nice to see you
now spell your name for us let's just get this out of the way spell your name for us
k-r-z-y-z-e-w-s-k-i
okay now now how how come it's how come there's no how come it's spelled with a k though it's
uh it's polish polish people we do things in a different way that's the the common production
good way not a not a bad way congratulations tell me about your team tell me about this
team tell me a little bit of them well they're uh they're a great group of kids they listen
they give their hearts to one another and they're really really good basketball players
at what point in your college coaching career did a ballplayer start having tattoos
did you see that coming yeah it blindsided me a little bit uh not until for our guys
really in the last few years and then they but they uh i had a one of the kids uh before he
got it called me and said you know coach and i when they start saying that you think they're
in trouble yeah so what what what did you do he says i'm getting a tattoo and i said well where
here you know like knows or what he says no my bro we're going to get a so we'll just remember
it's there for life that's all i want you to know but uh i'm not a big tattoo guy yeah now you don't
you wouldn't i mean why don't you get one for heaven's sakes what do you what do you care get
a tattoo for heaven's sakes you know when you have uh a profile a nose and ears like mine tattoos uh
you try to hide more when you're me than be out there now this is your third national
championship team and is there any point in comparing or contrasting uh these three clubs
if you want to i mean sure tell me tell me a little bit about the other ones
i don't want to bring up anything that you and paul will you know like kill me about no no no no
uh this team is younger uh it was in more close games it had a little bit more adversity to
overcome than my my two nine and ten years ago and i think because i'm older i appreciate it
a little bit more and i appreciate kids listening to me more now that i'm in my
50s when i was in my 30s and 40s i felt that they should listen now when they listen i'm surprised
so it's kind of nice what happened with uh
is it the maryland game what the hell happened there uh we tried an
interesting thing the night before the game to motivate them we got this dvd of warrants
it was it didn't work they all came out with blue faces
it was crazy but in your case blue faces would be just fine wouldn't it because dark blue but but i
mean you were down like 22 points and and usually that's it adios well the good thing we were down
by 22 and there was still 28 minutes to go in the game if we were down with two minutes to go you're
in trouble yeah but still it could be a little dispiriting 22 point deficit well we had a timeout
and uh uh it gave him a it wasn't good to do x's and o's anymore you know how to
that's i just told you you're on your own boys pretty much i told him that
i just told him i said you know we basically uh stink right now and uh who wants a tattoo uh we're
gonna have to erase song but i just told them the uh uh we're losing by 22 they were nervous i
said uh what what could be worse we could lose by 40. yeah you know i mean who cares who's so just
relax and no more plays just go out and loosen them up loosen them up big coaching strategy do
nba teams do nba teams not run the way college teams run it seems like you see a lot a lot of
coast to coast in college basketball you don't see so much in nba am i wrong about that
uh i think you're right i think they they play a hundred games so they that's they're only if
so many miles on the old legs and uh in the playoffs you'll see more running i think
in the nba is coaching in college basketball more important or is recruiting more important
well they're the same really yeah i mean you can be a really good coach but if you're uh
coaching the losers from survivor you're not gonna not going to win you know you got to have really
good players could you have taken any one of the final four teams i guess the other three could you
have taken any one of those three teams and won the championship this year michelle was michigan
state maryland arizona could you have coached them to a championship no because we would have
had i don't think we could have beaten our team our team was but you're not coaching your team
i guess i guess what i mean by that is uh my players took me on a good ride this year yeah
they were uh shane battier jason williams don levy those kids uh they were they were tremendous
players every every year do you go through a period of anxiety of fear when you think oh my god
oh my god a couple of them are going to leave and turn pro and how do you keep that from happening
it's happened to you how do you keep it from is there anything you can do yeah you can develop a
relationship with them where you know it's good and they trust you and uh they they figure out
that you know there's a value to staying in school and and but they have to do what's in their best
interest we you know we try to get close enough to them that they'll lean on us for advice
and i think our guys this year will stay for at least another year is is there anything about the
system that could be altered maybe to keep keep that percentage a little lower i mean is is there
an all-time high guys leaving before they yeah and it's getting it's getting worse well you'd
have to get a bunch of people together to come up with a solution and they don't get together like
the the nba the players union the ncaa if they all perceived it to be a problem they would all
get together so they haven't gotten together so probably at least one of those entities doesn't
perceive it as being a problem it seems like the nba has taken some heat for this recently and
and it seems to me like it's their responsibility really because if the opportunity were not there
kids wouldn't be jumping at it so i think they're the ones that got to do something there well
you know i think stern is has tried to call uh some meetings sometimes but the nba is
one thing it's the players union too they uh i think really the players union runs the nba
more so than the nba does what about bobby knight were you happy to see bobby going to texas tech
well coach knight was my college coach and uh this was it army an army a long time ago and uh no i'm
happy to see him back in coaching because he's a great coach and it's unfortunate what happened in
indiana but unfortunate that uh his behavior was unfortunate or how it was handled was unfortunate
i think the fact that it got to that point i think people if they have problems should discuss them
along the way and not uh not right at the end say hey we had all these problems so it was a
loaded gun there right at the end i think it was in coaching have you ever grabbed a guy have you
ever shaken a guy have you ever had uh brings back old memories uh uh yeah you have hands-on
i mean uh you do a thing in the ncaa tournament we did a thing just to because you're close you know
it's uh it's very personal and before they went on the court we have a young team i just kind of
all the time just hit oop you just hit him on the chest like come on man you know i'm with you more
but uh actually grabbing or something you don't yeah but i i think and of course i'm just shooting
my mouth off here i think in in a different context this could be misinterpreted right
am i right about it absolutely yeah and uh and if somebody wants to make a thing about you or
you're on a on a roll right as far as he did this and this he certainly was on a roll
he's nuts anyway i mean there's no getting around it he's a a great coach may be a genius but he's
wacky you just can't dispute that well i i don't think he's nuts i think he's brilliant and uh
but i think at some times people can portray us all being nuts and uh you know like they
could take well i don't wanna they could take excerpts of your show
but like in your case in your case if someone would say he's nuts
that would be like a good thing yes i'll take that oh yeah that would be nuts right absolutely
absolutely you'll never coach in the nba will you no no interest whatsoever people are always
calling you aren't they well they call they name the last three teams no no the the last the last
just the last two the uh hey that dun levy story that's pretty good isn't it that's uh now did you
feel pressure uh coaching a kid whose father is an nba coach no in fact it's the best because he
he understands that the only way for his young his son to get better is to just let me coach
him and he has confidence in me and not one thing how many times have the nets called you
wait a minute the uh i don't want to be called
you don't need it how many of you if you never win another championship does it bother you no
i love working with kids i love duke i love college basketball i make enough money
that could make a little bit more of course you can be i'm kind of messing myself over here but uh
it if you love what you do you know i mean that that's priceless well it's uh it was a
huge success for for you uh for the team for the tournament and for the game of college basketball
to see you guys well thank you nice going all right good to have you here coach k ladies