2010 Final Four Preview: Exclusive Interview with ESPN Analyst Jay Williams

With the Final Four just a day away, the anticipation for what should be a very exciting day of basketball is growing fast.

To get you ready for the matchups, ESPN College Basketball Analyst Jay Williams was able to sit down for a few minutes and share his thoughts on the games, as well as discuss his own experience in the Final Four while playing for Duke in 2001.

While at Duke, Williams was named ACC Rookie of the Year and National Freshman of the Year by The Sporting News while averaging 14.5 points, 6.5 assists, and 4.2 rebounds per game in 1999.

He started all 39 games his sophomore year, leading the Blue Devils to the 2001 NCAA National Championship and breaking Dick Groat’s 49-year-old record for points in a season with 841 points.

In 2002 Williams earned the Naismith Award and Wooden Award as College Basketball’s Player of the Year. He finished his career at Duke with 2,079 points, sixth all-time, and had his No. 22 jersey retired on Senior Day. 

When it comes to college basketball, there are few players who have accomplished as much as Williams.

As an analyst for ESPN, he is also one of the most respected and highly noted professionals in the business. He knows this league in and out and had some very interesting things to say in the interview, including insight into his own experience as a player and national champion.

This is the second time Jay was able to share his thoughts on the tournament with the Bleacher Report community. Check out his March Madness Preview. He talked a lot about his experiences at Duke playing for Coach K, and also gave some great insight into the Tournament that proved quite true over the last couple weeks. 

Q: No one really saw Butler making it to the Final Four, what did they do to reach this point?

A: I think it's a couple things. First off, Matt Howard hasn’t gotten into foul trouble. In some games they lost this year, I want to say in all four games they lost, he was in foul trouble or fouled out. So he’s done a good job of playing aggressive defense, but playing smart defense as well and not putting himself in a situation to sit out.

Also, what their guards have done defensively has been amazing. Staying disciplined defensively is the thing that’s really going to keep them in it. You’re not playing Kansas State where its back-and-forth, back-and-forth, but they did a great job on Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente. Veasley guarding Clemente made him shoot over his tall frame and then Nored did a really solid job always keeping contact with Pullen.

If you’re going to beat Syracuse and then Kansas State, two one seeds in my opinion because K-State could have easily been a one seed, that says a lot about that team, about their leadership.

And we are going to have to talk about Gordon Hayword. He’s a guy that can knock down shots at 6’8”, can play inside-out. Really [Butler] has as good a chance as any team in the Final Four.

Q: What are your thoughts on the Michigan State-Butler Matchup?

A: I like Michigan State a lot even though they don’t have Kalin Lucas. Tom Izzo has six Final Fours in his career and one National Championship. Now a lot of people love to knock him and say six Final Fours but he only won one, but still for any coach to get six Final Fours is huge.

Korie Lucious is going to be huge for them running that point guard position, and Durrell Summers has been knocking down shots from the perimeter, but I like their advantage down-low too.

Kansas State does have good bigs in Curtis Kelly and Dominique Sutton, but they don’t throw the ball down a lot in the post. You know Kansas State and even Syracuse, the two teams that Butler played against, are more guard-oriented.

So both of those teams that they played to get [to the Final Four] were truly guard teams. This is a Michigan State team that has a lot more swing forwards and a lot more power forwards, guys you can throw the ball down to in the post. Raymar Morgan is a guy that can score on the blocks. You also have Delvon Roe, guys that can bang down-low and I think that could be the deciding factor in that game due to the lack of size of Butler.

Matt Howard is a really solid low-post presence, but who else are they going to put down there to handle the tall lineup of Michigan State?

For Michigan State, Chris Allen is going to have to knock down shots. You always have to knock down shots in order to win big-time games. But like I said before, their bigs can be the difference maker in this game.

Q: Who’s your pick for the game? 

A: I’m going with Michigan State. For the love of the game, I hope I’m wrong. There’s nothing more I’d love to see than Butler getting to the National Championship, considering the game is right there in Indianapolis. But I think the physicality of Michigan State and their size and their length is going to be too much for Butler to handle.

Q: Duke was considered to be the weakest of the four No. 1 seeds and yet they're the only one standing. Are they overachieving or underrated?

A: I don’t think they are overachieving; it just goes to show you how the pairings of the tournament have gone. Look at the West, I mean the West is automatically stacked. Then you saw the East as well with Kentucky not being able to make it out with West Virginia there as well; they are loaded also.

But when you look at the South, I think Duke had the best team. The thing that’s been really good to see about that team, and I’ll use my team in 2001 and even the team that got close in '99, is that I think this year’s team is mentally tougher than those last two.

