lane and taking them out of their offense.  The Harrison twins as good as they are, have been high turnover guys at times.  What do you see from them in terms of ball handling that you feel you might be able to take advantage of?

RYAN BOATRIGHT:  I ain’t going to reveal all my secrets, but I’m going to just try to do my best to turn them up and down the floor, to try to make them uncomfortable.  Just try to get up in them and be a little physical with them.

But other than that, they’re good point guards.  They’re big so their dribble is a little high, but I’m going to execute the defensive schemes that coach comes up with and just try to turn them up and down the floor.

Q.  Kevin, Billy Donovan said last night that the big difference between last night’s game and the game from four months ago was that you have evolved into a great defensive team.  When did that transition occur for you and when did you first get the sense that Ryan would be such affective defender as he is?

COACH OLLIE:  I knew Ryan was going to be effective defender three years ago.  It’s nothing new to me.  We wanted him to be more consistent with it and I think he’s starting to do that, and just affect the game in so many different ways.

He alluded to it earlier.  He had to mature as a young man and a basketball player.  It’s not all about scoring.  He can impact the game in so many ways and he’s starting to do that at the highest stage.  He’s been doing it last year, he’s been doing it this year, and now everybody is seeing it.

But I’ve been seeing it every day in practice.  The guy never misses a practice.  I mean, for three years, he ain’t missed a practice.  So y’all don’t see that.  I see it.  I know the type of heart he has, but I know the type of heart every one of these guys that are up here and the guys that’s in the locker room, our walk‑ons.  All of us got heart and we play that way.  It’s not a fluke that we are here.  It’s core values and it’s principles, it’s not a fluke.

Q.  A lot of players, like Shabazz just said, have referred to you as a father figure.  I’m curious, what’s your philosophy as a mentor, and how has that evolved since you have become a head coach?

COACH OLLIE:  I’m not here to motivate these guys or inspire these guys.  They motivate themselves.  I’m just here to add value.  I just want to add value each and every day, and if they need something, at the end of the day, they know I got their back.  Negative or positive, they can come in my office and I got their back.

Every day I come in with the same mindset that I want to get better at something.  I want to help them be better men.  In basketball is second to me.  I want them better people once they leave Storrs campus.  If I did that, forget about the wins and losses, National Championship, all that stuff, I think I done my job.  If they leave that court, that Storrs campus a better person and a better man, able to make an imprint on their community.

Q.  Coach, you talked a lot about your team’s improved defensive effort over the last month.  What’s been the biggest difference in that area, and also how much has Terrence Samuel helped in terms of the perimeter defense down the stretch?

COACH OLLIE:  Oh, Terrence has been huge.  He’s really allowed me to put three point guards on the court at the same time, and it’s really allowing us to create havoc on the defensive end, picking up our pressure.  But it’s really allowing us to space the floor and use our dribble drive sets more effectively.  He’s just been doing an outstanding job.

Our defensive mentality, paying attention to details, we always say the genius is in the details.  We’re paying attention to more details and these guys know if we lose, we go home.  Whenever you got your backs against the wall like these student‑athletes have had their backs against the wall, they have fought.  They are fighters, everyone of them.  They fight to the end.  They know if we don’t bring our A‑game, and we don’t have a B‑ or C‑game, we got an A‑game, then we will go home, and they don’t want to go home.  They’re made for more.

They’re made for this championship game.  We’re going to go out here and play 40 full and hopefully Connecticut is on that big billboard at the Jumbotron, whatever Jerry Jones calls it, saying that we’re National Champions and that’s all we want.

Q.  After that 33‑point loss in the regular season finale, you said something, and I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but these guys maybe we can play two more games and go on spring break or something.  How quickly did you know that that wouldn’t be the case, that they wanted to fight?  Was it on the bus ride home, the next practice?

COACH OLLIE:  No, I knew we were going to fight.  I’m going to just tell you what I said.  I said if we play like that and we’re going to go home and we’re going to enjoy spring break.

But I know we are fighters.  When we got back in on that bus and we got back to practice, I can see the look in their eyes, and dark times is what promotes you.  I’m glad that happened.  I’m glad that happened, because we went back and I had to evaluate myself as a coach and I hope every player went to their dorms and looked themselves in the mirror and had to evaluate their effort.  Down times like that just promote you.

So I’m glad it happened, because we all got together, we knew what we had to do, the challenge that was in front of us and we were going to face it.  We got better from that.

Louisville beat us again in the tournament, but that’s all right.  We got better from it.  That’s what we want to keep doing.  Every challenge, get better from it.  Don’t get down on each other.  Stay together.  I think that even brought us together.  So I’m glad Coach Pitino did that to us.

Q.  Coach, having been born here and I understand you’re a cowboys fan‑‑

COACH OLLIE:  Yes.