Look at their roster right now. They don’t have anyone, unless Kyle Singler blows up in the Final Four, they don’t have anybody that can be a lottery pick in the NBA draft. But they have guys that all play together as a shift.

Coach K always gave us this analogy that if you were randomly in a street fight and someone swung at you, you’re not going to swing back with an open hand. You’re not going to try and slap them because you might break you’re finger. You’re going to curl all five of your fingers up together and they’re going to form one, one fist. And that’s what I think this Duke team has been this year.

They have been great defensively because they communicate and they have the size in the post to get rebounds. Everybody can box out and they all crash the boards. And what they do offensively is everybody understands what their strengths are.

Nolan Smith is going to be a guy that can drive to the basket, can create his own shot. You know Jon Scheyer is going to do the good things off the screen-and-role scenarios, you know that Kyle Singler is a guy that can provide mismatch problems for you; he can take a bigger on the perimeter, he can take a smaller on the block.

And then you have Brian Zoubek, Masan and Miles [Plumlee], probably Lance Thomas, guys who aren’t going to give you 15 and 10 low on the block, but they can give you that by getting second-chance opportunities on rebounds, by going up strong, turning, and making plays off double-teams, and just crashing the boards with tenacity. I think that’s the one thing Duke has been missing over the past six, seven years. Just having the plethora of bigs that can attack the boards to give the perimeter players the opportunity to knock down shots.

Q: Looking at the Duke-West Virginia Matchup, what do the Mountaineers have to do to win this game?

A: For one, they need to take advantage of that matchup with Brian Zoubek. He did a great job in getting offensive rebounds, but defensively, due to the lack of lateral quickness, he can be a mismatch problem.

You saw Ekpe Udoh for Baylor take him a couple times off the dribble and get him in foul trouble in the first half. West Virginia doesn’t have a solid low-post threat where you can just throw the ball down to him and bang it out. They have more swing forwards, guys who are active, guys who like to roam and can put the ball down on the ground.

I see them attacking the bigs of Duke that way. Also they have to be active in that 1-3 zone; that’s going to be key. Because from a guy that played basketball at Duke, I can tell you how those guys feel. When you see a zone you enjoy that because we practice against the zone all the time. Duke is a man-to-man team; Coach K does a great job trying to make sure they understand how to attack the zone with dribble-drive penetration and ball fakes and throwing the ball down-low and playing inside-out.

The one thing you can’t reciprocate in practice is the length of West Virginia though. They are around 6’8”, 6’9” after their point which is around 6’7”, that middle line is all long guys.

They have Joe Mazzulla, who is very active in the back of that zone. So they get the ball down-low, but they can be active and get their hands on loose balls and knock down shots as well.

Even if they don’t knock down shots, realize that they played against Villanova early in the year and only scored 26 points in the first half and then they came back to score 40 in the second half. They made the game ugly. And even though its not a sexy thing to watch, when a team like West Virginia can make the game ugly and rely on their defensive abilities, sometimes that can be more conducive to winning games than a scoring game because now you are putting them in a half-court scenario and you’re making them defend and making them challenge each and every possession. That’s what West Virginia can be really good at doing.

Q: What are Duke’s keys to victory?

A: There is no doubt about it that De’Sean Butler is the one guy you can not let get going. In that game against Kentucky he came out, got about three or four threes, got fouled on one and got and-one. He’s the leader of that basketball team.

Joe Mazzulla did a good job stepping up as well and driving to the basket. But I think that Kentucky missed a couple things. Kentucky had all the talent in the world, but I think one of the things they lacked was execution.

If you look at the scouting report for West Virginia, especially on Joe Mazzulla, he is a strong left-hand driver. The one thing you do not want to do is let him drive to the basket with his left hand. I think at times Jon Wall and Eric Bledsoe were so intrigued about getting out in transition that they didn’t take the time to focus on the defensive game-plan; which is to keep him out of the lane.

They allowed him to attack, but really I think De’Sean Butler is the one guy that can be the momentum changer on that unit; he can get them going. Bob Huggins has said it day in and day out, he is the motor that makes them go, he is the straw that stirs the cup.

Q: Who’s your pick for the game?

A: I’m going with Duke. And you know what, I didn’t pick Duke to beat Baylor, but after watching Duke win that game they showed me that element of toughness that we talked about. I think that down-low they have the athletes to matchup with the athletes of West Virginia. I think Kyle Singler’s job that he is going to have to do on De’Sean Butler is going to be key; that’s going to be an imperative matchup.

Q: What can you tell us from your own Final Four experience about the change in atmosphere and pressure once you reach this point in the Tournament?

A: I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. During this time of the season things start to slow down a bit, now there are only four teams left. Okay so when you’ve got practices you’ve narrowed it down to that one individual game plan, but when you get there you are doing that first practice in front of 20,000 people.

I think that’s where it hit me where I’m like wow, I’m in the Final Four. I’ve dreamed about being in the Final Four since I was a little boy. You think you always have a good chance to get there, but you never really know because like we all know, the most talented and best teams (example: Kansas) don’t always get there. It all depends on how you execute and how you play each and every single night. It takes a little bit of luck to get there as well.

So I think for me it really clicked, I’m in the Final Four. What the heck is going on? I always dreamed I would be there, but I never thought I would actually be here.

I think the first 10 minutes of these games are going to be so filled with energy and anticipation and nervousness. And I think it’s going to be a little sloppy because these kids are playing in front of 40,000-plus people. For some of them this is their first time in a huge, huge atmosphere where it’s going to be so loud and you’re going to have a difficult time communicating with your teammates.

You have to understand time and not getting too winded; it’s a very emotional trip. Until the first 10 minutes of the first half pass, you probably won’t see teams settle into their offensive schemes and calming down defensively. Early on the refs are actually going to let them play because they're figuring out the game.

For me, the first few minutes of the game I was out of wind, I was that excited. There was a timeout before the TV timeout which comes at 16, and I could not breathe. Someone had to put their hand on my back and pat my back. I literally had to count to 10 because I was so pumped up and so anticipated playing that it was unbelievable [for me].

Q: How big of a role does coaching play at this stage in the Tournament?

A: You got great coaches in the Final Four this year; they really understand how this game should be played. The job they do leading up the Final Four to the actual game is magnificent as far as doing the scouting reports.

You know, understanding which player has a tendency to drive right more than drive left. Is he a guy to close out softly on or is he a guy to close out hard on? Is he a shooter? Is he a guy that can put the ball down on the ground, or is he a guy you don’t want to put the ball down on the ground because he can dribble-and-drive to the basket?

I think these scouting reports are going to be to a T. What it really comes down to though is that the kids have short attention spans. The kids that are able to execute those reports is what’s going to be key. You saw Kentucky struggle with that.

Look at De’Sean Butler. He’s a guy that you kind of need to close-out on, but he can drive as well. So are you going to be able to remember that in the heat of the moment of the game? Or are you going to be able to remember that Joe Mazzulla is a left-hand driver and you’ve got to force him right? It’s easier said than done. You can do that the first five to six minutes of the game, but once you’re emotionally and physically lost in the moment are you going to take time to remember that mentally and be able to execute? That’s what it comes down to, that’s what wins championships.

Q: Would you say that concentration on the defensive end was an area of your game that you struggled with?

A: It’s definitely an area of my game that I struggled with; I was a scorer in college. That was the one thing that I loved to do, I loved to score the basketball. But I was fortunate to have [Shane Battier] on my team, because I was young, I was a sophomore. He was the leader, he was the guy that was at the foundation of our defense, which is the backbone of the team.

He would talk to me as I was pressuring the ball, reminding me constantly “Jay, Jay, Jason Gardner wants to go right, spin him left, spin him left.” He was talking to me the entire time.

I had Chris Duhon and even though he was a freshman, Chris was an old-school freshman the way he used to talk to me on the perimeter or the way we would talk to one another. So I would say I had guys on my team that constantly reminded me of the game plan; having the leaders to do that can be key.

I struggled with that, but I was fortunate enough to have guys that were able to talk to me and communicate with me throughout the game.

Q: Do any of the teams in this year’s Final Four have that kind of veteran communication and leadership that you just described?

A: I think De’Sean Butler can do that with his guys, he can get things in order. But it’s kind of difficult because he’s on the perimeter.

I think Matt Howard can do that, he’s become more communicative over the past year or so as far as his ability to talk to his teammates.

Really, all of these teams have guys that can do that. But at the end of the day, and it’s not because I went to school there, like I said I picked Baylor to beat Duke because I thought they were going to be able to. But I think Duke has the edge with guys like Brian Zoubek, and I’ve known Brian for a long time, Brian talks to his guards a lot.

I like their length, I like their size, and I think Duke really has a good chance to win the whole thing.

Q: So is Duke your pick to win the National Championship?

A: That’s my pick. And that’s not bias, I didn’t have them getting by Baylor, I picked Baylor on national TV to beat Duke so there’s no bias on my behalf at all.

I think the one thing I always try to do as an analyst is remove myself from the situation and see it for what it really is.

I didn’t know if Duke had the toughness, but after watching that [Baylor] game, Duke is an unbelievably tough team. But I’ll tell you one thing, so is West Virginia. Both of those teams are really tough teams, and after all the things West Virginia has been through, it should be a great game to watch. But I think at the end of the day Duke will win the game.