Q.  ‑‑ and I knew you took the team here to come and see the stadium when you guys played SMU in January.  Can you put in perspective what significance this setting has for you, if any.

COACH OLLIE:  Oh, it’s a great significance.  I was born in Oak Cliff right in Dallas.  All my family is here.  Able to get here, my mother’s able to get here.  It’s just a great opportunity to look out in the crowd after we won and see all your family members here.

Of course I’m a big Dallas Cowboys fan and I did bring the team here and I wanted them to come and just see where we can actually be at.  On this date.  Tomorrow.  Monday.  I just wanted them to have a vision.  They enjoyed the trip.  They more enjoyed going into Dallas cheerleaders locker room more than anything, so… (laughter).

But they enjoyed the trip.

Q.  Being there, and this is before your tournament run, your name was brought up without being asked about it by Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, etcetera.  Kevin Durant’s quote was, It was a game changer for the franchise.  I was just wondering for those folks in Oklahoma City what you think about something like that.

COACH OLLIE:  I think the world of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Sam Presti, that whole organization, they changed my life.  I know Kevin Durant says that, but, man, he changed my life.

They took on a 37‑year‑old point guard that can’t really shoot and gave me another life, another contract.  But their organization is so great, they treat everybody first class.  They treat the last player on the bench just like they treat KD.  KD is a humble young man and everybody gets caught up in that quote, I get caught up in the quote.  He said, At the end of the day, I want to be called a servant.  And I want all these guys to understand that.

The best player on their team is saying, I want to be a servant, and if we can serve each other, we’ll be a better team.  That’s what their organization is built on and that’s why they’re going to be a successful franchise going from years to years to years and showing that consistency, because that’s their motto.

Q.  For you Shabazz, you talked about crying to Coach Ollie when you were a sophomore.  What was going on with your game at that time that actually brought you to tears and how did he help you pull you out of it?

SHABAZZ NAPIER:  Just the biggest thing is losing.  I’m a competitor.  I hate losing.  I hate it a lot.  I wasn’t being a leader like I thought I would be able to.  It was tough that year.  Learning from Donnell Beverly and Kemba Walker, I thought I was going to be able to be a good leader, but I wasn’t able to.  When you’re losing and you start isolating yourself and you never have any good thoughts, sometimes it brings you to tears.

It was tough some days.  I always had somebody that was going to be there to pick me up.  Some days I didn’t want to get picked up, some days I just wanted to isolate myself, but Coach Ollie and all the coaches always took me up under their wings and just tried to up lift me, no matter what was going on.  They continued to believe in me.  They continued to have their patience and guided me to who I am now.

Q.  In ’91, I think you might have been a freshman, but when the Fab Five came on to college basketball, did you look at that as something that would be long‑term, that you would have that many freshmen?  Now Monday night obviously you’ll face the freshmen again in terms of how freshmen are viewed in college basketball.  Can you go back to what you thought about the Fab Five, and now this many years later you’re going to play a team with that many freshmen.  Did you think it would be that way the whole way through?

COACH OLLIE:  No, it goes in ebb and flows.  You have some freshmen that are going to play together and then you’re going to have some freshmen that’s not going to play together.  Back in ’91 it was a great team.  They all came together.  They got to the championship game.  Great talent.  Coach Fisher was able to put that talent together and make them work for one goal.

I think that’s what John Calipari does.  John does a great job of that.  Wonderful coach.  Everybody says he’s a great motivator, yeah, but he’s a great coach, too, to get all those guys to buy in and not give up on them.
You see the fruits of their labor right now.  They’re playing their best basketball.  And that’s what great teams do and that’s what great coaches do, they allow their teams to play the best basketball and grow up and mature.  And he does a great job.

Different players have different reasons of going to school.  Some players go together, some players don’t.  Kentucky has been doing it.  They have had great success.  If they didn’t have great success, I don’t think it would be repeated, but they’re having great success.  Coach Calipari does a great job of identifying who his recruits are and getting them ready for the NBA.

Q.  Coach, going back to your years coming back here to work with your father’s landscaping service, I’m wondering if you still mow your own lawn, and if so are you a Toro or Troy‑Bilt man?

COACH OLLIE:  No, I don’t mow my own lawn no more.  Pops used to get me up about 4 o’clock in the morning and he didn’t pay me a lot.  I come see some of these apartments I used to cut and I know he got me.  He got me all my life.

But it really taught me how to work hard, getting up at 4 o’clock, trying to beat the heat.  He still cuts today.  He still has got his landscaping business.  So I always see that determination and fight in him.  He really established that work ethic in me with the combination of my mother, too, working hard, raising three kids on her own in South Central California.

Here are Kentucky’s National Championship Pregame Quotes.

quotes courtesy of asap sports

photo credit: richard messina – hartford courant